Mozambique

Crossing the boarder into Mozambique from Milange, was fairly uneventful except for the boarder official trying to charge us US$50 for a visa. We eventually negotiated this down to US$25. Boarders are like that; officials will try to extract some extra cash from those who don’t know any better. This is Africa and once you learn what you need, what you don’t need, what documents you can falsify it is easier and cheaper. The one thing common to all travellers is that everyone makes mistakes, everyone gets ripped off at some point and everyone would be smarter the second time.

The road from the boarder to Mocuba is a slow dirt road that takes about six hours. Along the way it is amazing the contrast between rural Mozambique and rural Malawi. The Malawi side consists of tea plantations as far as you can see, broken only by cloud covered hills and mountains. As soon as you cross the boarder, there appears nothing in Mozambique except for small-scale subsistence farming, mud huts and the occasional chicken. The country is still littered with bombed out old colonial buildings left over from the Portuguese times. They have become run down and derelict. Rather than rebuild them, most local prefer to build a series of small mud huts around them, condemning these once grand old buildings to crumbling monuments of days gone by.

Arriving in Mocuba nearing nightfall, we soon discovered that there was nowhere to stay apart from a small pension with unsecured street parking. We tried to camp in the grounds of the local church, but by the time we could have gained permission form the priest and the various police officials, we would have spent many hours on in the dark in quickly uncrowded streets; not an appealing prospect when you realise that it looked as though the war had only ended in this part on Mozambique a few days before our arrival.

The decision was made to head out of town and try to camp in a local village. Rain had begun to set in and the roads were fast becoming a series of interconnected mud pools. Several kilometres from town we found a fenced industrial site that housed machinery and workers who were undertaking the slow process of constructing a tar road to Nampula, a few hundred kilometres away. After much negotiating, waiting and rapidly fading light we were allowed in to pitch tents amongst the machinery and road plant. It was one of the most surreal places that we have stayed so far on this trip. We fell asleep in our roof top tent to the sound of constant rain. The roads would be fun in the morning, no doubt.

The rain gave us a chance to test out our ARB roof top tent. It handled the rain very well with no leaks. The only thing to be careful of is because the sides are canvas, don’t stuff anything hard against these sides, otherwise in the morning it will be damp. This is true of any canvas tent. That said we are very happy with our tent and now prefer to sleep in the tent rather than in a room or pension.

The next day we awoke to more rain and grey skies with the inevitable muddied roads. We spent much of the day negotiating various sections of diversions through villages, water and mud, potholes and semi constructed roads before we reached Nampula. We then headed straight for Ilha de Mozambique an old slave trading island and now world heritage site. The island itself is very run down, but enough remains to leave one with the realisation that this would have been a thriving colonial hub in its heyday. Unfortunately, from an architectural perspective, those days seem long gone which is a real shame. A rejuvenated and restored Mozambique Island would make a great tourist attraction. The streets are very quite and lack the colourful hustle and bustle of a vibrant trading town.

We hit the road again and headed for Nacala, an uninspiring port town en route to Fernao Velso several kilometres along the coast. Here we stayed at Bay Dive, a very nice place with camping and chalets run by a South African couple. Most people that stay here are there for the scuba diving. Both the diving and snorkelling around Bay Dive is quite good, not world class, but a good honest fun spot. The big plus for this place is that you are removed from the hassle for money and tourist souvenirs that surrounds you when you stay at most tourist spots.

We then took a short cut to Pemba via Minguri/Memba and the 106. Pemba is a local resort town that is somewhat uninspiring as far as coastal resort towns go. The true beauty of this part of the Mozambique coast is away from the big towns and more in the smaller local town. It is a beautiful area relatively untouched by tourism, which is its beauty and also its difficulty in travelling through here. Unfortunately it appears as if this peace has only a few years before development and mass tourism discovers northern Mozambique and changes it probably for the worst.

In Pemba we stayed at Russel’s Place, a small campsite a short drive from town. Although quiet, it is a good place to relax before heading north. Russel is incredibly helpful and is a wealth of information for those travelling independently though this part of Mozambique.

