Northern, Northern Mozambique

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Our journey northward continues, and what an adventure it has been! In many ways I find it difficult to decide where I should even start. Our plan was to head onward from Pemba and travel 150km north to a very small coastal village called Quissanga and then from there sail to Ibo Island. This journey I expected to not take very long at all, why on earth I even thought that is beyond me. Originally we had a kind Spaniard who Ryan befriended offer us a ride since he works on Ibo Island, however one thing led to another and that fell apart because he was awaiting supplies in Pemba, but tried to make it up to us by offering us a place to stay on the island for free once we got there. Once we heard that news it left us to reaching Quissanga by our own means. After discussing my plan with Russel (the Australian guy who owned the camp we were staying at) he gave us more information and last Monday at 4am we were dropped off in the main intersection in Pemba, after as usual, the cab driver tried to rip us off.

The night before we sat around and managed to convince others to join us, thus at this point we have Ryan, myself, Lucy (Brisbane), Chapman (Quebec), Linda (Ireland) and Anette (Ireland).

Once in Pemba we had to wait for our truck to arrive, we had been told it would be there at the intersection sometime between 4:00am and 7:00am. I'm not sure when it actually got there since I rarely know what time it is anymore and aside from that we were essentially accosted by drunken patriots wandering the streets after Mozambique celebrated their Independence day the prior evening. It goes without saying, but evidently the celebrations lasted well into the morning as we witnessed waiting for our truck. One man who went on at length with a glass of gin and a cigarette in his mouth (I couldn't stop picturing Eddie Murphy's stand-up impression of his father drunk) about "Ingla-terra" this and "Francia" that, "Almania Independancia!!!" and "Brasilia blah blah" Portuguese babbling that left my head totally spinning. He then tried to take Lucy's bag and "guard" it even though everyone was yelling at him to just get lost. Finally our truck arrived and we just ran to catch it an escape "the guy".

The truck was decent, flatbed at the back with bars along the sides and a makeshift tarp system for a roof. The back was stock full of your usual suspects: chicken, bags of rice, coke, babies and locals. We all piled in and it wasn't long before my ass hurt but that's nothing new really. The 150km ride took us 8 hours since most of it was over sand dunes with scattered palm trees and with frequent stops for anything and everything only prolonged things more to make it a slow crawl. We finally arrived at a beautiful seaside village to drop off most of the cargo before carrying on just a tad longer to where the dhow sailboats launched into the nearby archipelago. Immediately locals began by transferring all remaining cargo from the truck into the sailboats while a local home owner on the island from France approached us to see if we needed a place to stay. She was immediately forwarded to Chapman who communicated with her in his native french tongue.

Not long after we cast off to visit the islands! Cruising a magical coastline between scattered islands and turquoise water in our wooden dhow! The sail looks like a big white rag that's propped up on driftwood attached to the makeshift boat. You can only get to Ibo Island at high tide because of sand bars. The wind took us away and after 8 hours in the cramped truck there were smiles all around, at least until the water got choppy. Actually it wasn't that bad but we all got totally drenched and thankfully our bags were covered by plastic. The captain and his helper ran around while the boat coasted smoothly (for the most part) out past a few islands (not sure the names of them all) and we got to Ibo just before sunset. He brought us right to the French womans house and after seeing that we quickly forgot about the offer to stay with the Spanish guy. We managed to find dinner that tasted great (except for the awful taste leftover from the cheating Italian victory over Australia) and went back to our place to get some sleep. Two full days were spent exploring the forts, beaches, markets, ruins and everything else on the island. The food situation was a bit rough since there were only two restaurants on the island and both needed a days notice and one was brand new and "a bit how ya goin".

Breakfasts were essentially par for the course, consisting of Portuguese buns and a really terrible jam served with tea and instant coffee. We did manage to get omelette's one day! No such thing as lunch except for strange nut based dessert bars sold by an ancient old woman who wandered into where we were staying and must have felt like she won the lottery when Ryan and I basically bought her out in a fit of potential starvation. Sure enough she found her way back across the island through the jungle again the next day where, again we bought her out with hunger pains clearly affecting our judgement. Thankfully I didn't throw up from eating her delicious bars of goodness -but I sure came close. I was pretty sure at this point I had scurvy but thanks to advice from the others it turns out I'm just fine.

A few days on the island went buy in a flash until yesterday we embarked on what was quite easily the most intense travel session of my trip so far. It started with a 4:00am wake up on Ibo Island and a walk across the island to where the boats left. We loaded up the boat and with slight preparations we were off. Travelling north we sailed 3 hours until we landed on a beach beside the village of Pangagne (sp?). This place however, was arguably the most beautiful town I've seen on my trip so far. Picture bleached white sand and turquoise water. Picture hundreds of scattered palm trees and grass huts between them all. No roads in, no roads out just one 4X4 that drives along the beach until it has to head inland to another village called Mucojo. We hired the 4X4 driver to take us one step closer to the Tanzanian border. Thankfully Linda speaks fluent Swahili otherwise we would have been totally screwed. The driver offered to take us another few hundred kms north and after negotiations we set forth. This drive took us through the village of Chai which was the starting point for the war in Mozambique and an interesting place even though we didn't stop to take a very long look around. We got to another town at sunset (I'm really tired at this point and I can't remember the name of it) where the driver of the 4X4 got his "0's messed up" and tried to charge us 10 times more for the ride. We had a opportunistic restaurant owner on our side who saw dollar signs in his eyes if he could win our favour, and again, after Linda re-negotiated in Swahili we managed to meet halfway (it seems it was an honest mistake on his end) we sat down for dinner.

