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Published: August 11th 2006
Old and new
Although Beira is as derelict as anywhere, Coca Cola is still brainwashing.Not surprisingly, the ten of us walking through town to the bus stop in the early hours of a Vilankulo Sunday morning came across little resistance. The drunkard who stumbled crablike out of the Afro Bar shaped up more from the shock of seeing such a congregation of Estrangeiros rather than anything else, but his bravado came to a sudden end when he fell into a roadside ditch and promptly passed out. We decided that was probably the safest place for him and continued on. For Dani and I, our main concern was securing a seat on the bus as we hadn't had time after our safari to pre book. Our friends were certainly smug with the knowledge that they already had tickets and let us know that they didn't envy us facing the likely prospect of walking back to Boabab BP alone and in the dark. As it turns out we needn't have worried as we scored seats at the expense of two locals who had only payed the locals fare. For all of about thirty seconds we felt guilty that they'd been bumped, but then decided that all of the locals at some stage or another took advantage of
Restoration
The small efforts at restoration in Beira have produced works of art! the Estrangeiro price scheme so just this once we were going to take advantage of it ourselves. The journey to Beira was exactly as we'd imagined; long, hot, dusty, bumpy and with as much time spent driving next to the road as on it. The most remarkable aspect about our journey was that for the first time in two and a half months of African travels we had to stop for mechanical reasons, and still then it was only for an hour or so to change a flat tyre. Once in Beira we decided rather than head straight for the campsite to check out the Savoy Hotel that was just around the corner from the bus stop. It turned out to be only a fraction more expensive than what we'd pay camping and the thought of a big bed and our own space was too good to refuse. Beira is Mozambiques second largest city and like its largest, Maputo, it is dirty, derelict, rundown and overall, quite unattractive. Due to a combination of finding good coffee, fast internet access and Dani acquiring a stomach bug we ended up staying in Beira for three days, but when the time came we
Waiting for the ferry
Hopefully we've enough people now to leave. were definately happy to be moving on. It was whilst waiting for our mini bus out of Beira to fill up that also for the first time on our travels I felt distinctly concerned for our safety. We had witnessed one of the local passengers pick pocketing two other passengers. As soon as we ascertained that it was actually as it appeared we tried to raise the alarm by quietly asking the people on either side of us if they spoke English. They didn't and ofcourse the only other English speaker on the bus was the very smartly dressed thief who by this time had cottoned onto the fact that he'd been busted. As he casually climbed out of the crowded mini bus we used pidgeon Portuguese and sign language to tell the victims to check their pockets. They looked at us like we were from Mars. The thief made his way around to my side of the bus and opened my window whilst giving me the cut throat gesture and telling me he was going to f*****g kill me. He then disappeared into the crowd and most likely onto another mini bus. It wasn't until one of the victims
Ingenious
African people are unbelievably creative. This semi trailer was fully operational! went to buy a drink that the penny dropped and whilst he was being kicked off the bus because he now couldn't afford to buy a ticket, he too was pointing and gesturing at me as if I was the thief. All this and the sun hadn't even come up! Needless to say we couldn't leave Beira quick enough. That particular ride terminated at Caia where we had to cross the Zambezi River. We could either wait an hour for the next ferry to cross, costing us 1000Mts or we could charter a tinnie for 10000Mts each and leaving immediately. Seeing as though the going had been so slow we decided to pay the 50c each and were across the river in less than ten minutes. We found a chapa ( Toyota p/up with bench seats in the tray ) that was going our way but ofcourse had to wait for it to fill up. Not only did we wait for the one o'clock ferry, but also the three and five o'clock ferries before the driver deemed us full enough to leave. It whilst waiting in Caia that the local drunk, much to the horror of his townsfolk decided to
Playful
We usually find the kids to be shy, but once they overcome their fears they are lots of fun. rob Dani and I of the beer we had just taken our first quenching swigs of. We arrived in Mocuba not long before midnight and spent a few hours sleeping at a truckstop that was every bit as pleasant as The Savoy in Beira. We organised a wake up call with one of the truckies and at 4am precisely he was giving us the call. By 4.30am we were on the road again. (Cue: Willie Nelson) It took us most of the day to reach Nampula. We had planned to spend the night in Nampula, but not only were the hotels we priced three times as expensive as what we were willing to pay, every single one of the locals we encountered was a strange and exciteable mix of phsycho and inbreed! There was obviously no one staying in these hotels and instead of negotiating a reasonable price and making some money, they insisted on their ridiculous prices and thus made no money at all. "But that room has a TV!" one of the managers argued. When we told him we were more interested in a clean toilet than a fuzzy one channel TV he thought we were having a
Inundated!
