Ilha de Mocambique

Enduring the travel across Mozambique really paid off with my time on Ilha de Mocambique (Mozambique Island).
The island had been at the crossroads of trade routes for many years before becoming Portugal's colonial capital, giving it a rich history and diverse population. In fact, it was for the island's ruling sheikh, Moussa ben Mbiki, at the time of the arrival of the Vasco da Gama in 1499 that the country is named. It's a small island, only about 1.5 miles long, and less than 1/2 mile wide. The northern part, known as Stone Town, has more of the old Portuguese buildings while the southern part comprises Makuti village, where the native population has lived through the centuries.
The island has been through its fair share of battles and burnings, and by the early 20th century, Portugal had moved its capital to Maputo, the present capital of Mozambique, and since then the buildings have mostly been allowed to decay. However, there has been some restoration, and beautifully restored buildings stand next to decaying ones.
I was staying in one of the restored ones, with this cool roof lounge.
The northern tip of the island contains the main fort (which I did not enter) and the Church of Nossa Senhora Baluarte, built in 1522, the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere.
Of course, as with everywhere else, the kids were always excited to have their pictures taken.
This girl was dressed up for Eid al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan which occurred while I was here. Most of my time here has been spent just walking around the streets, taking in the atmosphere.
Between my speaking Spanish (admittedly I am probably the only person on the island speaking it) and the look of the buildings here, it's hard to believe I'm still in Africa.
Finally reversing the trend of food quality going downhill, which started probably in Lusaka, but really took off when I got to Mozambique, the food here has been excellent. All the fresh seafood is combined with spicier recipes from years of Arabic and Indian influence. I've been feasting on fish, shrimp, octopus, squid and lobster.
On Sunday, my last day on the island, I took a trip on a dhow sailboat
to the mainland across, where better beaches can be found. The tide was low, and from where we dropped anchor, it was a long walk across the tidal flats, where lots of local fishermen were working, to the mainland. The mainland at this point was a narrow peninsula separating the tidal flats where we had landed from a bay, also of tidal flats and marshes. We walked along the beach on the inside of the peninsula for a while - it was an interesting place, with one side of the beach ending in the marsh, and on the other side cacti and baobab trees. All along were rocks formed from old coral. Eventually we went into the marsh. It is used by the locals as a shortcut rather than going all the way around the peninsula, and crossed by a number of trails through the shallow (at least when we were there) water.
We finally reached our destination, a place called Carrusca, right on the ocean about an hour after we had left the boat. the beach here was beautiful, a wide white sand beach with palm trees growing along it. Here also were a lot of fishermen digging around in the beds of seaweed for I'm not sure what. The water was a perfect temperature. After lunch at the restaurant in Carrusca, we more or less retraced our steps back to the boat for a return sail to Ilha.
After a few relaxing days, I was dreading the prospect of my last Mozambican public transportation experience to go to Pemba, where I would fly home from. But, it turned out not so bad. I had the obligatory 3:30am wakeup to get on the mini-bus, but despite being cramped, it wasn't as uncomfortable as others had been. I had a smooth transfer to a real bus going to Pemba, which was also not too bad, as I was one of the last people to get a seat. I reached Pemba and checked into a hotel on the beach. The beach was ok - pretty, but there were more touts than tourists, and there was constant hassle. I wasn't there for beach time, just to get ready to leave although I did, of course, enjoy my last African sunsets. I traded away some travel supplies I wouldn't need anymore for some local crafts and got ready to leave. A 3 hr or so flight found me in Johannesburg airport, where I am now, waiting to connect to London. So, the African adventure comes to a close...

Across Mozambique

I left Cobue, Mozambique Sunday morning at about 8:30, this after waking up for what the driver had told me would be a 7am departure. I was in the cab of his truck, and he was driving to Metangula, the biggest town on Mozambique's lake shore. The back of the truck was filled with some guys who had come from Likoma with plastic barrels to fill with gas to sell on the island. It was a pretty uneventful trip through beautiful scenery, especially as we climbed through the mountains leaving the lake.

From Metangula I quickly caught a mini-bus to Lichinga, my destination for the day, and the capital of Niassa province. Once again I was lucky to have the front seat. We had filled the mini-bus before leaving, but shortly after three guys flagged it down, and they had 3 huge boxes. I was wondering where they would fit when the driver and his helper started taking out the back seat. So, onto the roof it went, their boxes where it had been, and the 4 rows of passengers squeezed into 3 rows. I was starting to think that maybe in Mozambique the mini-bus drivers are aware of the extreme discomfort of their vehicles and give foreigners the front seat. With no trouble we reached Lichinga, and I checked into my room for the night, and had a wander around town and dinner.

