The incredible baobab trees - Angola

When we take the bus - a 14 hours ride - from Luanda to Huambo,
we always stop to take  pictures of the baobab trees.

Baobabs store up to 100,000 litres or 26,000 US gallons water in the trunk to endure the dry season. It shed all the leaves when dry and look like the roots are in the air and not in the ground. Once a year it gets flowers that bloom during the night with an awful smell that attracts insects. 


The story tells that God created tree as the Baobab last tree. The baobab tree was unhappy and complained: Why can't I be slim and beautiful like all the other trees!? You are perfect as you are, God replied.  The Baobab tree didn't stop complaining. In the end God got so fed up with all the complaining that he/she pulled the tree up by it's roots and put it up side down. 
The Baobab tree cried an wept: How could you do that to me?! And why can't I have beautiful flowers like other trees?
God told the Baobab tree: You will have flowers as you as. They will be white and beautiful - BUT they will bloom just in the night, and just one night, and they will smell rotten so that all the insects.