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By Rachel Viljoen

Photos by Santjie Viljoen

Cerveja's downing by Thomas, Katie & Patrice

Five capetonians decided to brave the petrol price and head to Mozambique for two weeks in a Toyota Hilux. Average speed: 100 kph. Estimated time to Mozambique: more than we expected.

With some debating as to the relative importance of a guitar or yet another kite, the three kiters triumphed and the guitar was discarded. We had packed everything from wet wipes to an extra distributor cap and were much more than prepared. Everything went smoothly until we realized that a cyclist was overtaking us (might be due to half an engine worth of spare parts which we do not have a clue to use). The bakkie was now officially baptized Pandora: open it and all hell pops out, not to be easily leashed again. For this reason we decided that everyone should stay in the same clothes and forget about their cleansing routines until our first camp in Mozambique.

We now resembled something from transkei; overloaded, cramped, slow and very excited. Every now and then the Frenchman, Partice, would emit a yowl of: “Road trip! Wee!” We still do not know if it was “wee” or “oui”, but we went along with it and this excitement lasted for about 10km before we decided we needed coffee. This was going to be long trip…

And indeed it was. (Tip: for making the border in one shot you will need an ample behind and strong heart for mainlining red bull). Thirty hours later we arrived at the border and if we still had adequate functioning of our legs, we probably would have bent down and kissed Mozambican soil. We made it through the border control easily enough (not too fazed about passport control but terrified of them opening Pandora and being maimed by a stray sleeping bag).

PONTO DA OURO

As it is when you reach any foreign country, we put inevitably put our: this-is-much-cooler-because-we-are-in-a-different-country-sunglasses. Even the grass past the border was greener. We headed for Ponto da Ouro with beautiful little huts, plenty little kiddies demanding sweets and not one of our national flowers (the plastic bag) in sight. Ponto da Ouro has quite a nice campsite. It’s on the beach with electricity and warm water most of time. We pitched our tents and treated ourselves to some seafood and the local drink; rum and sparletta. The local rum, Tipo Tinto, is not to be taken lightly and the sparletta thankfully disguises the taste.

Sleeping 5 people in one tent is a delicate operation and snorers and flailers lose some popularity. We rarely had problems with mosquitos, but this might be accredited either with the sea breeze or the fact that we applied enough mozzie-repelant to kill anything within a 1km radius and enough garlic to scare Dracula.

We now had two dogs dubbed “Dingo” and “Dingaan” following us religiously. Everywhere you go you will find a miniature ridgeback type dog or two which adopt you for the length of your stay. They don’t beg for or steal food and protect you from “strangers”. It’s hard to tell whether it is for our protection or their own that they latch on since they seem to be treated more like dogs than man’s best friend in Mozambique. They get bliksemated by the locals (one of the many new words taught to us by Patrice).

We spent our days attempting to surf (beginners), surfing (santjie), and kiting (Patrice, Santjie and Katie). Patrice had some good and some not so good luck with the wind here. On our second day there he found some side-shore wind around the point, which eddied when he came around it. We were sitting on the beach opening our sundowner 2M (the local beer) watching Patrice when his kite dropped with tangled lines about a km out, behind the reef. Luckily for him, his ozone kite has what he calls the first “oh sh!!-device”. These are handles on both end of the kite to hook your feet and hands in and be blown to shore. After about an hour and many shark repelling prayers, he arrived about 3 km down the beach with everything in tact. We decided a “frio cerveja” was in order to celebrate and sat down to watch the beautiful sunset. Although you cannot actually see the sun set from there, the light has a beautiful soft quality like striking colours after rain. 

Of all our minor injuries we were to get on the trip (foot cut on reef, stubbed toe, sunburn, etc) the cheerful prognosis from doctor-on-board Thomas was “we’ll have to amputate”. We decided to find a second opinion upon retuning to SA.

