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Published: June 23rd 2006
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Northern Coast
Old boats, beautiful ocean what a great place! Well, I've been in Mozambique for awhile now, and figured it was time for me to do my customary blog update. I left Malawi about a week ago and it was both mine and Ryans goal to reach the illustrious and coveted Indian Ocean where upon its shores we documented my first entry!
The journey was really time consuming, fraught with delays, waits, ripoffs and adventure. The later being the most important of course. We took minibuses, regular buses, broken down minibuses, pickup trucks, flatbed trucks and even our own two feet. It took two very full days but we landed on Ihla Mozambique last Saturday evening and were very pleasantly surprised. After the cramps associated with such a trip it was nice just to get out of the truck. The first feeling I had about the island itself was simply put -creepy. The buildings and streets of old, mixed with the huts and fig trees of new, provided a stark contrast of both worlds and culture unlike anything I've really experienced so far. Places I've visited in the past with glorious colonial buildings were all typically restored, yet here they are truly in bad shape. Not only that but
Back of the "Ute"
Just heading eastbound. This is so much more comfortable than a bus. the locals don't seem keen on living within the old dilapidated Portuguese buildings and are more content on invading the old streets and ruins with their grass huts, wood fires, chickens and water pales.
Anyways, when we got to the island it was late at night and one of the guys on our truck said he'd show us to a place to stay. There aren't any hostels or hotels here really, just old buildings that locals have opened up for weary travellers to sleep. I guess it wasn't long before he was leading us through dark alleyways and into this old rotten building where, as it turned out anyways there were no rooms at all.
Since I had no tent and I didn't feel like sleeping in these poor peoples backyard we thanked them and got him to take us elsewhere. We did find a nice place, no running water and with only a faint mildewy smell to sleep. We immediately went to get some dinner and as good as that tasted it turned out to make me sick. I had an amazing sleep though, the bus and the early dawn mornings waiting on each bus was enough to
Sunset
Taken from a restaurant on Ilha Mozambique. The sun sets suprisingly early here since technically, I guess its basically the winter solstice about now. ensure that much at least.
The next day Ryan and I set out to explore, we started with the northeast side/end of the Island. The island itself is only 2.5km long and 600m wide. I tried hard to compare it to the other islands I've been too that size, but really only came up with Little Corn Island. The big difference is that there's no jungle on this island, and with the streets and buildings you can easily see from one side to the other and therefore made things seem smaller than they were in reality I think. Nevertheless, we saw all sorts of old buildings, churches, restaurants, offices, whatever else you'd expect in an abandoned Portuguese colony. Some buildings are happily restored and provide your eyes with colourful pastel paint jobs scattered in between all the ruins.
Finally we arrived at the fort on the far northeast end of the island. This was really cool, I heard later that its actually the only standing European "fort" (whatever the classification is for a fort, I'm not sure) in the southern hemisphere. I really did like this place a lot. I pictured the Portuguese fighting whoever they were fighting
Decay
The buildings of old and the garbage of new. Regardless, I do love the beautiful indian ocean you see here! and pretty much was taken back in time, not so much to "then" but more or less to my Lego days where the forts I made were quite similar to this one but then razed, invaded and burnt by pirates after slaughtering all the inhabitants. I guess thinking back to my parents living room floor I felt sad I never declared those victims to be of Portuguese descent.
The beaches here on the island are so/so they have beautiful white sand, but most of the buildings go right to the beach leaving no palm trees. There are black rocks invading the sand as well, what I picture burnt coral to look like (even though it seems just like a dark volcanic rock). The only sad thing that brought things back to reality was all the garbage cast about everywhere in the water. The other side of the island though did in fact have one nice beach, we spent most of our time there in the shade reading Robert Jordan. Yes, my addiction to the cursed author is blamed on Jord, while he was playing the humble brick layer in Australia I was travelling from Tear to Tar Valon and
Milange
Our first stop in Mozambique! Dig the Habs jersey! back again. Regardless, I'll stick with recounting tales from the "real world" for the meantime. I did manage to talk to Jord briefly and we begun some plans for meeting up in a few weeks in Tanzania. I had thought most people knew this to be happening but I've been getting a lot of questions about it so I thought I should answer it publicly. It will be a pleasure to see him again, Ryan and I have both attempted to replace his beard with growing facial hair of our own, but even our best growths combined cannot compete with his glorious rusty brown facial mane.
One day turned into something between 4 and 5 with samosas and peanuts wreaking utter havoc on my stomach until I figure I lost another 30 lbs. I think I am almost invisible to the human eye. Not many other tourists on the island, the few we did see were older people who drove up from South Africa. The local kids were a real blast, all trying to negotiate for my shorts which were apparently quite popular in the Mozambique fashion world. The smaller kids got a real kick out of my tattoo
Tropical Fruit
Market near the Malawi and Mozambique border crossing. and loved touching it. We managed to get some decent food (although not as good and cheap as I would have guessed but it seems difficult for certain things to make their way to the island). The one last thing I really thought was cool about the island was the Muslim influence, I guess its the first place I've been where its been so noticeable and I thought it was really cool.
Yesterday we left the island and made our way in the back of another truck to an intersection about 56km outside of Nampula. From here once the swarm of locals finally let us out, we caught a ride in the back of a pickup about 400km north to the town of Pemba. From here it was just a short ride outside of town to the place we're staying, a nice area with grass huts and television for the world cup. I'm sad the Czech Republic couldn't beat Italy but extremely happy to see the Socceroos advance -what a game!
Today I somehow, for some reason decided to go for a run and then did some beach combing after attempting to finish yet another Robert Jordan book
Old Boat
This is just outside Pemba at our hot shot little beach across the road. and getting cabin fever. I set out to explore until finding my way to this very Internet cafe. From here we plan to leave sometime on the weekend to visit Ibo island (not sure exactly how yet) and then start another long process of trucks and boats all the way up to Tanzania and Zanzibar for what seems to be an exciting rendezvous. So far no malaria even though I've been bitten myriad times! Healthy as a horse!
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Shin
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WOW
Hey Jason, I'm glad your having the time of your life exploring the world. Keep safe. Say hi to all :)