Rough, Remote, Rewarding Mozambique

This post is dedicated to the country of Mozambique. What a rough ride it was the last 3 weeks after we left Blantyre, Malawi. Linda felt a bit sick during our 3 days in Blantyre especially because she took a Malaria 3 day treatment. However the Malaria test was negative but later on we found out that she did have it, later in this blog I will come back to it.

What we heard of Mozambique is that it would be rough to cross it but well worth it. The infrastructure in the country would be bad and time should be taken for getting to places. Also the poverty would be more visible than in the places we have seen so far. Our plan: straight to the white beach and from the border this was about 350km. We crossed the first 200 km in more then 4 hours, thanks to the shitty dirt roads and broken up tar roads. Arrived in Quelimane late in the afternoon and we experienced our first big Mozambican city. Many of the buildings were collapsed or stripped from anything useful, this in combination with tarred streets with potholes the size of golf bunkers and up to sometimes a meter deep. An image of a war zone.
As we learned more about the history of the country, we found out about the once so pretty Colonial houses of the Portuguese era. About 40 years ago many Portuguese had to leave almost over night after the Independence and fleeing for the civil war that followed. Their houses were never renovated but left to decade for the next decades to come.

The next day we got to feel the Caribbean like style of Mozambican life. Strange to suddenly hear Portuguese instead of English in the countries that we crossed already. The diesel price was less then a dollar, the Coco nuts 2,5 € cent and the Pao (small bread) amazing.
After asking around about nice places to stay at the coast we heard about a small fishing village called Penbane, where we could camp. Six hours driving brought us at this nice small place, and with luck a white guy stopped behind us and recognized the South African car. He told us that the camp site was not operating at the time but we could stay at his lodge at the beach.
We happily accepted his offer and we could use a beach lodge's bathroom next to our camping spot. The lodge was especially for people who flew in with small planes and stayed in the luxurious lodge for a few days, when we were there nobody else was. Five days of relaxing on an huge empty beach began. The managers Chris and Lyn were very helpful and made our stay unforgettable.

Our next destination Ilha de Mozambique about 400 km north of Penbane and as this is northern remote Mozambique it took us 3 days to get there. From Chris we heard that crossing it driving parallel to the coast wouldn't be possible as a bridge was missing at one point. From others we heard that it was possible so we just went and see. At night we camped in the wild as we couldn't find a campsite, a nice experience I thought, Linda hated it. At the river crossing we heard that it was not possible but with a small detour of a kilometre we would be able to, 2 guys came with us in the car and showed us the way through a forest of palm trees on a small footpath (and this all with our Beast, you should have seen it) We ended up at the river mouth with many people crossing the river by foot. As the 2 guys showed me the way through the water I drove about 150 meters through water sometimes almost a meter deep, Linda recording everything on video. Incredible experience!

In Angoche we planned to stay a night. Life here in Mozambique goes really slowly, not much happens in the villages we crossed. If the infrastructure wouldn't be so bad, many lives of the people here would look much different then it is now.
About Africa... as very few have a car or bike, you see many people walk or cycle. Huge distances are crossed and many women carry the most remarkable things on their head. From buckets of water, boxes of eggs, to meters of fire wood just anything! In Angoche we saw a guy walking with a tv on his head (and I ain't talking about a small one, check the photos!)

Arrived at the bridge of Ilha de Mozambique we camped at a nice spot next to it. The island has much history as the Portuguese landed here about 200 years ago. As I thought that the island would be a bit more developed and houses renovated, it looked just like the other cities in the country with some big buildings in better condition then the rest but many falling apart. Still an impression could be sketched of how it looked like 40 years ago.

After 2 days we travelled further north to Pemba, a nice beach village were Linda got here Open Water diving certificate in 4 days. I did 2 dives as well and it was already 5 years ago when I did my last dive in Australia. A nice quiet camp site accommodated us for the time being. Linda felt a fever coming up and for precaution she took a blood test, after 15 minutes waiting the receptionist told us with a smile on her face ''Yeah you have it'' (like it would be strange if she wouldn't have it), Linda almost panicking asking her 3 times ''I have it!!??'' After consultation with the doctor there and 2 more precise test the doctor told her that she had it in Malawi 2 weeks ago but now the blood test just showed that it was still in her blood but not harming her and she would be Malaria free for the next 3 months to come he said, a relief.
We asked many people about the border crossing possibilities with Tanzania as it could be a challenge to get over the river Ruvuma with a car. This was the situation: there are 3 border crossings which we considered; 1 bridge close to Malawi (as we were at the coast it was 800 km from us on shitty roads), 1 bridge was being build 200 km from the coast (but from some we heard that the bridge wouldn't be operating yet so we decided to take option number 3. The closest one was a ferry crossing but because the ferry sunk 1,5 years ago we heard about that it was possible to put the car on 3 small boats tied together and they would take us across the half a kilometre wide river for around 200$ !!!.
In Ilha de Mozambique we met a German guy on a motor bike who also wanted to take that crossing so we decided to risk it. The ride to the border was sometimes rough, with quite some sand paths and we saw our friend Martin fall 3 times with his bike, harmless but hilarious. We arrived too late to cross that day because the tide was to low so we camped next to the border police of Mozambique, after bribing the cops for about 35 euro (as it was officially not possible to get the car over) our bargaining began for getting across to Tanzania. The boats men started with a ridiculous price of 650$ for the bike and car. We got it down to 220$ and left finally after waiting for 5 hours that next day on the most remarkable crossing I have ever seen. Three small fishing boats tied together with 2 motors bringing us with the car on top with many detours avoiding sandbanks and islands in the river, in the half an hour journey we saw many hippos swimming by. Check out the photos and movie on my photo site.
An amazing end to our Mozambique adventure.

Photo: http://picasaweb.google.nl/jcopray

At the moment I am already close to the border of Kenya and the last 2 weeks in Tanzania I will write in my next post.

Hope everything is fine with you all.