How we did it

Toyota South Africa delivered seven Land Cruisers to the Flamingo Lodge. The vehicles came from Gauteng, through the Oshikango border post in Namibia to Lubango in Angola and were taken from there to Namibe. Afterward, they were returned to Gauteng, a journey of more than 5 000 km.

Eight journalists, including Cyril, flew from South Africa via Namibia into Angola. Toyota South Africa paid for the flights and accommodation. The purpose of the trip was to launch the new Toyota Land Cruiser 79 Namib (see go! Drive & Camp #29), although Cyril drove the Doodsakker in a Cruiser 200.

Cyril explored Ilha dos Tigres with a Cruiser 79 Namib. The vehicle was taken there by raft and returned in the same manner along with five other journalists. The raft started to come apart halfway through the return voyage and the rope snapped, but that’s a story for another day…

That same night, at 22:00, at the tail end of high tide, they drove back through the Doodsakker. On the pan near the park’s main gate, a flock of startled cormorants dive-bombed the convoy. The lead Cruiser’s windshield, snorkel and grille were knocked out and the convoy had to drive without lights as not to attract more bird strikes. Cyril claims that cracking open your first beer of the day at midnight after a hard day behind the wheel is the most rewarding feeling on earth. We believe him.

THE DEATH OF SÃO MARTINHO

A powerful storm raged along the coast of Portuguese Angola on the night of 14 March 1962. The residents of the town of São Martinho dos Tigres were able to take shelter in their homes, but at dawn they discovered that the peninsula on which their town stood had turned into an island. The narrow land bridge that used to connect the town to the mainland had been washed away… and in its place was 12 km of open sea.

All three fish factories on Baia dos Tigres (Tiger Bay) – now unexpectedly renamed Ilha dos Tigres (Tiger Island) – had their freshwater supply from the Kunene River cut by the storm. The fish factories were the only reason for São Martinho dos Tigres’s existence, and the Portuguese government immediately wanted to remedy the situation because the export of fishmeal and canned seafood generated a substantial income for Portugal.

The pipeline, however, could not be repaired and for 13 years barges had to operate continuously between Foz do Cunene’s pumping station and Ilha dos Tigres with tanks full of precious fresh water. The profit from canned fish clearly exceeded the cost of diesel. It was an inconvenient solution, but the citizens of

São Martinho nevertheless persevered.

Then, five years later, another disaster struck: the South Angolan Air Taxi Service operated two weekly flights from Moçâmedes (now Namibe) to Ilha dos Tigres. Captain Carlos Teixeira left Moçâmedes under dense fog on the morning of 17 June 1967. On board the six-seater Beechcraft Bonanza was Dr José

Marques, who ran the hospital on the island, and four schoolchildren: Carla Martins, 14, Conceição de Carvalho, 12, Laurinda Nascimento, 14, and Tereza Margarido, 16 (pictured, opposite page).

The flight usually took an hour, and it was a route the pilot had flown hundreds of times, but by noon there was still no

…at dawn they discovered that the peninsula on which their town stood had turned into an island

sign of the plane. Fishing boats sailed up and down the Zona de Riscos (or Risk Zone, the Doodsakker’s original – less dramatic – name) in the hope that Captain Teixeira may have made an emergency landing on the narrow beach. However, no sign of the Bonanza was found, but one vessel reported that its crew briefly spotted a reflection in the dunes just before sunset.

Tereza Margarido’s father, Hilario, a single parent, was beside himself with worry and sailed to the Doodsakker early the next morning on a fishing boat in search of his only child.

Hilario was accompanied by eight Angolan fishermen who took pity on him. After 36 hours in the desert’s scorching dunes, with bloodied feet and no water, the men were spotted by an airforce plane that dropped a letter instructing them to return to the Doodsakker where a convoy of rescue vehicles from Porto Alexandre (now Tombua) would pick them up – the Bonanza’s wreck had been found…

Hiraldo was overcome by grief and so exhausted that he couldn’t walk back to the beach. He was later rescued by journalists in a Jeep who reported on the tragedy for the publication Notícia Luanda.

The burnt wreck of the Bonanza lay on the windward side of a 120 m dune. There were no survivors.

The incident affected São Martinho’s people to such an extent that they barely paid attention to the political turmoil happening simultaneously in Portugal and Angola. The town slowly began to empty, and in October 1975, a few weeks before Angola’s independence, they finally threw in the towel. The residents of Ilha dos Tigres, joined the thousands of Portuguese refugees – the so-called retornados – who returned to their country of origin to escape the civil wars in the former colonies, even though a large number of them had never set foot in Europe before.