Blogs from Mozambique, Africa - page 8

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

We’re currently staying in an orphanage in rural Mozambique, on the outskirts of a fairly large city. Life here is rural – we have cows and goats and chickens and sheep, and grow a range of fruits and vegetables. Now, recently our chickens have suffered an horrific and debilitating plague, causing almost all of them to die, all within the space of about a week. You could call it an epidemic. You could say the population has been decimated. You could say this, and whilst technically true, you'd have to say it 33 times to paint the full picture... I've been doing some maths. To decimate means to 'reduce by one tenth'. We started off with about 100 chickens, and now we have 3. To say that our chicken population was decimated would mean that we ... read more

Mum and Dad left me at Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3. There weren’t too many tears, just excitement for the big adventure ahead! As I queued to check in my luggage, I was already looking forward to leaving the commotion of Heathrow for the calm of Vilanculos’ small airport. The journey started with more stress than necessary, when my flight with Egypt Air was delayed, and we left London an hour and a half later than scheduled. I had a connecting flight in Cairo for Johannesburg, with only a few hours to spare. However, I calculated that as long as we arrived in Cairo by 10pm. I would make my 11pm. flight to Johannesburg, and contented myself with the fact that I was already experiencing ‘Africa time’! My stress was also relieved by chatting to the young ... read more

I spent a miserable night last night. On my way to bed I discovered that our electrical outlet quit working, so I had to go downstairs and sleep in the middle, airless, windowless, storeroom/bedroom. The mattress (if you can even call it that) was so thin I could feel the bed slats, so I decided to put the mattress on the floor. I did get a fan and had it on all night. I woke up aching. I then changed, went upstairs and turned on the faucet…no water. Shit. So I decided to check into Casa Do Mar a day early. I then did a two tank dive this morning. The ocean was a bit rough, with swells. The first reef was 30 minutes out, called Outback. No mantas, leopard sharks, bowmouth guitar sharks, leatherbacks or ... read more