Maputo

The 7 hour trip from Tofo to Maputo was smooth - surprisingly no bus breakdowns involved. We checked into our hostel no problem, and headed out for dinner. 2 blocks down the road, we were stopped by 2 police officers with semi-automatic machine guns. "Show us your passports," the one said. Les produced hers while I silently said to myself "fuck, the travel guide said to carry your passport in this country," and I informed the officer that I didn't have it with me. "Oh no this is big trouble," he said. The law of our country is that tourists must always carry their passport - otherwise how would we know who is here illegally?" Clearly, yes, there is a big problem here with illegal immigrants, especially Canadian ones, in Mozambique. Always the quick thinker, Les offered to run back to the hostel and grab my ID, and took off before the police really had time to figure out another way to get a bribe out of us, and I stood there in virtual custody.

As she left, subtle threats entered the conversation. "You will have to come to the police station with us, this is a very big problem." As always, I just smiled, apologized profusely for being a dim witted tourist, and played the game. "No problem," I said, "I completely understand the law and I'm very sorry I forgot and of course I will be happy to come to the police station with you. Would you like a cigarette? What is your name? Ahh yes Mozambique is a beautiful country." By this time they probably figured I had no clue what was going on, so out came the bluntness. "My friend, I am very hungry. I have been working since 8 this morning and I finish again at 8 tomorrow morning. This job is shit... They only pay me $100 per month. Can't you please give me some money so I can eat?"

Stepping out of my shoes for a minute I realize how bizarre this was, a police officer pleading with me as if he were a beggar. I felt really bad for the guy and the state of the country as a whole; if a person with a government job is having a hard time, how bad is it for the multitudes of unemployed? Its the story of most of Africa, unfortunately.

Les came to my rescue, literally running down the street to meet us. The officer made the obligatory glance at the document, we shook hands, and were on our way. Dinner at a great Italian restaurant. Ahhh... we're getting closer and closer to those Western comforts I've done without for 6 months.

The next day we spent the morning on the net with some of the fastest internet I've been on in a long time (and believe me, fast is relative when you've been on the net in Malawi for 3 months. Home is so close I can feel it! In the afternoon we did a bit of sight seeing, walking over to an artists commune to see some really great sculptures and paintings. It inspired me to do some sculpture with a lot of metal and whatnot when I get home. We had lunch at an authentic (relative term!) Thai restaurant, which Les was ecstatic about, Thai being her favourite food, checked out a garden by the waterfront and arrived at the natural history museum in time for them to tell us it's closed. After dinner at a local place of authentic Mozambican hamburgers and fries, we broke out the cards and played drinking Texas-hold em' (poker) all night. All in all it was one of the best days I've had in a long time. Until of course Les and I had a conversation about 'things' and the next morning we decided we can't be together.

I still don't know how to treat this subject publicly - some of you may think its nobody's business, and maybe you're right. But I have never been a person to hide things about my life and I think life is richer when you're able to talk about these kind of things. I want to share this aspect of my experience here eventually because it has been an inextricable and beautiful part of my journey, but I want to do it in a way that is fair and accurate and of course I'll need Les to be comfortable with it. So if I can figure all that shit out, I'll talk about it eventually.

That brings us to the fancy hotel. As it was to be our last day together, I thought it would be as good a time as ever to get ourselves out of hostels and into a really nice hotel for a bit of splurging. So we checked into the Cardoso Hotel for $140 a night (a fortune in Africa) and enjoyed some amenities - a hot shower for example; more towels and pillows than I knew what to do with; a balcony overlooking the Bay; and of course, satellite TV!!!

Conveniently, we were across the street from the natural history museum so we took that in. The words grotesque and diabolical came to mind very quickly. The central atrium of the building was filled with stuffed animals - lions, elephants, a giraffes, etc. - all once living animals that have become sad victims of taxidermy. And filled with a musty smell reminiscent of the equally bizarre national museum of Namibia. The travel guide boasts that it is probably the only museum in southern Africa with a collection of elephant fetuses!

In the evening we again decided to splurge. We split a bottle of really good red wine on the balcony and watched the sun set. Then we went off to dinner at really nice restaurant on the waterfront (the name eludes me). While sitting at the bar for a quick cigarette, glass of wine in hand (you couldn't smoke at the table, which is unusual in Africa,) Les came to see me with a big devilish grin on her face, one that I will never in a million years forget, and said "Your dinner is served." The bartender just look at me with my big smile and said "You have a pretty nice life bro." He was right.