The next morning I was up much earlier to catch another mini-bus to Cuamba, from where I'd later catch a train most of the rest of the way to the coast. I got on the mini-bus at about 4:45, and we spent the next 1.5 hours trying to fill it. This time I was not in the front seat. It was a really entertaining 1.5 hours. We were tearing around the mostly dirt side streets of the city in the dark, horn blaring, the helper yelling out our destination and I think also that we had passengers, a sure sign we'd be leaving soon. Whenever anyone expressed interest, while the mini-bus was still moving the helper slid the door open, ran at the potential passenger, grabbed their bag, and threw it in. It reminded me of the van scene in Old School. Occasionally there was a lot of discussion; over what, I'm not sure, it seems you'd either want to go where the bus was going or not. At one point two mini-buses converged on the same potential customer. Our helper grabbed her bag and threw it in the van, the other ran over to get it, and a fight ensued. The woman ended up choosing the other mini-bus. Why, I'm not sure, we had more passengers. A bit later we caught up to another mini-bus on a main road and tried to pass it to beat it to passengers. But the other driver was having none of that and sped up, so we were racing side by side down the street until our driver decided going full speed down the wrong side of the road wasn't a great idea. But when that other mini-bus stopped for some passengers, we did too, and one who was already in it saw that we were closer to full and made a break for it. Between him and some others we picked up then, we had enough to go. No one seemed to be counting to make sure everyone would fit, but somehow they did. It was pretty much the most uncomfortable 8 hours I've ever spent. The crowdedness I could handle, but the seat was just painful to sit on. So, I was actually kind of relieved when about 20 miles from Cuamba, there was a sudden crack and the driver brought us to a quick stop. We had blown a shock on the left front side. But it was a great excuse to get out. An 18-wheeler we had just passed stopped to see what was going on. Apparently he was going to send another van when he got to Cuamba, but I wasn't interested in that idea. Another mini-bus passenger and I hopped into the truck cab, and rode the rest of the way to Cuamba sitting on the bed in the back of the cab. I have no idea if that other van was ever sent out...

Cuamba was a dusty town

with kind of a frontier feel to it. Despite having a population close to 200,000, there wasn't a single paved road in it. It had a beautiful setting though with steep mountains rising up to the east.

I would have to stay 2 nights to catch the train to Nampula, near the coast.

The train runs every day, however the 2nd class carriage only runs every other day, and I had been warned about 3rd class. Despite the setting, 2 nights was more than anyone would need to spend in Cuamba. With just 2 restaurants and nothing in particular to do, I was at loose ends by lunch the 2nd day.

On my second morning in Cuamba, my alarm went off at 4 to catch train. 2nd class, while comfortable enough, was hardly glamorous rail travel. Maybe in colonial days the carriage had been luxurious, but it had gone downhill,

and the lights and ventilation system weren't working, door latches were missing, and it was a pretty bumpy ride. But it was ok, we rode with the window down and enjoyed the breeze. The carriage had compartments for 6 people each, but I don't think any were full; I was sharing mine with 2 Mozambicans.

The scenery was amazing.

We were going through the mountains next too Cuamba for about the first half of the ride, then the landscape became flatter, but with occasional rocks suddenly rising steeply out of the ground. All along were small villages and farms.

This was a very remote part of Mozambique, and the villages very undeveloped. At each stop, villagers would come to the train to sell their goods;

mostly it was vegetables and chickens,

but some were selling snacks or trinkets. See how many different fried chicken parts you can identify.

On arrival in Nampula, I knew pretty quickly I didn't want to stay there. It was full of trash, noisy, and seemed overcrowded (in other words, seemed like most of the cities we've been through so far). But it was late enough to be questionable that I'd make it to Ilha de Mocambique, my destination on the coast. The travel across Mozambique was wearing on me though and the last thing I wanted to do was spend another night in a fleabag hotel to wake up at 4 am for my next transport. At the mini-bus stop, there were none going to Ilha, but one going to Monapo which was on the way to Ilha. So, with assurances from people who weren't mini-bus drivers or helpers that it would be easy to catch an onward mini-bus, I got on it. It was another very uncomfortable 3 hours (1 waiting to fill up, 2 on the road). At its peak, I counted 28 people in the van. When we got to Monapo, the mini-bus stop was a ghost town. No mini-buses to Ilha until the morning. And once again, I found myself in a fleabag hotel for the night. For dinner, since the hotel's restaurant was out of food, the manager took me next door to another restaurant. He thought I needed help with everything, which was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy as his explanation of every simple thing (such as that I should pay for dinner) confused me into thinking something more complicated was going on and thus convinced him I had no idea what was going on. I got a half chicked that was half cooked, so I picked at it for a while, but all I really wanted to do was go to bed.

