Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2013
June 2004
Stuck at the border – are we ever going to get into Mozambique?
Before I start my blog I would like to give you a little bit of information regarding Mozambique. With the
Mozambican Civil War between FRELIMO and RENAMO ending in 1992, this country was still reeling from the after effects of this long war. People were poor and starving, the tourism industry was non existent and wildlife was depleted, slaughtered to feed the starving masses or elephants were killed for their ivory. Slowly towards the end of the 20
th century tourism picked up extremely quickly and people were returning to a tourist destination that was very popular before 1975. However, in 2004 the effects of the war could still be seen, although the general infrastructure of the country was doing an about turn and improving dramatically, it would and is still taking a long time to recover and normalize. Hopefully this will give you a slightly better picture of some of our holidays in this beautiful country that has a lot to offer.
After our Red Sea trip in 2003, the group of friends we met on board decided to arrange a reunion
week at Barra reef in Mozambique. We had only been to the extreme southern tip of Mozambique, so were very keen. Barra reef is in the Inhambane area about 500 km up the coast. We had bought a new Subaru Forester as we wanted to explore more off road so this would be an ideal time to test it out. Most of the travelling would be on the main EN1 national road but we believed the last bit would be on sand but we would be adequately prepared. Of course a week wasn't going to be enough time for us so we decided to take an extra week and head up before everyone else, then meet the rest of the group a week later when they arrived. This time Philip and Paul's mom, Alison would join us. Jacques had finished school and started working and wouldn't be able to get leave.
We were a bit concerned about getting fuel in Mozambique as it was still in short supply especially unleaded petrol. Paul did his research, called his contacts in the fuel industry and did some calculations, then hoped we would get where we were supposed to, as
Proudly posing
Our groceries coming to usthe pumps could quite easily run dry and not to get fuel till a day or two later. We were also told general provisions such as milk, coffee, meat etc would be limited but we would be able to get plenty of seafood, some fruit, a small variety of vegetables and bread. We needed to take some water with us as well, because the water at Barra reef was not suitable for drinking, but we would be able to top up somewhere near where we were staying. I did my planning as well and this was where I started my travelling and camping lists in all seriousness. I stocked up on necessities and was satisfied we would be 'fed and watered' well and we would not forget anything important. Such excitement as we were ready to set off on our first longish self drive overland trip outside our own country!
We would be staying in a chalet as there was no camping at Barra Reef but would be taking our trailer because we were taking so much stuff such as our dive gear, water, two jerry cans of fuel and food and clothes as well. We set
off on the Friday afternoon to overnight just outside Komatipoort near Elephant bridge that borders on the Kruger national park. We arrived as it was getting dark, so could unfortunately not make use of the time to have a sneak peek at the animals in the park. We stayed in a type of dormitory with very squeaky, rickety beds but mom was fortunate to have a room to herself. Not the most comfortable night but maybe it was because we were excited about our trip as well. Our objective was to get to the border at 6am as soon as it was open.
Up bright and early, we drove the short distance to the border post that sits on a hill, only to discover there were many more people with the same idea, creating quite a few lanes to the border. What chaos with a mix of vehicles from cars to busses all jam-packed, using every space available to them. Mozambicans returning home with furniture, eggs, plastic jerry cans all stuffed into and on top of their vehicles, trailers and busses. A few other people like us doing a road trip into Mozambique as well. We had
to stop at the bottom of the hill, having to wait our turn in the queue and turned off our engine as we knew we would have to wait a long time. Vendors were walking from car to car trying to sell us food, wanting us to exchange money (illegally of course), but we declined politely and if they became too troublesome, just ignored them. We crawled up the hill, bit by bit, turning our engine on and off each time we stopped as the vehicles ahead edged forwards. As we were about 4 vehicles from the front of the queue, we tried to start the car and nothing happened. NOTHING but a click! By this stage we had numerous vehicles behind us, impatient because everyone had started moving except us and we were obstructing them. Soon they realised we couldn't move so they passed us on either side to get ahead. Eventually Paul unhitched the trailer but first found rocks to put behind its wheels to stop it from rolling downhill. Then some of those pesky but helpful vendors came to our assistance to help push the car so we could start it on the downhill. Thankfully it started,
then Paul manoeuvred the car to hitch the trailer again. All this was done with more impatient drivers trying to get first in line to go through the border, not giving us a gap.