After dinner we talked to a guy who owns a landcruiser who said he could take us to the border the next day. Apparently when he said "the next day" it was just 1am and only about 6 hours away. Great. We decided to drink beer until 1am, but then thought again whereupon realizing all our remaining Meticais (Mozambique currency) had disappeared to the truck driver and all we could afford with everything combined was dinner. So we ate. After that the landcruiser guy showed up and said we could sleep at his house. We get to his house and his two daughters are sleeping on a dirty mat on his front porch. After kicking them off and moving the mat inside his mud house I passed out and endured a truly horrible sleep that even so was rudely interrupted at 1am for the next leg of our journey. We got back into the back of the landcruiser, and to our sheer terror realized our worst nightmare had truly arrived, he had picked up about 8 people before us and we had to squish in. Now, I don't want to exaggerate here but landcruisers aren't as big as you think, and personal space quickly changes from a reality to a dream after the first dozen people cram in. After almost a second dozen cram in (18 inside plus a few on the roof) we begin. It's dark, I haven't really slept, I have about 4 inches for my ass, my feet are squished between the spare tire, the floor and Ryans really weird long feet. I started to try and improve living conditions since this 12 litres of space would be my perverted living quarters for the next 6 hours. First thing was first, I took a gravol. I was facing sideways with no fresh air, oxygen was running low, and so swallowing the pill took a lot of time and effort since water was a long forgotten luxury. Just when things couldn't get worse we stopped and two more people got in. Don't ask how, they just did. Toyota engineers would have gasped in horror if they saw the tourcher chamber they helped create. As claustrophobic as I was, I managed to maneuver my arms (which is a bit of an exaggeration since the only body part I could move really were my wrists) and engage my iPod. After creating a makeshift pad between my left hip and the iron bar, my tailbone and the wheel well (with my left and right flip-flop accordingly) then using my own shoulder as a pillow I managed to drift into a state of semi-consciousness whereupon my only pleasure was seeing that Ryan had it just as bad as I did.

Later we got to the border, a few times we got stuck in the sand, once in a swamp. The swamp was bad. I actually saw my life flash before my eyes because we backed into the swamp after getting stuck and water filled up the back of the landcruiser to almost everyones knees and I figured I was about 10 minutes from drowning since there was a 0% chance everyone (or anyone) would manage to get out of that thing underwater (especially since it took about 15 minutes to get out normally). Sometime during all this we hit the 24 hour mark of when we left Ibo island, and about 3 hours after that we finally got to the border. With black bags under my eyes, I managed to watch Ryan stumble from the truck to take a picture of what we had just endured, when a shady border guard took his camera stating clearly in Portuguese that he can't take pictures at the border, and the camera was now his. A mental slip on his part since generally speaking that is a rule, but a bit ridiculous given where we were and what he was aiming the camera at. After discussing a suitable bribe, a Brazilian guy (and I have no clue where he came from) managed to get the camera back and said the guard was probably drunk. Later this was confirmed when he started begging me for money.

Another 30 minute ride in the deathcruiser to the physical border (a river, the name of which escapes me now) which was the end of the line. Before I could even exit the truck (it takes quite some time with all the people) dozens of African kids had taken all the luggage off the roof and scattered it between about 4 boats in the river. Since we wanted to stick together this was a problem. It turned out to be more of a problem for them really since about three separate fist fights started as they all argued over who would be able to take us across the river -not a pretty sight.

After that boat ride, we got in a pickup truck on the opposite side, where our boat driver doubled his original price (which we refused to pay) and followed us on the back of the truck for about 2 additional kilometres before we gave him a couple extra Tanzanian shillings and he got off for his long walk back to the river. We stamped into Tanzania and got back on the truck, which was a pleasant 2 hour 30km ride (including a stop by police and huge argument over who knows what) where I was able to actually sneak into the front seat. Today being our first day in Tanzania Ryan and I have already found some great curried food which seems to have actually settled my stomach after the mystery meat last night, and tomorrow we head north again to Dar Es Salaam for Canada Day celebrations and the eventual rendezvous with what appears to be a strange and bizarre Set D representation in East Africa -stay tuned!

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Photos

Ibo Island
Taken along the beach with most the most dense settlement, this is Ibo Island. Apparently it was a ship building and slave trade center for the Portuguese, nowadays its home to more goats than Portuguesians.

Aye! Aye! Captain!
Our hot shot Dhow captain. I don't know his name but he was much better than our last one.

Pangagne Beach
Moments after a heartfelt goodbye with our dhow captain we begin negotiations with the pickup truck driver.

Dawn Raid
Departing Ibo Island and heading north in the boat. Sunrise seen behind.

The Dhow
Nothing beats a wind powered boat. That is except for boats with motors. Its a bit slow going but a lot of fun, this is what they look like from a distance in any case.

Taking Aim
My first attempt at trying to blow a boat out of the water. A very nifty weapon left in the old Portuguese fort on the north side of the island.