Mozambique - Part 1

So early in the morning I boarded the bus to Maputo, Mozambique. As far as some of the buses I've seen so far in Africa this was by far not the worst, but it has seen better days. All in all, I thought that for a 10 hour trip it would more than suffice. The only real drawback was that the air conditioning didn't really work all that well, so it might be a bit uncomfortable seeing as it was quite a hot day.

After several hours we crossed into Swaziland, as that was the most direct route from Durban to Maputo. Of course, this meant that we would have to go through customs 4 times during the course of the trip, which probably accounted for 6 of hours of the 10 hour trip. Once in Swaziland, it was good to see that since the last time I passed through, it hasn't stopped raining. That was almost 2 months ago.

At first, this was quite a welcomed change from the heat in South Africa. But almost as if the powers that be heard my sigh of relief, the rain started coming down harder and harder, to the point where it was practically torrential. By this time, we didn't care that the air-conditioning in the bus was on the fritz, we were more worried about the fact that water was leaking into the bus from everywhere and a small river was beginning to flow in the space below our seats, changing direction and speed depending on whether we were accelerating or breaking.

By the time we got to Maputo in the late afternoon, the rain had mostly stopped. Not that it really mattered since all our luggage - which was in the holding bay below Bus River - was soaked. The most we could hope for was that the clothes buried deep in the packs would still be relatively dry, and in fact this was the case. As for the rest of the stuff, We would have to dry it out before it turned into a mouldy mushroom farm, but since the humidity was about 90% and the sky overcast, it seemed it best to let nature take it's course while at the same time do my share to help the burgeoning laundry industry in this country by paying someone else to wash the dank mess afterwards.

As I mentioned in the previous email, Mozambique is a Portuguese-speaking country, and for that all you Portuguese in the audience have a lot to answer for! Why the hell is Monday called "pegunda-feira"? Why isn't it, as one would assume "prima-feira"? Even more importantly, why isn't there a "prima-feira" at all? And saying "prima-feira" is actually Sunday, is not an acceptable answer, because Sunday is called something else.

Not to be overly critical, but look at the other European languages. All the romance languages implied some higher meaning into the days of the week by naming them after Roman deities. Even the French, who do nothing like anybody else just to show their French - as if we couldn't tell from a personal hygiene regiment that consists of a sole weekly shower - followed this tradition.

OK, maybe naming the days after Gods who were notorious for random killing sprees and shagging their own mothers, sisters, daughters, etc. doesn't quite fit into the Portuguese psyche, there were still the Norse gods used in northern European languages. If that still doesn't suite your fancy, you can name the days after Aztec Gods, Hindu Gods, the colours of the rainbow, species of lichen, types of stains...anything! Anything at all would be an improvement to numbering them! But even if this isn't possible, how about at the very least starting with day number 1?

I personally believe that the revolution that took place in Mozambique had less to do with atrocities committed by the Portuguese colonialist government or the human need for self-determination, than it was sheer anger of having to listen to the surrounding countries laugh at their calendar. Had they not pre-ordered all their calendars until the year 2050, I'm sure they would have changed to a more manageable language by now.

Once in Maputo, I decided I should take a walk around to see all the city has to offer. About 10 minutes later I was pretty much done, when, of course, it started to rain. So I made my way to the Franco-Mozambiquan centre, which was by far one of the nicer places in the city, with a pleasant cafe and English and French periodicals and newspapers available for everyone to read. It seems strange for France to do this, since this was a Portuguese colony, but I saw it in Namibia as well, which once belonged to Germany.

I think it's an official part of French foreign policy to go into former colonies of other European countries and build lavish buildings aimed at "cultural exchange", but in essence is just their way of saying "See, if you were our colony, everything would be like this! Not only that, but you only have to shower once a week! Remember that the next time you want to be a colony again" Of course, in their own former colonies, rather than build grand edifices to peaceful understanding, they send the Foreign Legion to kill everyone.

The next day, I decided to go north to Tofo, which has beautiful beaches, the warm Indian Ocean and supposedly some of the best diving in the world. It was another 10 hour bus journey, and when I saw the bus, I started to dream nostalgically of that palace on wheels complete with its own river which brought me to Maputo in the first place. Well, the bus did not break down or crash into anything due to lack of brakes. Nor did it spontaneously combust, but that was probably due to the fact that it was raining more than anything else. It was a bit late in arriving at the destination, but in essence it was not that uncomfortable a ride. On arriving at the bus station in Inhubame, which for some reason always came out as "inhumane" when I said it, I was taken to the backpackers in the back of a Land rover, where I
shared some standing room with 4 other people, 6 cases of beer, food and a huge barrel of diesel fuel which occasionally spilled onto the person in front of me. Not that that stopped her from smoking, though.

The backpackers was made up of an assortment of reed huts. The huts were separated from the sea by large dunes, so that it was only when arriving at the bar/restaurant built on the dune that one could see the ocean. The beach was quite nice and several kilometres long. Apart from a couple of tourists in the water and maybe a few locals walking, it was empty. I found this quite unnerving since beaches are usually teeming with life unless there is something wrong with the place...like sharks. But there didn't seem to be any when I threw the dog in (just kidding...the dog was way to heavy) and after a while of swimming alone and sitting on the beach without having everybody and their brother try to sell you something that neither you nor they would obviously want, it became quite enjoyable.

One of the attractions of Tofo is the chance to go snorkelling with whale sharks. The group that went before us saw 3 or 4 of them and were able to swim with them for over an hour. The group after me, same thing. And when I went out...we saw a marlin. Well part of a marlin fin, at least we convinced ourselves that that’s what it was. We basically did a 2 hour cruise on a zodiac with 9 other people, most of the time looking into the water trying to spot them, even though we had no idea what to look for. Finally we did go snorkelling just for the hell of it. I saw a jelly-fish and some sponges...it would have been easier to just hang around the fish market!