Mozambique

We are on the last bus out of Maputo towards the border town of Naamahasha. The man next to me who is about 1/3 into his bottle of rum tells me, in very, very broken English, that we will be there in 45 minutes. I look down at my watch. If all goes according to plan we will be at the border gate at 7:30-7:45, giving us just enough time to rush through the customs and be on the last bus leaving Lomahasha around 8 and be back to Mpaka around 9.

I am sitting on top of the increasingly hot radiator in a 15-passenger bus, which is currently holding about 19, wondering if it is true what they say about holding a laptop in your lap. This isn’t even packed for Mozambique standards. In fact, this is downright spacious compared to the clown car theatrics of the conductor hanging out the door we experienced in Maputo. After a lengthy argument at a filling station between the driver and passengers, plus an unplanned pee break by the side of the road, our precious 15-minute window of time is slowly dwindling. We have been in the khumbi for about 30 minutes when we approach a sign saying 37 Kilometers to Naamahasha. “You see! 45 minutes!” the man next to me says. I shoot a furtive look back to Addy sitting a row behind me. This could be the most awesome, or stupidest thing we have ever done in our three years of marriage.

Arriving in Naamahsha the crowds are so thick that our driver has to lay on the horn and swerve around people to reach any sort of clear road. It is 7:55. I slip the driver a 50 Metacais tip and he floors it to the border post. We jump out, grab all of our stuff and get through the Mozambiquan side (to the protest of the staff) by 7:58. A guard lets us through the gate and we approach a darkened building on the other side of the razor wire adorned fence. The Swaziland border has decided to knock off a few minutes early. No one answers our calls through the fence. We are stuck in limbo between Mozambique and Swaziland. The guard locks us in and slowly walks away.  After some serious protesting, he lets us back into Mozambique and walk dejectedly into the fray of religious worshipers and revelers. It is Dios de Santa Maria. The biggest Catholic holiday in Southern Mozambique. There must be 10,000 people in this small Colonial town. The devout are walking around with candles with icons of the Virgin Mary, while car speakers are blaring out Pantsula and Top 40 Hip Hop.  All the hotels are booked. We looked at each other and without vocalizing it say, “Ok, what now?” 

 And that is how we spent the last night of our three year wedding anniversary get-away to Mozambique. That is how we spent the best vacation of our lives.

Let’s backtrack.

We have been planning a trip to Inhaca Island, a small island off the coast of Maputo, Mozambique, for close to a year. After GLOW, counterpart trainings, etc…We were finally ready to go. We left Tuesday morning and rolled into the coastal city of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital and biggest city, around mid-day. Maputo is a big city with a distinctly African, yet charmingly European feel. Colonial forts, parks and cafes mingle with slums and sprawling markets of hawkers selling knock off clothes brands, crafts and gadgets. Maputo is, so far, my favorite city in Africa. We had two days to explore its streets, museums, cafes, jazz clubs and fish markets. We originally planned on staying a night at the local backpackers, but after hearing inflated quotations on how pricy it was, and reports of bed bugs, we decided to stick to the city. We found a nice, old hotel in the heart of downtown, which charged us about the same price as the backpackers, but with much better location. The hotel is called Hotel Tamariz for anyone looking to travel to Maputo. Fair warning – the shower water is cold. 

We only planned on spending one day in Maputo. Ferries run to Inhaca Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday only. We had heard that you could charter a private boat to the island any day of the week. We were wrong. The only option to take us there on Wednesday would have cost 6,000 Mets. The extra day was a blessing in disguise. We took along 50 $ USD and were able - after spending two hours running around the black market trying to find someone to change it into a crisp 50 dollar bill – to pay for the extra night with money my grandmother sent us. Thanks Grammy!

Our first day in Maputo we took a trip to the Fish Market on the South side of town. An absolute must for anyone traveling there. It works like this. You get out of the cab and about 5 people rush up to you offering to take you through the market. Each owns a restaurant and will cook the fish for you on demand. We were able to hook up with a very friendly and amazing cook named Gaspar. With his help we picked out clams, rock fish and prawns for a pretty reasonable price. He brought us the meal in courses. It was, by far, the best seafood experience of my life. The fish were fresh – we saw the fishermen bring them off their boats across the street – and the experience is unforgettable. 

The next day, after learning the sad fact that we would not be going to Inhaca that day, decided to explore the city. We experienced everything from street side gelato shops and cafes to bustling madness of the hawkers markets. Explored a surprisingly well maintained and beautiful park in the city center all the while eating our way through street vendors selling delicious baguette-style rolls filled with potato latke type things, wors, or prego steak.

Thursday we were finally on our way to Inhaca. The Government ferry there and back is a necessary experience. While not exactly in the best condition cosmetically, it is a sea-worthy vessel, except when it isn’t. Lucky for us it had just been fixed. 

Inhaca island is beautiful beyond words. I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Miles of uninhabited beaches, fishermen catching today’s catch and small restaurants offering mountains of prawns for 300 metacais. We stayed at a backpackers on the island in a tent. It wasn’t the most luxurious of accommodations but it had everything we needed and the staff was very friendly. We spent most of our time exploring the coastline, looking at the marine life through the crystal clear, green Indian Ocean.

On Friday we woke up early and set out on a 10K walk to the lighthouse on the Eastern tip of the island. We hiked the entire thing in bare feet through ankle deep sand. A wrong turn turned a 2 hour walk into a 4 hour walk to the lighthouse. Reaching it was totally worth it.

Inhaca is almost totally surrounded by a coral reef and when the tide is out it is possible to wade out forever until you find water deep enough to at least wade in. Most people on the island try to charge you 800 mets to take you to a small island a few hundred meters off the coast of Inhaca or to the tourist beach on the other side of the island.  Beneath the lighthouse, however, was a perfect stretch of beach, totally uninhabited and perfect for swimming and body surfing. We were fortunate to trust our gut and sense of adventure and explore the island for ourselves.

Our sense of adventure didn’t always work in our favor. On our way back to our campsite, we decided to find a shortcut and walk along the coast.  What we find was seashell/sea urchin/sea monsters covered in mud, and decided to backtrack from whence we came.  This is not the only wrong turn we made during this trip.

We discovered that on Saturday, the day we were planning to leave the island and return to Swaziland, the ferry arrived at 10am but didn’t leave for Maputo until 3pm. Everyone we talked to was doubtful that we could make it to the Swaziland border gate in two hours. We were determined to prove them wrong. Turns out they knew what they were talking about.

It is about 9:00 and we have been wandering around Naamasha trying to find a hotel that has any vacancy. No such luck. As we get closer to the Santa Maria cathedral in the town’s center we are drawn by liturgical chants of the Ave Maria. We witness a ceremony in which the Virgin Mary’s statue is paraded through the town and laid to rest in the cathedral. As we are sucked into the crowd we start to notice tents pitched up all around the town center. Then a crazy thought popped into our heads, “when in Rome, do as the Roman (Catholics)”. We declared ourselves Catholic for the night and pitched our tent near some other campers/pilgrims and slept the night underneath a giant water cistern in the middle of the town center while several thousand Mozambiquan Catholics worshipped and partied around us. It was a fitting conclusion to a celebration of an adventure we started on three years ago. We certainly did not see this as the way we would celebrate. But most everything in our life has been unexpected and amazing. I hope we can many more years of exploring and taking risks.

We crossed the boarder the next morning at 7am and as the relief washed over us once we saw the “Welcome to Swaziland” sign, we declared ourselves home.