Mozambique!

Alright here’s a synopsis of my week in Mozambique (I apologize for the length):

On May 21st the nine of us took a taxi to the bus station to catch an 8am bus to Maputo. Unfortunately Evan left his passport at the hostel so he had to stay behind, buy a new ticket, and take the 10pm bus that night. Our ride was uneventful, although the situation at the border was weird and time-consuming. We had to get out of the bus, wait in line to get our departure stamp from the South African side, and then walk across the border to get our arrival stamp from the Mozambican side, and then walk another quarter mile to find our bus in a long line of busses, trucks, and cars. After all this nonsense and a total of 10 hours on the road we reached Maputo, the capital. We checked into our hostel, went out for dinner, and once again got into bed pretty early.

The next morning we took a taxi to the bus depot where we’d depart for Inhambane. Luckily the guy we’d booked everything through, Dennis, was there to help us out because this was a chaotic experience. As soon as we pulled up in our taxi a dozen men ran over to the car and tried to get us to take their bus to our destination. Dennis had already arranged a ride with one of them, Mario, so the others eventually gave up. So we got on the bus ready to go, and then sat there for over an hour until it was full of people. While waiting to leave tons of people, including men, women, and teenagers, came on our bus trying to sell things. Others would walk around the outside of the bus and tap on the windows to get your attention. They sold everything from water bottles to fruit, shoes to q-tips, cashews to children’s clothing. It was certainly one of the crazier things I’d seen in Africa. We finally departed, but the bus made frequent stops to pick people up or drop them off in, what seemed to me, totally random places. It was a little after 7am when we left and we arrived at Dennis’ backpackers around 3pm. We had a late lunch of delicious seafood pasta, hung around for a couple hours, and then went out to a hotel bar to watch the Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich football game. On our walk back home afterwards we found Evan and we’re very excited to see that he’d made the long journey in one piece. He had taken a 10 hours Intercape ride to Maputo, went directly to the bus depot, sat on another bus for 14 hours, then took a 20 minute ferry ride in order to catch up with us. Needless to say, we were all tired from the travelling and the rainy day seemed to make us even drowsier.

The next morning it was still pretty gloomy outside. We had breakfast, stopped by a little market in town, then drove to the beach. Dennis has a camp directly on the beach and it’s absolutely beautiful (the one we were sleeping at is across the street from the waterfront, but there’s no beach). The sand is soft, the water is crystal clear, and you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. The sun began poking out of the clouds and we all walked along the beach, collecting cool shells and playing in the warmest ocean I’ve ever experienced. This was exactly what we’d come to Mozambique for. Evan and I went for a short run down the beach before we all sat down for a seafood stir fry. We ate barracuda, calamari, shrimp, and prawns served over rice. After spending the rest of the afternoon/early evening at the beach, we headed back to town. Once there, we went out to the only bar we could find. The weirdest thing about the trip was that the town felt so empty, it felt almost deserted. The one bar we did find was extremely small and didn’t have much to offer, so we eventually went back to the hotel bar we’d visited the night before. Now that we were all accustomed to early bed times, no one stayed out too late.

the view from the beach camp
The next morning we had breakfast before taking a short bus ride to a marketplace by Tofo Beach. We did a little shopping and just perused for a bit. Then we took a minibus up the road to meet with a guy who was taking us out on his boat. We rode out for about an hour before stopping on a little island in the middle of the water. All we could see was the clean blue ocean and forests of palm trees. We stayed there for a while to snorkel and swim. I saw tons of sea urchins, the biggest starfish ever, some sand dollars, and quite a few snake-like animals that hung out on the ocean floor. This was another highlight of my whole vacation because it was absolutely beautiful and I could have stayed in the water for hours. But we eventually had to get back in the boat and head to the mainland. Once there, Dennis picked us up and took us back to the beach camp where we hung out and ate dinner. We had a kingfish and a snapper salmon that had been caught that day and cooked over a fire. It was the first time someone had placed an entire fish in front of me, completely intact, and just told me to go at it. Once the skin/scales were peeled off I didn’t have a problem digging in, although one of my vegetarian friends was a little unsettled by it. What did freak me out was watching three of my friends eat the fish eyes.
the market at Tofo Beach

we were sitting in the boat as the truck towed it to the water

After dinner we had a bonfire down on the beach for a couple hours. We listened to my friend Beth sing and play guitar with the sound of crashing waves in the background. Around 10:30 we drove back to town so we could get to bed. The next morning we boarded the bus to get back to Maputo and we arrived there around 2pm. We checked back into the hostel, went out for a late lunch, and then walked around town for a while. Eventually we ended up at the hostel sitting in front of the TV. In the last four months I had probably sat on a couch three times and the only TV I watched was Red Sox games online, so it was nice to just lay down and watch some meaningless television. Once everyone was hungry again we went out for Chinese food at a family style restaurant. It was a great way to spend our last night together, sharing food and stories. I’m very excited to come home in a few days, but it will certainly be strange not living with all these new friends anymore. (Below is Adrienne eating from our family-sized bowl of soup).

After a good night’s sleep we hopped on the Intercape bus en route to Joburg. It was smooth sailing for a while, until the bus broke down 3 hours outside the city. After an hour of who knows what they fixed whatever was leaking and we hit the road again. But 30 minutes later they informed us that we could not proceed. Normally this wouldn’t bother me at all, but we had to make sure we’d get to the airport in time for our flight to Cape Town. So the driver called a minibus for us and, after some pretty fast driving, we made it to O. R. Tambo Airport in time to get a quick dinner before boarding our plane.

So that’s what I’ve been up to for the last 2 weeks! Now only 5 days until I take off again!