Blogs from Maputo, Southern, Mozambique, Africa

27-7-19 After flying into Maputo we were met by our guide Antalya, we were soon at the hotel Cardoso where we were to stay for two nights. We enjoyed a delicious tapas dinner with Antalya at one of her favourite cafes on our first night out in Maputo. 28-7-19 In the morning Antalya showed us the city which included the old town of Baixa, central market, museum of natural history and the historic railway station. The highlight of the day was a visit to the fish market where Antalya purchased fresh crab, fish and prawns, we then chose a restaurant from the many on the beachfront to cook it all up for our lunch. In the afternoon we visited Mafalala just on the outskirts of Maputo here the people live in severely disadvantaged conditions, with inadequate ... read more

Tuesday 13 February – I’m flying to Maputo, Mozambique!!! After a full breakfast on the ground floor restaurant of the Easy Hotel Kenya I wrote up my last bit of my blog so was up to date. I then decided to go for a walk around the outside of the hotel. Walking out the other hotel, past the security guard, to another security guard and through the security gate, I walked down the long driveway to the public road. For the next hour I walked along the roads, saying mambo to the locals. All along there were high security fences with electric of barbed wire on the top. The roads were terribly dusty as they were not seals, very rocky and Nairobi hadn’t had rain since 2017. I took some photos from the air to show ... read more

Geo: -25.9664, 32.5713Our ship had sailed up the East coast of Africa and had finally left South Africa and came to dock at Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. We had attended a lecture on Maputo by the destination consultant who had gone on about the poverty we would see and how possibly dangerous it might be! His talk actually put a lot of people off from going on- shore. We were going to walk around ourselves but I must admit after hearing this talk we opted for the tour around by bus. We were a small group in a minibus with very vague air conditioning. However the temperature was hovering between 35 and 40 degrees so difficult to chill. First stop was the railway station which everyone thought had been designed by Gustaf Eiffel of the ... read more

Geo: -25.9664, 32.5713Qui l'eut cru le Mozambique n'est pas la porte à côté... Et Francfort n'est pas exactement sur la droite reliant Cernier à Maputo ! Même si ce n'était pas la première raison du choix de l'itinéraire, nous avons pu testé le 787 entre Francfort et Addis Abbeba. Un avion confortable et spacieux, dans sa version éthiopienne, mais que l'on aurait pu rêver plus silencieux. Les vents étant favorables, nous avons gagné 2 heures sur le vol de nuit, pour arriver à Addis 6 heures après avoir quitté l'Allemagne. En fait de gain, c'est un remplacement de 2 heures de sommeil par 2 heures d'attentes en Ethiopie.24 heures après avoir quitté Cernier, nous sommes toujours au soleil, mais agréablement installé... read more

If there would be only one day which we will never forget from our trip, it will be this one. The GPS showed "Deep Sand" to a certain point where the road split, and after that it showed "Off-road". I am not an experienced T4A person, but the difference in description led me to the assumption that off-road is not deep sand. Hahahaha. Anyhow, Gert and Ruben took our luggage on the Bakkie to the split in the road and we had a joll up to this point. We loaded the bikes and said our good byes to our support team. This was now my first experience with the bike fully loaded in the sand, and it was clear from the start that I had trouble coming. Tommie faithfully came to my rescue each time I ... read more