Now our dilemma was should we continue or should we get our battery sorted. By this stage Paul had deduced that we must have had a dud battery as the car was brand new and the continuous stop and start progress had drained the battery. Being a fair distance from civilization we decided to carry on with our journey as we weren't sure if we would get the right battery in Nelspruit at such short notice. He decided to take the chance and risk the journey to Barra Reef. We didn't dare turn the engine off and hopefully we wouldn't stall the car in a tricky situation although in hindsight we probably would have been able to start the car straight away. We contacted one of our friends who would be heading up in a weeks time and asked him to bring us a spare battery, which he very kindly did.
At the border with all it's chaos and in typical African
style, we were fortunate that Paul didn't have to leave the car to have his passport stamped, I could take it into the office for him. We also had to clear our vehicle through customs and that went without a hitch. Relieved to get through the border without any issues, we were in Mozambique! The real Moz, not just 15km in as we did before when we went to Ponta Malongane.
We were warned that the cops in Moz have a habit of stopping South African cars for no real rhyme or reason, finding the slightest problem with your car and fine you for that. We headed towards Maputo, most surprised at the good condition of the road and we weren't once stopped by the police. This was going to be a breeze! Little did we know what was still lying ahead.
We stuck to the speed limit while many other vehicles bypassed us. We were fascinated by the different sights we saw along the road. Although we were in a different country, in essence it was so similar to driving in our own country but periodically we were reminded that we were in Mozambique by little differences,
like the people pushing carts with plastic jerry cans, going to collect water, selling coal along the side of the road. Truth be told, we probably didn’t take in as much as we could have, worrying about our defective battery.
As we got close to Maputo we had to drive on the western outskirts of the city, but still the traffic was chaos. Here we started noticing the first few potholes or even sections of tar that was non existent. We were also struck by some of the buildings that showed clear evidence of being damaged during the long and terrible war. There were far more informal shops or rather stalls selling goods that were on display from fake leather furniture, to wooden beams or poles for carpentry, neatly on display, right next to someone selling any bits and pieces for cars. As we left Maputo we thought we would be able to pick up speed as we had about 500km to travel and we were warned not to travel in the dark for safety reasons. No sooner had we built up speed to 100 p/hour, then we had to slow down for various reasons:
1: As we
passed the villages or inhabited areas, our speed had to drop first to 80 km p/hr then to 50-60 km p/hr as sometimes indicated on very old road signs with very little paint on them, and there were so many villages! The police had their places where they kept their eye on the behaviour of the drivers and we didn’t want to cross them at all.
2: The road was in a terrible condition, consisting of more pot holes than tar. Sometimes it was better to drive on the gravel section on the side of the road. There was patchwork here and there but on the whole the roads were in a terrible state with big drop offs from the tar to the verges of the road.
3: Usually as we approached the biggest pot hole that we needed to avoid or we could end up with more than just a troublesome battery, a bus or truck that seemed to crabwalk across the road would be heading straight for us. Another one, equally skew, would be approaching us from behind. Neither one would slow down at all, unconcerned about the damage that could be caused by the terrible
condition of the road. We had to take evasive action but at times we had to drive straight through the huge potholes.
4. Avoiding pedestrians. There were so many children from about 5-6 years of age, walking great distances to and from school on the EN1, which is the major national road going up north. At places where the busses stopped there were vendors walking around the bus, not concerned about other vehicles, trying to sell their goods to the people on the bus.
We didn't know where to look. Keep our eyes on the road or stare wide eyed at the overloaded busses dating back to pre-war era, leaning to one side, packed to the gills with passengers, luggage, furniture, goats balancing on top and those ever present jerry cans tied to the top, back and sides of the bus. This made our journey far longer than travelling on an average good road at about 120 km per hour.
When we stopped, we kept our engine running, except when we filled up with fuel, for fear of the battery giving up the ghost and we certainly didn't want to be stranded at all.
There were more informal stalls with various goods for sale along the way, sometimes just under the shade of a tree with a rock or log as a sitting area and a wonky rustic table where their goods were displayed. About 150km north of Maputo we stopped at one of those stalls, where white plastic bags were suspended from a makeshift pole, fluttering in the breeze. We haggled and bought cashew nuts that were yummy but probably wouldn’t pass any health test!
A couple of hours later it was time for a pit stop at the side of road, as there weren't many decent public toilets around. In 2002 there were severe floods in Mozambique. Although much landmine clearing had taken place there were still concerns that many landmines had shifted after the floods and nobody knew where they had drifted to. We were warned to stay on paths because of the landmines as many of the Mozambicans still lost limbs or lives from stepping on these misplaced explosive devices. I am fortunate to have a fairly strong bladder but the rest of my family were in dire need of relief. While I sat in the car,
Low tide
Restaurant at Barra Reef with the engine running, of course, my dear family wandered off the path for some privacy behind a bush. I had a vision of a Hiroshima nuclear cloud with my husband, son and mother-in-law vaporising, but luckily it was just my over active imagination because they returned safely to the car and we continued on our way.
