The primary objective of our mission up the west coast of Africa was to find surf. This can sometimes be thirsty work, so one of our secondary objectives was to find beer. We quickly discovered that along with casava root and Laughing Cow cheese, beer is a staple in much of sub-saharan Africa! We were more surprised to discover that beer is also a staple in some of muslim North Africa… but that’s another story.

Anyway, below we’ve picked our 6 favourite thirst-quenchers from the continent:

6. PRIMUS  -  Democratic Republic of the Congo

Lurks, Primus and the suspect DRC military man shortly before he stole our keys!

Perhaps it was the fact that we’d spent much of the previous 2 days crawling through some of the worst roads on the trip - the sludgy type generally used by trucks only - but the Primus beers we drank at the ‘beach party’ at Maunda that Sunday evening tasted particularly sweet. Strong-flavoured and served cold (we found this to generally be the exception rather than the rule) in 750ml “scud-style” bottles, this certainly deserved the title of “thirst quencher”.

The truck tracks on the roads in the DRC were sometimes so deep that our high-clearance Landcruiser found itself ‘beached’ - and we too found ourselves ‘beached’ when the seemingly friendly Congolese soldier we had been chatting to, slipped our car-keys off the table and into his pocket! As you can imagine, that took some crafty negotiating to solve, especially with a couple of Primus’s under the belt…

5. GUINNESS, a.k.a. “Michael Powers” - Cameroon

Tim and Stone cruising in the Guinness-mobile with Kumba’s very own ‘Michael Power’…

It may come as a surprise to hear that the biggest market for Guinness beer after the UK and Ireland, is in fact Nigeria… with Cameroon and Ghana not far behind that. A lot of this clearly has to do with the brews’ dark hearty texture and taste. A lot also has to do with the amazingly successful ‘Michael Power’ advertising campaign, run as a series of 3-5 minute mini-adventures on African television. Power, always dressed in black, invariably ends up saving the day in a uniquely African way, before cracking a Guinness.

In fact the ‘African James Bond’ was so successful, that one orders the stout from the bar not as a “Guinness”, but as a “Michael Power”. The campaign also appears to have spawned it’s own set of Michael-Power-impersonators, one of whom we met in Kumba, Cameroon. Complete with branded car, our Cameroonian Michael Power insisted on whipping us around the town to all the best nightspots (often just some chairs in the road outside someone’s house!), leaving us with a memory of Guinness that will not be soon forgotten…

4. CUCA  - Angola

Oh yes, did we mention that Cuca happens to go really well with Angolan seafood too?

Angola is an interesting place for the consumption of liquids. It’s a place where, per litre, beer is cheaper than bottled water, and petrol is cheaper than both! This makes for interesting consumption behaviour as all of sudden it becomes remarkably easy to justify that beer with lunch… or sometimes even breakfast!

The brew itself is possibly a little watery, but tastes fine warm and complements the very nice lefthand pointbreak waves there very well!

3.  DROGBA - Cote d’Ivoire

That’s 4-litres of beer! Lurks and JB get involved in some ‘Ivorian champagne’ (P.S: Happy birthday for tomorrow J.B!)

There’s a great story behind this one that we’ve spoken about before - something to do with the famous Ivorian football player Didier Drogba once turning down some of the Champagne-region’s finest in favour of the peoples’ SOLIBRA brew to celebrate a win.

Another bonus - we only ever saw these beers in their massive 1 litre version!

2. TURBO KING - Congo (Brazzaville)

This is one of the first brown beers we encountered going north. The fact that it tasted so good could possibly be put down to the fact that we were camped pretty much in the middle of no-where for a week, and even boiled palm-nuts were starting to taste good! It also makes great beer-bread (or ‘beer-buns’ in our case).

But the greatest factor earning it the #2 spot? Simply the name… TURBO KING. Is that not the coolest name you’ve heard of for a beer? You kind of get the feeling that if Superman was African, this would be his beverage of choice.

1. STONE LAGER - Ghana

Stone and Stone, 2 real winners!

On the subject of great names for beer, need we say more about ‘Stone’ lager? Much like it’s namesake AfricanSurfer team member, this brew is smooth, refined and incredibly good-looking… er… um… I mean… good tasting! Now this is awkward.

