Tundavala Gap

Plateaus & HighlandsHuíla,Angola

The edge where Angola's high plateau stops and falls 1,200 metres to the plain, unfenced, with morning cloud often filling the lowland below.

September·Peaking now

May–Sep

The cacimbo: cool, wind-scoured and the year's clearest air — June skies run clear roughly nine days in ten, and nights drop near 8°C.

Year-round The 1,200-metre cliff, the walk-out fissure and the escarpment view stand here every day, on a free paved road with no gate; the fog sea, the clear cacimbo air and the green plateau are seasonal.

Tundavala is where the high plateau of Angola stops and drops 1,200 metres to the coastal plain. A paved road runs right to the rim, fifteen kilometres from Lubango, and there is no gate, no ticket and no shelter of any kind once you are up there. Nothing fences the edge either. The feature that gives the place its name is a split cutting back into the clifftop between two walls of stone. You can follow it out over broken ground until the rock simply ends. The updraught comes straight up the face, cold and loud enough to hear over the wind on the plateau. The last few metres are yours to judge. From the lip the land opens, ridge stacking behind ridge into the haze. In the dry season the plain is not there at all in the early morning. Fog off the cold Atlantic pushes inland overnight and fills the lowland a thousand metres below the rim, so the far ranges stand out of a white floor until it burns off towards midday. The cliff faces west, which leaves it flat and shadowed at sunrise and lights it only in the last hour of the day. The rim empties late, the grassland behind it goes copper, and the wind off the drop turns genuinely cold within minutes of the sun going. The stone under your boots is about 1.79 billion years old, and the cliff in front of it is young, opened when Gondwana came apart and the South Atlantic moved in. Erosion has been driving the whole edge back from the coast ever since. One thing here is not free. The Angola Cave-chat nests in crevices in these cliffs, and it has been recorded at about eight sites on Earth. It works the rock faces and the broken ground below the rim rather than the open grassland, so finding it means scanning the ledges and waiting. It will not come to you.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Nothing fences the edge — the lip is broken and undercut in places, and the updraft off the plain gusts hard without warning. Keep well back, and take particular care around the fissure itself.
The cliff faces west, so at sunrise the rock is flat and shadowed and only lights up in the last hour of the day. Pick your hour by what you actually came to see.
A paved road runs right to the rim and any car makes it — there is no gate, no ticket and no shelter of any kind once you are up there.

Things to do

1
Walk out between the walls of the fissure
The split cuts back into the clifftop between two walls of stone, and you can follow it out over broken ground until the rock simply ends. The updraft comes straight up the face, cold and loud enough to hear over the wind on the plateau. The last few metres are yours to judge.
2
Stay on the escarpment until the grassland goes copper
The escarpment is the boundary between Huíla and Namibe, and the land opens across roughly 10,000 square kilometres of it, ridge stacking behind ridge into the haze. The rim empties late in the day, the grassland goes copper, and the wind off the drop turns genuinely cold within minutes of the sun going.
3
Look for the Angola Cave-chat in the crags
Birders travel a long way for this one: a cliff-crevice nester recorded at only about eight sites on Earth, Tundavala among them. It works the rock faces and the broken ground below the rim rather than the open grassland. Scan the ledges and the crevices, and give it time — it will not come to you.