MAPUTO

The road to Maputo through Catembe is not good and took us about 3hrs/100km. We were stopped at a control point for our first encounter with the “Polizai” and asked for our papers. You then need to produce your third party insurance purchased at the border and you custom clearance. Apparently we had forgotten to get the custom clearance. This produced a big smile from the official, a threat that we would have to reverse back to the border (more than a day with Pandora) followed by the announcement: “Now its time for my bribe”. We left plus papers and minus R100 and by then were apparently “their brothers”. We wanted to take a photo with them but he pointed to a satellite dish in the background and shook his head. We figure they are either planning world domination or forgot to pay their TV license.

We looked out for Elephants, but only saw huge dung beetles. These we proceeded to inspect closely and fled when they launched an air attack.

Our second pull-over by the police the official asked for my license and eyed my wallet instead. When he saw there was no cash he promptly started a soliloquy on how he “transpire” all day in his uniform jersey. He had a nodding audience who didn’t understand a word but laughed, “oh” and “ah’d” on cue. When he finished his account of sweating in Mozambique he promptly waved us on. “Toto Bem!”.

Arriving at Catembe the looming City of Maputo with its skyscrapers stands out across the water like a bolt from the blue after only seeing huts and informal settlements since South Africa. Taking the ferry from Catembe to Maputo cuts out about…..km and possibly quite a few road blocks. At Catembe we met a local named Nono. He has a car rental business and when he heard we were from Cape Town quickly became our best friend and guide (Many thanks to the Capetonians who showed him a good time in Long street!). He offered to take us to Fatima’s, the backpackers we were heading to and thank goodness for that! There are very few street signs and very many hell drivers. Everyone seems to play chicken at the intersections. It seems that if you don’t look to your left or right, the cars won’t hit you. On the way to Fatima’s Nono made a stop along the road, bought us 5 2M (the local beer) and offered to make us hamburgers at his flat. At this stage we were getting the feeling that he might be moz-mafia and weren’t sure whether he wanted friends or sweat-shop workers so we gratefully accepted the beer and politely declined the food. He took us to Fatima’s and showed us an ATM where our debit cards would work.

We started drinking beer with the Fatima’s Manager, Moi from Madagascar. Nono left us and promised to join us for dinner at Café del Sol. At Fatima’s we found a diverse collection of Aussies, Americans ect. But since none of them looked particularly happy, we decided to stay only one night in Maputo. Fatima’s taxi was muito expensive, so Nono offered to pick us up. Little did we know that it was one of Nono’s many girlfriends’ birthday. Understandably, she was not happy about piling five semi-inebriated strangers into the car for her romantic dinner. We placated her by promising a good time in Cape Town and buying her a strong cocktail.

Katie and I distorted ourselves into invisible passengers. Patrice assured us that we did not want to see what was going on and judging by the speed of lights zipping past, he was right. Half way to the restaurant a cop tried to flag us down, flailing a flashlight in the air. Nono promptly threw up his hands, drove straight through and swore at the cop:”Its dangerous to make someone stop at this speed!” (five times the speed limit). At Costa del sol, we unfolded ourselves from the vehicle and ordered some cheap wine to calm our nerves. Apparently Nono pays a yearly fee of $150 to be something called a “sponsor” which makes you immune to fines. (We call it organized bribery).

A huge seafood platter and muito garlic bread later we realized that lambada-ing the night away was not an option. We headed back to our beds. 

Getting out of Maputo is quite an accomplishment. We stopped twice to ask for directions and received excited Portuguese rambling accompanied by hand gesture to make it more intelligible. Driving in what is obviously quite a dodgy area, we were pulled over by a lady cop. She had a pen and paper ready and a huge smile on her face. This we have learned to recognize as an expensive sign. But before she could say a word, Patrice asked for directions and charmed the hell out of her. At last we got something that we could work with: “Rotunda right, Rotunda left”. This is the second official we asked for “Maluana” (the next town) and we must have sounded like drunks asking for dagga. Out of Maputo, the wind is picking up and Patrice is getting excited!

We have now learnt three ways to avoid a fine:

1. Drive too fast to stop, throw your hands up in the air and look at them like they are crazy, dangerous fools. This is unfortunately not possible with Pandora since they could probably just jog up along side us.

2. Ask for directions & pretend to understand what they are saying. Always smile, nod and look perplexed at the same time. It confuses the hell out of them.