By this stage it was late afternoon and it was taking us the whole day just to drive 500km without any sightseeing at all. The garage in one of the towns where we were meant to fill up with fuel had no more unleaded petrol and they didn’t know when they would get again. We could either continue straight to Inhambane but were advised there probably wouldn't be fuel for us as it was off the main road or head to Maxixe where we had a better chance of getting fuel. It was out of the way, slightly more north and would add an extra hour and a half on our journey. We had two jerry cans of fuel on the trailer but we wanted to keep that for our trip back home as we would need it then. No
choice really but to head to Maxixe and hope there was fuel. Fortunately they had so we filled up, turned around and headed for Inhambane. By now dusk was fast approaching. Hardly taking in any of the scenery we finally arrived at Barra Reef just as dark set in. I don't think we have ever been as relieved to reach our destination as we were then. We booked in and unpacked with the sound of the sea in our ears, exhausted, and quickly headed for a much needed drink and dinner at the restaurant. Our battery had held out but the next day it was lifeless. We were stuck till our friends arrived, but we didn't object because it was a great place to be stranded.
To put our travelling time into perspective: From Johannesburg to Komatipoort was probably about 5 and a half hours driving. To drive from Komatipoort to Barra Reef which was probably only 100 to 150km extra it took us 12 hours!
The next few days we swam, dived, relaxed and recovered very quickly from the long drive up the coast. Barra Reef was virtually on the beach and we watched the
fishermen on their dhows throwing and pulling nets but catching dismal quantities of small fish.
I am convinced every Moz woman was born with a large bowl in their hands. We didn't even need to go shopping, it was all brought to us....from fruit to bread to prawns in these bowls carried on top of their heads. Every day these ladies would walk up to our chalet, asking if we wanted to buy whatever they were selling. This was of course all done with gestures and scribbling in the sand to get the price as we couldn’t understand each other as they couldn’t speak English and we could speak their language. Sometimes it was a bit confusing with the extra 3 noughts on the metical’s as the government hadn’t dropped them yet. They must have walked for ages to bring their goods from the market which was in Inhambane. It was so reasonably priced but such an effort for them to possibly get a meagre sale. We had an over abundance of crabs and prawns for our dinners, enjoying all the seafood.
Once our friends arrived with our new battery we could explore and
headed to Inhambane to the market to replenish some stocks that weren't available from our daily visitors. I regret that we never took photos of the market but had fun buying a few items, via gestures and signals as there was a slight language barrier. We went to the Paindane area for the day to see what was there. Simultaneously Paul and I said this was a place we wanted to explore properly on another occasion. There is a large reef jutting out from the beach, with a sheltered area where one could snorkel only at low tide. Next time we would have to bring our snorkelling gear which was lying back at the chalet.
Some of the sights we enjoyed exploring in and around the area are massive mangrove swamps as it is very much a wetland area. We saw coconuts palms for Africa. They were all cultivated for export in the earlier days. It was fairly undeveloped as well and much of the driving is on sand roads. Many quaint little reed shacks serving as houses for the Mozambican population with subsistence farming around them, the crop being watered by hand with buckets, no hose
pipes and taps to make life a bit easier for them.
All too soon our walks next to the sea, swimming, diving, watching sunsets and moonrises while enjoying sundowners on the beach came to an end. Our trip back home was not nearly as eventful but we still had to avoid those crab-like busses from pushing us right off the road. When a vehicle had broken down next to the side of the road there were no warning triangles, only branches put across the road as warning.
One thing we were certain of was that the sneaky little Moz bug had well and truly bitten us. The one that creeps up on you and sets its fangs into you, causing a fever that makes you want to do this all over again because it was such fun and there is so much more to see, even with a few hair raising moments – after all that is what adventure is all about, isn’t it? We would be back, as we wanted to explore so much more of Mozambique.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 16; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0365s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
As you add more previous trips...
you might want to edit the "Entry Date" to reflect when the trip took place. This keeps everything in chronological order, and you can group the Trips by the first entry date and the last entry date...not all trips took place in 2012-13, I imagine! It's easy to edit...go to your Profile Page, click on List Entries, Click on Edit, and then make the changes. Hope this helps! Anyway, I enjoy reading blogs from the past so that we can see how things have changed.