As an appetizer we had mussels in a garlic-cream sauce, I had Zambezian style chicken, which is surprisingly similar to Canadian barbecued chicken, prawns, calamari and a whitefish. Mmm, delicious. We managed to stumble home in time for a 3rd bottle of wine. I found it mostly un-consumed in the bathroom the next morning. Gooood times. We ordered room service, a first for both of us, and ate our omelets on the balcony, overlooking the city. Unfortunately it was now time to return to reality so we checked out and did some errands. As the universe would have it, bus timetables would see Les leaving the day after, so we managed one more day together. Like a couple of crazy kids, we just decided to have another great day, including another dinner at another fancy restaurant. Tonight was steak for me, and prawns for Les, with clams and seafood ravioli appetizers. Seriously, if you love cheap seafood, make the trek to this amazing country.

At 6:30am the next morning I put Les into a cab and that was that. We cried, a lot.

The rest of the day I was pretty much in a daze but I didn't want to be at the hostel, so I decided to walk around the city snapping pictures. I came across the botanical gardens, which has fallen into an intermediate stage of disrepair. At the West end of the park is what I can only guess is an aviary, giant and dilapidated; a sad statement on decay and yet immensely beautiful. The walls and the ceiling have started to fall down, but the gardens inside are thriving and beautiful. You can see the city skyline through the rusting girders. Although I clearly wasn't supposed to be in there, I climbed through a wall and did a bit of exploring. I ended up sitting in there for almost an hour, contemplating life in solitude (something I haven't had in a long while). Unfortunately I reached no conclusions, came no closer to an understanding of the world, in the process.

After this I proceeded to city hall and the old Portuguese fort, two unremarkable buildings, before arriving at the real heart of Maputo - the shopping mall (thankfully, I'm kidding). The rest of the afternoon I just wandered the streets, stumbling upon the beautiful train station, and basking in the phenomenally dichotomous architecture of a city caught between African, European and Latin cultures.

Although I assure you my opinion is not shared by all, I love this city's beauty. I love that Portuguese is the primary language, and that Portuguese culture, including the ridiculously good bread, has stuck around. I love sidewalk cafes and restaurants in every neighbourhood and the fact that people drink coffee, a far cry from Malawi. That culture is reflected in the architecture, which is often European. The architecture is also reflective of the country's struggle for liberation from their oppressors. I freely admit to knowing nothing about the struggle, but my guess is that the communists were welcomed here with open arms during the Cold War. The street names - Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse Tung, Vladimir Lenine and Salvador Allende betray that fact. Maybe its just because I'm a political scientist at heart, but I get excited being in a place that was caught up in the ideological struggle between East and West.

The reality of the language also means that Mozambique has close ties with Brazil. Now Africans are all freakin' good dancers to begin with, but when you pair them up with the Latin Americans, holy shit look out, you'll get a pretty good vibe in the city. Now this is the part where Les calls my bluff - we didn't actually do any dancing or see any dancers, but I know that 'Marabenta' is here and I like it.

On top of everything, the architecture is still what gets me most. Stately colonial European buildings share wide, straight street-fronts with new and modern Western-style buildings, while ugly, decrepit, Soviet-style egg-carton housing blocks towering over them in the background, complete with laundry hanging from every second window. What was really a perk for me is that I didn't feel like everyone was watching me all the time. Maputo is close enough to South Africa and filled with enough white Portuguese descendants that I didn't feel like it was risque to be white (compared to Lilongwe when I was eyeballed every day walking to work). The city took hold of me very quickly, and I love it, eyesores and all.

Alas, all good things come to an end and I jumped on the bus the next morning - although I very nearly didn't. Admittedly, there was some drowning of the sorrows the night before, complete with drinking games and my first experience with a ridiculous shot that involves snorting salt and squirting lemon juice in your eye. Maybe for that reason or maybe because my alarm sucks, I missed the wakeup call. For some reason I happened to open my eyes about 20 minutes before I was supposed to meet the bus. I packed in about 2 and whipped up a cab driver into a frenzy in order to get there in time to remember this is Africa and nothing happens on time.

10 minutes into the ride the bus started beeping, which is never a good thing, and we had to pull over. It took the driver about an hour to figure out that it was fine to drive so we just kept on truckin' to Pretoria, South Africa. That is until 30 k outside of Johannesburg. "Ladies and gentlemen, there is a major problem with the bus, we're leaking oil." So we sat by the side of the highway for 2 hours waiting for the bus from Pretoria to fetch us. We got there at 10pm, 15 hours after starting, and 7 hours behind schedule. Opening my bag, I found it was all wet because my body wash had exploded all over... but it smells great!!!