3. Ask them how they are doing in broken Portugese/English/French. When they realize you are concerned about their general well being, they are more than willing to elaborate and forget to fine. Again smile, nod and look concerned.

Initiate all communications with: “Toto bem?”

Another handy tip is to drive during siesta time. No cop is keen to give up his break time. One pulled us over them decided we were too much effort and waved us on without a word. The official at the control point in Manica tried very hard not to see us drive by.

XAI-XAI

We decided to spend the night in Xai-Xai. The guidebook tells about rituals with chicken blood in the tidal pool as a cleansing ritual, so we were apprehensive from the get go. Driving into Praia de Xai-Xai, about 20 km from Xai-Xai, we were stopped by a frantic local jumping up and down in front of our car shouting “Big problem! Big problem!”. After 10 min of incoherent offers to take us to the campsite, we finally found out what the problem was; someone was dead in the road up ahead, but not to worry, ”I sort it out.” He promptly stumbled on to the back of the bakkie and commanded us to drive. After some delicate persuasion bearing in mind his aggressive, drug enhanced attitude, we got him to dismount we went on our way, tired, yearning for paradise. Instead, we found the perfect location for a horror movie where unsuspecting tourists get picked off one by one. (we started wondering if they used tourist blood in their rituals, especially after seeing three very happy chickens). After driving around for twenty minutes finding a broken down hotel we were sure was used in “Hostel” and a creepy church on a hill with inca-like steps leading up to it, we had all worked ourselves up to the point where we were filming our own little blair-witch home movie.

We then realized that half the reason for the creepiness was siesta but decided not to stick around for when the town comes awake with zombies called moses (all the locals here seemed to be called moses).  

After much debating between the horror fans who would surely be picked off first and the sensible, sure to be survivors who do not check out strange sounds in the bushes, we reached a compromise. We decided that even though we had a 50% chance of making it out alive (again imagination played a big role) we decided to keep going down the coastal road past the camp site to see where it leads. So we started off with the couple of locals who could bear sunlight without turning to dust staring at us with what we thought were hungry smiles.

A couple of k’s up the sand road, we were glad we continued. Two little treasures called Montego bay (pirates point) and Chonguene Resort was our stop over for the night. We stayed in a Lovely hut in Montego which is run by a Pretorian called Quintus. It is still in progress but the bar has been finished of course and Quintus is living proof. He broke his leg while enjoying his newly completed project.

Quintus recommended the Chonguene restaurant (also in progress) and we stumbled about 20 m down the road for dinner after a swim. Here we had twice as much seafood of twice the quality than in Maputo for half the price. We decided to make up for it with massive amounts af cerveja.

Chonguene is a lovely beachfront quaint wooden structure run by lovely people. There is a pool table inside and we decided to play a game or two. Santjie nonchalantly leant against the six pane window between shots (both kind) which promptly fell outward. With the owner laughing at the blushing blond we decided it was time to go and return for breakfast to make up for the window.

After our drive through Xai-Xai, Patrice decided that we had to watch a horror movie on his laptop. He had promised the local guys at Pirates point bar as well and we headed there expecting to find them horribly drunk and keen for a movie. Although the first part was true, we were surprised to find a fair size group of pretorians langarming. They roped us into a couple of turns on the dance floor. Little Pretoria.

Retuning to the chalet, we arranged the beds into a home theatre and watched Planet terror. What a load of incredibly entertaining bulwash. Passers by hearing the collection of screaming and laughing must have wondered…In the morning we awoke early to find freshly baked bread being sold door to door by a local. He gets up at 1 am to bake bread and speaks an impressive amount of languages including: Portugese, Sotho, Zulu, Afrikaans, English and Shawna.

The water at Montego bay is heated by local workers just above the shower block with fire. After a lovely and well priced breakfast of chorizo and cheese omelet’s at Chonguene resort, apologizing again for the window and trying not to break anything else, we were off again.

On the way back to Xai-Xai we were accompanied by the sound of a hole in the exhaust (tubo do escape). After some enquiries at the local police station we were directed to the local auto-mechanic. The directions were as follows: “1 km up the road…lots of cars”. The car-carcasses lying everywhere were easy to spot. Judging by the amount of metal lying everywhere in various stages of decomposition we decided that they must have a healthy amount of welding experience under the belt and for lack of other tenders, handed them the job. 45 min and at least 2 fewer holes later we were on our way for R100. Pandora repara!