Ofcourse once the rest of the kids see we dont bite they all want our attention! laugh! We found the station and took the first anything that was headed in our general direction. It was another mini bus that took two hours to fill and we eventually ended up in the large fishing port of Nacala which was about 100km past our intended destination, Ihla de Mocambique. Once again we arrived just shy of midnight and if it wasn't for Eric and his hospitalite' le Francais we would have had no choice but to pay the astronomical price for a room at one of the only hotels in town. Eric was a mad scientist/fisherman/mechanic and could obviously see that the Hotel Maiaia was out of our price range so he invited us to stay at his casa. His casa doubled as a workshop/boatyard/beer bottle recycling depot and after he served us supper of dark beer and cup cakes he set up a hammock in one of the spare rooms for us to sleep. Before going AWOL and ending up first in Madagascar and then Nthn Mozambique Eric served as an engineer in the French Navy and he certainly seemed to enjoy reliving his travels and antics with us. He gave us the standard 4am wake up
Crazy Nampula
If onl the camera could capture how crazy this place was! call and organised one of his labourers to put us on a direct mini bus to Ihla. It turns out there were no direct mini busses to Ihla and to save Erics labourer getting his lights punched out by atleast half a dozen touts because he wouldn't let us get into their respective mini busses, we releived him of his duty and then caused a brawl ourselves when we had to choose one of the busses over all the rest that were going to the same place. For the second time in 24 hours we'd averted a hostile situation before the sun had come up. Transport in Africa is just a little bit different from how we know it back home. Once you've paid for your seat or space you can use it to transport whatever needs to be transported and it doesn't matter if it's your arse being transported or the collective arses of 100 live chickens! On our final journey before reaching Ihla, this time on the back of a tip truck, we were flagged down by a family wanting their whole harvest of pumpkins transported to Ihla for sale. It took about five minutes for the tout
Pumpkin anyone?
The sooner these pumpkins are loaded the sooner we can continue! and driver to negotiate a price with the pumpkin farmers before the tout began loading the pumpkins onto the truck. Now we are not just talking a few pumpkins here, there were at least ten large heshan sacks full of pumpkins and thousands of loose ones too, and the poor tout was going solo! Without even thinking about it Dani and I just got stuck in. The crowd that had gathered to watch the fiasco stared in disbelief as the two Estrangeiros leant a helping hand. Finally it dawned on them too that if they were to get stuck in also, we'd be back on the road much sooner and in the end it only took a further five minutes to load all the pumpkins. In this time Dani had tried to befriend a small child who had obviously never seen a white person wearing dark sunglasses before and she went running and screaming terrified to her mama, who like the rest of us thought it was hysterical. Anyone that knows me well enough would know that I cannot stand anything to do with pumpkin and after she recovered from giving the kids a fright Dani couldn't stop laughing and
We did it!
Finally everyone chipped in and we were ready to go. here was I sitting before...? reminding me of the irony that before we could go any further I would have to conquer my fears and sit on a mountain of pumpkins! After two and a half days of almost non stop and very gruelling travel from Beira we finally arrived on Ihla De Mocambique, absolutely shattered and with thoughts only of an immediate siesta. In return for our efforts at loading the pumpkins onto the truck the driver dropped us at the doorstep of our accomodation, Casa de Luis. We therefore didn't notice the huge mosque next door or get a chance to count the speakers that were pointing in every direction from atop the mosques many pillars.
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