Blogs from Northern, Mozambique, Africa

Mozambique isn’t really a tourist destination and Isle de Mozambique, off the coast, is not even known to many backpackers', yet. The little hotels are empty until Saturday night when some expat oil workers turn up for a weekend break. Isle de Mozambique was “discovered” by Vasco da Gama around 1498 and quickly became the capital of Portuguese East Africa. Long before Vasco's discovery, Arabs and Swahili locals had been trading gold and slaves here but it was the Portuguese who turned it into a city and this was the country's capital for 400 years. So it is very strong on faded grandeur. Everywhere there are decaying buildings longing for some love and money to restore them to their heyday. Our hotel was once a ruined trading house; now it is rather splendid. Hanging brass lamps ... read more

After travelling all the way up from the south of Mozambique to almost the most northern part we reached the Quirimbas Archipelago. We met a friendly bunch of travellers at a nice lodge where we camped in Pemba and organised a 4X4 to bring us through knee-deep puddles and mud to Quisanga, the drop-off point for the islands. After a little haggling a captain wanted to bring us to Ibo Island where we got a basic but comfortable roundhouse for a bargain. We explored the island for a few days and we hired a local sailing dhow for a day. This day trip was above all expectations as we got to snorkel with a large school of dolphins, we went snorkelling over a huge wreck and we were dropped at a very tropical white sandy deserted ... read more

Resumo: Pessoas tentando passar a perna, 11hs em um caminhão de carga, dormindo no chão do hotel, quase 30hrs para chegar ao meu destino, estou bem. Vou comentar apenas o que ocorreu após cruzar a fronteira de Malawi para Moçambique. Comecei bem .. pessoas sorrindo, dizendo “Boa Tarde” “Boa Viagem” (Aqui as pessoas falam Portugues!), carona de moto da fronteira até próxima cidade. E daqui começou a ‘palhaçada’ (na sequencia): · * Em torno de 15 homens me cercaram ao tentar trocar o restante de Katcha (MWL-Malawi) para Meticais (MZN-Moçambique), a confusão era tanta que eles tentaram me dar MZN 1070 ao invés de 1700. Enquanto eu refazia a conta na calculadora, eles “sumiram” com 5,000 MWK e diziam que eu tinha que dar mais dinheiro. Sorte a minha que o meu “Nao vou dar mais ... read more

Eduardo, the taxi driver, claimed he was sick and couldn't show up at 08:00. Our hotel arranged for another driver, but at a much higher price than we'd arranged with Eduardo, yesterday. The most important thing was, we had to get to Pemba, as we fly out from Pemba to Dar-es-Salaam from where we head home to Doha. It was too late for the bus which had left at 05:00, and chapas would have been too much hassle for this distance (about 400 km). On the road, we realized this new driver was the friend Eduardo had taken the car jack from. Oh ... So, ... this made things interesting ... but, ... we had to get to Pemba. The road was being worked on in sections, but our driver was doing 120-130 km a lot ... read more

Nampula is the capital of this Northern Region of Mozambique, and as such it has lots of administrative offices and lots of activity. It does have a "hard edge" to it, but N.. Walked around and bought clothes and toiletries to replace the essentials that he lost. He managed to find everything he needed except secure Internet access. E.. cheated and used the hotel's computer. N.. refused to use a potentially compromised machine. It took us 2 days to recover from the stomach bug and the ill effects of lousy train travel.... read more