North of Xai-Xai the roads take a terribly turn for the worse. Shoulder-less, potholed roads with huge 18-wheeler trucks at top speed. Adding some flavour are little children running randomly into the road and wildly overloaded top-heavy busses. This part of the trip (about 250km) took us 4-5 hrs.

Everywhere on the side of the roads are vendors selling roasted cashews for a song and peri-peri & lemon sauce. The cashews are yum, but the sauce smells very much like turpentine and we planned to sieve it through a pao later.

Approaching Inhambane, the landscape changes dramatically. The soft grass planes of Ponto do Ouro and bushy landscape of Xai-Xai makes way for palm trees. Happiness is…We arrived in Inhambane at about 15:00 and decided to find a campsite at Tofu first and postpone a trip to the market.

Tofu and Tofino were much more commercialized than we expected. Although we were later to find that the market is much nicer than Inhabane’s. The camp site id not directly on the beach and we were surrounded by young travelers eager for a party. Not always a bad thing, but hey we could have done that in cape town. During the day we were welcomed by Israeli’s and during the night were kept awake by a number of inebriated saffi’s discussing the viability of sharing a condom….yuck. Waking up before the rest of the babalaza camp, The kiters went to find wind and greener pastures in which to set up camp and Thoomas and I went to explore the whale-shark snorkling opportunities and lie on the beach. Although the snorkeling sounded amazing (6 whale sharks and 2 hump backs spotted the previous day) it was way over our meager budget.

After a couple of hours, we of course decided it was time for our midday beer! After several hung-over travelers at Fatima’s eyeing us with some interest and pity we found out that it was only 10:30. The sun rises and sets much earlier than in CT. We gulped down the remainder of our beer (waste not-want not), tucked our tail between our legs and decided to join the AA back in SA. Then went back to the camp and poured some rum into our sparletta bottles. Later the others returned with good tidings; they had found paradise and we should pack up our camp immediately. After weighing the big tent unpitch-pitch mission against paradise we opted for paradise and we unpitched while the girls went to get supplies at the market.

Every stall sells pretty much the same things: oranges, naartjies, green-peppers, onion, garlic, tomatoes, coconuts and strangely overpriced butternuts. Other stalls sell all kinds of seafood and the rest cigarettes, booze and other essentials such as toilet paper. Although prices seem predetermined, the final prices vary depending on how gullible the customer is and how much competition the stall has. The seafood prices decrease through the day as they are worried that they won’t sell everything and then picks up when they auction off the last prawn to the tourists. Due to our budget we bargained in a big way but were careful not to go too low, some vendors get quite upset and insulted. The people in Mozambique are battling with the bad south-african economy and its easy to feel guilty. But while bargaining we found it helps to say: “In CT we get it cheaper!” and sometimes its even true!

PARADISE

Not far north of Tofu, is Barra reef on the northern point of the Inhambane peninsula. Lots of scuba diving going on here and no camping spots. But we struck a wonderful bargain. A 3 roomed palm-tree leaf roof and reed-wall hut literally on the beach for cheap-cheap. Our back stoep was a seemingly endless stretch of white beach. A beautiful stretch of shore by any standards and almost no people in sight! Relocation was worth it. Arriving here it almost seems as if the previous days were not worth telling about. This was to be our home for the rest of our vacation.

For R50 pp/pn we received electricity, plumbing, fresh pao and fruit delivered to our door every morning, free house cleaning and location, location, location! (So what the roof didn’t work and there was no furniture)

Most nights we made a little (or when the polymere scientist was involved, a huge) fire and sat on our stoep, the beach, next to our pool, the sea. The next morning we were up an’ at ‘em early and found no less than 10 dows in our pool! They seem to work together two two to spread the fishing net between them. Otherwise they use one boat with some men on the shore pulling the other end. Patrice made some conversation with them and quickly got roped into pulling along quite literally. They put the loops in the rope attached to the net around their bodies to pull.