In the morning, I got to sleep in a bit and was up and on a mini-bus (of sorts, it was a pickup with a roof and benches in the back) around 7:30. Four hours later, between the waiting to fill up and all the stops, we had made it the 30 miles to Ilha. Just before we got to the causeway from the mainland to the island, the Indian Ocean came into view. We had last seen the ocean, the Atlantic, in Swakopmund, Namibia, close to 2 months before. So, this marked the successful crossing of Africa on land! I had used just about every kind of land transport in existence (except any motorcycles), and the only time we were in the air (into the Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls) wasn't for onward travel. I now have just one week left, which I'll split between Ilha de Mocambique and Pemba, where I fly home from.

The Lake of Stars

Watch out - this is a big one - lots to cover!

On Friday, 27 August, I got an early start from the small town of Likhubula at the base of Mt Mulanje to get my long trip to the north of Malawi underway. Since on my way to Mt Mulanje I had found a mini-bus going from Chitakale, on the main road, to Likhubula right away, I thought I would have a similarly easy time getting back to Chitakale to connect to Blantyre. But after an hour at the side of the road in Likhubula, only 5 or so vehicles had passed, only one of them a mini-bus which was in the surprising condition of being too full to let me on. At this point, I was convinced to take a bike taxi for the 8 or so miles to Chitakale. Actually, 2 bike taxis, as one was needed for my backpack. It was really nice though, riding slowly through the tea plantations which I hadn't seen on my way since I had been sitting next to a plywood-covered broken window. Once in Chitakale, it was easy to get a mini-bus to Blantyre (actually Limbe, the neighboring town where mini-buses leave from, so I had to get another mini-bus to Blantyre once there). I bought a ticket for the bus going from Blantyre to Mzuzu, far in the north, overnight. It would leave at 5, so I had a good 4 hours to kill. I didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of going into the center of the city, so I just stayed at the shopping center next to the bus stop and did some errands. The bus to Mzuzu left pretty much on time at 5, went up the road, turned around at a traffic circle, past the bus station, to another traffic circle where it turned around again, and promptly returned to the bus station. For some reason we couldn't take that bus and had to change to another one. The whole process took about 1 hour, but I actually didn't mind since I was more concerned about arriving in Mzuzu in the dark before dawn rather than about getting there too late. And that was how it worked out - after 13 more hours, we arrived in Mzuzu at 7am. It had been quite a long and not very comfortable bus ride, but I had actually managed to sleep for a good part of it. I was fortunate to have a seat, as opposed to a good number of people who had had to spend the night standing up. When I woke up and it had gotten light the scenery was beautiful, and I was a little disappointed not to have been able to see more of it. In Mzuzu, the northernmost point of the trip across Africa, I had yet another connection, this time by mini-bus again. Finally, sometime around 10, and about 27 hours after leaving Likhubula, I reached Nkhata Bay.

Like Mt. Mulanje, Nkhata Bay is completely different from anywhere else we have been on the trip. It's on the shore of Lake Malawi, a lake bigger than Lakes Ontario or Erie, but tropical and un-industrialized. Sometimes I could faintly see the mountains of Mozambique on the other side, but most of the time the clear blue waters just stretch out to the horizon. I stayed at a place called Big Blue Star,

right on the water just outside the center of town in a small stilted hut. This one wasn't mine, but was the view from my hut.

The town

is a pretty laid back place with just one paved road, lots of rastafarians, people selling seafood (lakefood?), produce, and anything else. The rastafarians are all characters, and most have colorful names such as Fortune,

Happiness, Boobs, and Sober. Sober and I went out one night to some of the bars in town trying to stay ahead of the cops closing them down, but ran out of bars to go to by a bit after 2. Most of the music they were playing was from Zambia, but also a lot of Malawian and a bit from the rest of Africa (but thankfully a break from the World Cup promotion songs that we were hearing nonstop). One afternoon I went on a boat trip stopping at some rocks for cliff-diving and at a beach for some local games (soccer)

and where we could see some fishermen doing their work.

Otherwise things were pretty quiet there. I was really only there for one reason: to catch the Ilala Ferry

to Likoma Island, which was scheduled to come through Monday, 30 August, afternoon.