So I fly outta here in 3 days, and although I don't have a connection from Madrid to North America at the moment (working on it, while cursing airlines and the peak season), I'm confident I'll be back safe and sound on August 2nd latest. For the next few days I plan to do a whole lot of nothing except enjoying fast internet and maybe seeing a movie or two. Peace out.

Enter the Mozambique

Les finished her post by recalling that we were offered a lift by a 50-something South African guy and his local sidekick in a 4x4 on our way to the hostel. Having no desire to struggle with our bags, we accepted, and pretty much as soon as we got in he offered us a place to stay. "My boss owns a house on the beach here and we're up doing some work for the weekend. There's lots of extra space." Naturally we were skeptical. I'm very careful when on the road, because really if I had to choose, Africa is the last place I would want to be abducted and/or chopped to pieces.


We bought the guys a beer, and Ricky - let's call him Ricky so he doesn't get fired if his boss reads this - proceeded to talk our ears off, while his Mozambiquan sidekick, 'Bob' lurked in the background (this guy said about 10 words the whole trip). After 10 minutes we were really getting along and thought it was worth at least going to see the place. Back we hopped into the jeep and started driving... and driving... It wasn't exactly a long drive, but it was getting to be the kind of walk where we were no longer in town and the roads turned from pavement to sand.


Our skepticism was quickly obliterated when we entered the compound where about 2 dozen of these houses, built by Ricky's boss - who by the way is a billionaire - are located, all on secluded lots, the roads to each lined with conch shells every 6 inches. Seeing the house was a bit of a surprise. It was a 4 bedroom bungalow overlooking the ocean, complete with housekeeper/gardener, satellite TV, a kitchen I would kill for, air conditioning and a pool. And it looked pretty much brand new. "You can have this room," said Ricky. Les and I poked our heads in to find a giant 4 post king sized bed with white sheets, ensuite bathroom (bathtub and shower). The place was a palace, and we were going to stay the weekend for free. Didn't take us long to accept the offer.


After unpacking and changing we took a tour down the beach, taking note of some of the palaces on the cliffs, and with Les going crazy over the sheer number of conch shells strewn across the sand. Hunger soon set in and we 4 drove back to town to hit the market. We were approached by some teenagers with one of the most ridiculous sights I've seen - a gigantic potato sack full of the most gigantic crabs known to man. Obviously I'm exaggerating but this seems like a good time for a side note - did you know that there's something called a coconut crab that lives in Mozambique which is about a foot and a half across that climbs coconut trees and opens the fruit with its claws? Nature is scary.


Anyhow, the crabs were were haggling over were massive, and of course alive. Our 3 picks were hilarious to watch, squirming around in the back of the jeep. We went back home, and long story short, they were delicious. For the next few days we ate good food, drank a lot of brandy, enjoyed the weather, a few sleep-ins and may have watched Jumanji. We also got to hear some amazing stories from an extraordinary man, Ricky. In his younger years, apparently he worked driving a bulldozer in Mozambique... clearing landmines. He would drive the dozer all day, stoned, hitting an average of 4-5 mines a day.


"The little antipersonnel ones would just go pop, but every once in a while you hit an anti tank mine and the dozer gets lifted off the ground a bit. One time, I hit one of these mines and the front blade came clean off the thing. When I recovered I look around and couldn't figure out where it went. A few seconds later this giant piece of metal came flying out of the sky and drover itself into the ground just a few feet behind me." Wild.


As a South African of a certain generation, Ricky was forced to perform quite active military service. He served in the navy for 20 years, part of it on a submarine traveling the world. On ships, he told us that when the government suspected a village of harbouring or aiding insurgents, a landing party of marines would call in a ship to shore bombardment and obliterate it. "Marines walking through that village after, as teenagers, you would get sick. There would be absolutely nothing left. Nothing. Except maybe an arm here and a foot there. Not a single thing was left living." Nowadays Ricky is in a much more civilized line of work and enjoys being sent up to Vilanculo at his billionaire boss's bidding to take care of a few projects. Ricky, you're an amazing guy and we thank you for your hospitality.


After the weekend we said our goodbyes and returned to the realities of hostel living. Cold showers and drab accommodation.

This is where I curse fancy hotels and their shitty internet connections, cause I had written several more paragraphs but it crashed. Unfortunately I have to leave it here. We're in Maputo, the capital, and having a great time. Off to South Africa soon and I'll be home in about a week. Why are we in a fancy hotel, you might ask? I'll leave that for next time. Peace.