Stone Lager wins!

Post-trip we get a lot of common questions. “How much did it cost?“, is one we prefer not to think about too much… along with: “so what are you going to do now?“!

“Where are the best beaches in Africa“, on the other hand, is a subject we could happily rant on about for a few hours. So much so, that when we started trawling the archives for the ‘top 5 beaches’ we had very quickly amassed a list of a large multiple of that number!

Yip… we love beaches! Tim and Lurks approve in Northern Senegal…

The truth is that from Cape Town to Tangier, the west coast of Africa is brimming with countless spectacular, empty movie-set like sea-and-sand setups.

It’s easy to forget that a large part of central and west Africa falls within the tropics. The implications being one often encounters swarms of malaria-carrying mosquitos and other strange biting insects you may have had nightmares about before… but it also means one encounters some legitimate ‘tropical beaches’, along with a lot of really really good ‘beach weather’ to enjoy them in…

It’s obvious that the list below is hardly exhaustive, but it’s a hint at what’s out there. Given the questions we receive are often from non-surfers, this is a list of lie-in-the-sun-and-contemplate-your-navel kind of best beaches, as opposed to drop-in-and-smash-turns-on-your-board-in-baggies kind of best beaches…!

(highlights in chronological order…)

1. Cabo Ledo, Angola

The two sets of footprints - Lurks and Stone…

Crystal clear, warm water, soft white sand and fairly spectacular surrounding ‘nature reserve’ ensures Cabo Ledo is one of the more popular hangouts for Luandans on the weekends. A rare handful of accommodations (not cheap!) and seafood in the vicinity make it one of the more hospitable spots on the list.

If you’re lucky like us you may get to break your suspension on the tricky roads getting there from the south, and have to spend two weeks camping here enjoying the generous hospitality of a Angolan local Paullo while you try arrange for your car to be fixed…

The only catch? a really active local crab population and chilled drinking water that will set you back close to EUR3 a bottle!

P.S: there’s a decent wave here too… bonus!
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2. Phillipes’ pool, Pointe Noire, Congo

We always knew bodyboards had to be useful for SOMETHING!

OK it’s hardly a beach, but in terms of perfect places to lie and contemplate your navel, Phillipes’ inflatable pool deserves a special mention. Delicious Congolese specialities and cold Heinekens flow freely from the kitchen, and the host is one of the biggest legends we met on the trip.

Only catch? You have to know Phillipe. Try the surfspot out front of ‘La Pyramid’ around lunchtime, on any day, and you’re bound to meet him just like we did…
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3. Limbe, Cameroon

Just before it started raining again…

Unless you’re used to walking on black sand in the shadow of one of Africa’s tallest volcanoes, the beaches around Limbe are a fairly unique experience. Add some nice warm water, a very cool tight crew of local surfers who hang out here, and a helping of some delicious ‘aloko’ (fried plantain) from the nearby restaurant… it doesn’t get much better than this.

Only catch? Limbe is the third most rainy place in the world. Take a sturdy umbrella for cover inbetween tanning sessions!
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4. Niega Plage, Western Ivory Coast

The Niega Macdonalds is just around that corner…

For sheer isolated unspoilt tropical beauty, this place is hard to beat. A fairly tricky hour-long 4×4 access track to get there keeps it that way. If you’ve come with Jules like we did, he’ll probably keep you hydrated by chopping open some of the sweetest coconuts in the world that are lying around, with his machete.

Only catch? It’s isolated status also means there’s an abnormally high level of sealife around… maybe don’t wade toooo deep!
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5. Somewhere between Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, Mauritania

Lurks takes a leisurely stroll after an unleisurely day of digging the car out of the sand…!

And finally, what better place to contemplate your navel than in the middle of biggest beach of the world, the Sahara desert. Take in some of the most mind-alteringly spectacular surrounds and watch flocks of migrating birds as your buddies pull in a little something to grill for lunch from the rich surrounding sea.

Only catch - you’re going to have to drive for about two days to get to this one. You’ll need a GPS, but you’ll still probably get lost as the live sand-dunes have crept across the mapped tracks, and you’re going to be digging a lot. Is it worth the mission? Like everything on this trip - without a doubt.
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