Luanda

Luanda curls around one of Africa's handsomest bays, with a sand spit — the Ilha do Cabo — thrown across the water like an arm around a shoulder: beach shacks and palm groves on one side, the city's towers reflected on the other, and the Marginal promenade between them, where all Luanda comes out at dusk to walk, run, court and argue. Above the bay stands São Miguel, the old fort that watched the worst of history sail from this harbor and now keeps the museum of the country's memory.

The sensible traveller walks the Marginal at six, when the light gilds the bay and the pace is the city's true pulse; crosses to the Ilha for grilled fish with sand underfoot; climbs to São Miguel's ramparts for the whole geography at once; hears semba and kizomba where they were born — the elegant ancestors of the dance floors of three continents —; and takes the day trip south to the Miradouro da Lua, where the cliffs crumble into a moonscape the Atlantic keeps polishing.

The Guide's honesty: Luanda runs expensive and improvises cheap — the oil economy set the hotel prices and the street set everything else: eat where the workers eat and both truths serve you —; the visa has eased dramatically for many flags: check yours, it may be free now; taxis are informal — use the apps or hotel cars at night; and the kwanza changes formally: keep receipts, spend what you change.