This is it, This is me!: Living, Loving, Leaving Mozambique

Maputo, Mozambique has always held a particular fascination with me from the azure waters and the white sandy beaches I've seen on television. Its always been the one place I'd wanted to experience.
This year, I wrote down my top ten list of destinations I'd love to visit, Maputo was in the top three.

The opportunity availed itself at the end of the year, 2010 was tinged with sorrow for me and I needed a space to offload all the emotional baggage.
For my birthday, in December, I decided I'd take the leap and go for my dream holiday.
I told my friend, who's an intrepid traveller himself of the plan, and he agreed. We planned, I got the dates, and prices,. But I ended up going solo.
I don't mind the going solo part, it affords you to have that one-on-one interaction with life, and people. I was interested to see how they would react to me as a South African.
S.A has a tarnished image because of the xenophobic attacks perpetrated against its own African folk!

And here I was going to a country which didn't have English as one of its official languages, so communication was bound to be a barrier. That didn't deter me at all, just piqued my interest for this exotic beauty.

My journey to Mozambique was spoilt by Intercape bus carrier. The bus was supposed to depart Park Station, Johannesburg at 8 in the morning.
Do you think it did? No. Was I surprised? No.
I saw it as a trend, in November I was travelling from P.E to Cape Town and the bus was 2hours late.
This time it was 4 hours late, it left after 12 noon. People threw tantrums all around me, all I could do was just calmly wait for this bus coz nothing was going to dampen my mood for this trip to Moz.

I caught on a few zzz's on the way there. We got to the border post and deboarded the bus. Ivan, my Mozambican compatriot, had told me to purchase a Mozambican sim card, that's what I did when we crossed over the border.
The guy had the audacity to charge R20 for one, I was like "WTF- it's only R1 in S.A." He gave it for R10, and that's the going rate at the border.

Vodacom banner at border post

We got onto the bus and drove into Mozambique, lit-up factory buildings sped past, and the cars on the busy road.

Our first stop was in Matola, at a small Intercape office, I thought, "Is this it? Is this Maputo?" I breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn't. The bus continued towards the real Maputo.

Intercape office, Matola

We passed township areas, and it shocked me a bit- quite a lot, actually, that people were strolling the streets. By now the time was after nine pm, towards 22h00. The buses were crammed full of passengers at this time, still.

We drove through the toll gate into Maputo city, and drove to the Intercape where we disembarked.

Maputo toll gate

I collected my bag from the luggage compartment and got a taxi to the Base Backpackers.
The driver said R30, I took it. We drove down the road, made a left turn and then went back up the next road.

Take the left turn into Avenida Salvador Allende to get to the Base backpackers in Avenida Julius Nyerere. 5 minutes away, no need for taxi!

We got to the Base Backpackers, and the first barrier in communication occurred when I was asked whether I had a reservation. But I heard the word reservation and responded accordingly, then they let me in.
I put my bags down on my bed, charged my fones and had a conversation with the security at the gate- his broken English and my broken Portuguese! I needed airtime for my fone to call Ivan, the security guy pointed me to some guys on the corner.
Then, that's where the biggest communication barrier occurred. I didn't have the Rand-Metical exchange rate, I was being careful of being bamboozled. He said R10, I gave it to him.
He tried to get me to give him R20, I wasn't having any of that , I left. Back at the Base I rang up Ivan, he said he's coming. Again I was surprised that he's coming to the city from the township at this time.
While I waited for Ivan, the airtime guy returned asking for another R10, we got another security guard who understood English. We finally got a resolution, I understood and paid the R10 with no qualms. 100 meticals airtime = R20.

Ivan arrived, and we walked around the city streets. Some of the roads had cracks, potholes, and large chunks of tar missing. It looked like a city that recently came out of war. The buildings looked grimy and on the brink of crumbling.

One of the buildings in better condition on Avenida 24 de Julho

As we walked further into the city centre, the conditions changed, and by the time we reached the area near the beach I had to wonder whether we'd crossed into a different town. The conditions improved as you neared the beachfront.

I was tired by now, we splashed around the surf, danced a bit and sat. We took the xappa back to town and I got my sleep at the Base.

Chappa/Xappa

I was weary to walk on my own the next day, as I had picked up somewhere that there was pick-pockets lurking around. No one bothered me at all, the police patrolled on open back bakkies, armed with heavy rifles and the security guards were visible on the streets.