We headed to Quissanga and left our car to head across to Ibo Island for a few days. An hour boat ride we arrived on Ibo, much wetter than we had left the mainland. Ibo is a small island that is fast being taken over by expensive lodges. The only budget accommodation is the local pension and a few home stays with local families. We elected for the local experience and stayed with a local family. You soon learn that the ‘local experience’ is usually not well organised, confusing and typically African. However, all the frustrations aside it is a great experience and a good way to meet local people, stay with them and sample some of the local food, even if Ibo seems to have very little food. The restaurant in town does not have food unless you order your evening meal in the morning. We went there in the afternoon, were presented with an extensive menu of which the only thing available was fish. When we asked what sort of fish, the owner said "come, I show you". We were taken out the back and shown a small metal bucket with two small fish and several dozen flies in the bottom. "See we have fish". His beaming smile soon vanished when we walked out the door.

Ibo is probably going to change in the near future. There are many foreigners buying property and slowly restoring old ruins in the expectation of a wave of rich tourists. In several years there will probably be brightly coloured houses, restaurants, pubs and expensive hotels. A sad fact of commercial tourist development these days I suppose.

We had to quickly get on the road as we planned to make it to Pangane before nightfall. We arrived just after nightfall along a rough sandy track that threaded its way through the hundreds of coconut trees that litter the area. We set up camp several metres form the beach and enjoyed a luke-warm semi cold beer. We awoke to a beating sun (they need daylight savings here) and what we imagined paradise to look like. There was a cool breeze that gently swayed the coconut trees, white sand and blue ocean. It would take us several days before we would be able to bring ourselves to leave this place. It was the most beautiful place that we had stayed in Mozambique and is a real life paradise. We enjoyed the views, the tranquillity and freshly caught crayfish for lunch (4 crayfish cost around US $3 in total, not each)

It was only the realisation that we had a few days to make it to the boarder otherwise changing tides would strand us at the boarder that provided the motivation to leave Pangane. It is a paradise; so don’t go there so it gets spoilt. No one go there, leave it alone…unfortunately in a few years it will be a place of resorts and rich fly in tourists, a sad fact of life. At least we saw it while it was still relatively untouched.

We set out early on what we found to be the worst roads in Mozambique. Tar joined up dozens of potholes to form what might be described as a road. The going was slow but strangely enjoyable. We reached Palma late in the afternoon. Palma will never feature in a Mozambique tourist commercial, and faced with this realisation we figured we would use our last hour of light to drive towards the boarder where it would be undoubtedly safer and quieter.

A soft sand track slowed our progress and we made it as far as a missionary’s house. He was from south Africa and was trying to convert the almost totally Muslim population to Christianity. His success rate was not good, as he had only converted two people in two years. Still he allowed us to camp under one of the biggest Mango trees we have ever seen.

Up early the next morning we made it to the boarder post. It was actually harder to leave Mozambique than to enter it. The paperwork was slow and we actually had our car searched for the first time on the trip. Once through the boarder we thought we would be in Tanzania within a few hours. We were so wrong.

To get to Tanzania here you need to cross a river on a run down 10tonne ferry that only runs at high tide. We got to the river and waited for the tides. Several attempts to phone the captain of the ferry finally had us due to be picked up at 4pm. We waited and then upon having no sight of the ferry were told that it would not come for us until 6am the next morning. With no choice we camped where we stood on the riverbank, looking across to Tanzania and a lightening storm raging in the distance.

To keep the Mosquitos away, Antonio and I built a fire and using the emergency supplies of beer that we had in the fridge, were torn between watching the fire, the lightening or the shooting stars. What a life hey.

The next morning at dawn we saw the ferry in the distance making its way to pick us up. We frantically packed up camp just as it reached the shore in front of us, leaning badly to one side and with only one engine working. The first crewman jumped onto the riverbank with a rope to secure the ferry to discover that I had burnt the pole to tie the boat up in the fire the previous night. This caused a panic onboard as the captain tried to hold the boat steady while the crew frantically urged us to get on board as we only had a few moments before we drifted off the riverbank. We shot down the steep bank and onto the ferry in a matter of minutes, deciding we would park to one side in a vain effort to balance the listing ferry. We had finally left Mozambique and would soon be in Tanzania. We have a day in our passports where we have no stamp. We checked out of Mozambique and spent a night in no-mans-land before we were able to enter Tanzania. The same thing happened on my first trip when I left Malawi and was unable to get into Tanzania. What is this trying to say about what might lay ahead? Only time will tell.

Total distance travelled to date: 12,590km

Visa for Mozambique USD $25pp

Car Insurance AUD $28

Mozambique diesel cost per litre AUD $1.45

Cray Fish AUD $1each

Pawpaw AUD $0.40/kg