Likoma Island is 50 or so miles from Nkhata Bay across the lake only 5 miles from Mozambique, and (along with it's smaller neighboring island, Chizumulu) in Mozambican waters. It's the southbound ferry which goes from Nkhata Bay to the island, but I was in Nkhata Bay when the northbound ferry came from the island 18 or so hours late, so I knew it wouldn't be leaving on time. This is pretty typical for the ferry, so my last day in Nkhata Bay was kind of spent in suspense. I should have been able to leave in the late afternoon, but by then word had reached us that the actual arrival would be 3am, with a departure whenever they were ready. So I booked a dorm bed for the night and was awakened at 3am by its arrival horn. The 3 other people staying there who were also taking the ferry and I all got up and headed to the dock. We boarded around 4am (a slightly chaotic process)

and waited, and waited, and waited for it to leave, which it finally did at 9am, about 13 hours late. Once we were off, it was quite pleasant. We were on the top deck

just enjoying the open water. After we'd been gong for a while, it became hard to see any shore and there was good size swell - it seemed like we were in the middle of the ocean. The ferry made a 2 hour stop at Chizumulu where we enjoyed the view of the chaos of unloading into the launches to the beach

and from there it was 2 more hours to Likoma. We enjoyed a nice sunset

before finally arriving a bit after 6, and getting off the ferry was when we learned the true chaos potential of the Ilala. We were crammed into the exit aisle on the lower deck (which is where 2nd and 3rd class are, and seemed awful. I'm not sure of the difference between the 2 classes except that 3rd class is actually in a cage) walking over bags of corn, flour, sugar etc to jockey for a position on the first launch. They were apparently having trouble lowering it, so we stood there watching as it didn't move. When it finally did lower, they only took the local chief and a couple of his helpers ashore. By now, nearly 1 hour since the ferry had anchored, people were pretty anxious to go, and when it returned to finally take passengers (and with boarding passengers who then had to fight their way on through all the disembarking passengers) it was every man for himself to try to fight their way to the door, down the ladder and onto the 22 person launch, which had about twice that many people. For the Ilala's last surprise, we had to jump off the launch into waist deep water. But we had made it.

One of the managers of Mango Drift, the lodge where I stayed on the island, was there to meet us and give us (there were 7 in total getting off the ferry) a ride across the island to the lodge. But I was hanging out with a couple of British guys by this time, and some people they had been traveling with were having dinner in town before leaving the island. So instead we got directions to the lodge and grabbed dinner. It was over an hour walk from the restaurant to the lodge, in the dark, with wet pants, but after 10 we made it, 19 hours since the day had started!

It was a super place. I stayed 4 nights, and they were 4 great nights. Among the other people there the people I spent the most time with were the 2 Brits, 2 Spanish brothers with a nose for adventure, an Italian guy and a German guy. A great group, and we were in a beautiful setting.

Days were laid back, filled with swimming, reading, volleyball and the occasional walk around the island. The only real sight is this cathedral from the early 1900s.
One morning I went on an introductory scuba dive, my first ever, which was really fun. As a freshwater lake, Lake Malawi doesn't have any coral, but it does have a great variety of interesting fish. And being freshwater and calm, it's an easy place for a first dive. After a brief lesson in scuba theory and some quick drills in the water, the dive was about 45 minutes reaching a depth of 40 ft as we rounded a nearby island. Nights were spent at the bar under the mango tree playing games or just chatting. One night we had a local musician perform a short concert.

Sunsets were beautiful, with the mainland Malawian mountains coming into clear view as the sun set behind them.

Lake Malawi is nicknamed the Lake of Stars because of the fishing boats that cover the lake at night, their lights shining along the surface of the lake across the horizon.

This morning though (Saturday) it was time to say goodbye to the island and make my way to Mozambique. I went down to the beach where the local boats leave, got my passport stamped out of Malawi, and went off to find a boat. Even though it was still early, it was a very hot walk across the island with both my bags. When I got to the beach, there were none going to Cobue, my destination in Mozambique, at the time, but I was told the owner of the restaurant next to the beach would be informed when the boat arrived from Cobue. So I waited, and waited - from 9:30 to 10:30, during which time a boat is expected to leave - then another hour until 11:30. Meanwhile I was seeing boats going in the direction I needed to be going. So it was time to take things into my own hands. Or rather the hands of the guy who was sitting next to me. So we went down to the beach, and looked for a boat. None were going, but there was one that was going to Mozambique a bit north of Cobue. It seemed like my best option, but the guy wanted 1000 kwacha to take me there, then walk me to Cobue. That was more than I had left, so I gave him my last 383 kwacha for him to take me there and I would figure out the rest of the way. The boat was a small sailboat with a tattered sail made out of flour, corn, and cement bags. The 4 or 5 crew and 5 passengers (plus 3 babies) were probably more than it was meant to hold, but the guy on the rudder did a good job getting us through the good size swell, and after about 2 hours we landed in very remote Mozambique. I was briefly an illegal immigrant until I got to the immigration office in Cobue still an hour's walk away, and once again very hot. After sorting that out, and finding a place to stay for the night

, I walked around town looking at the "sights", which consisted of this church
and boys playing soccer in front of it.
Now for a good night's sleep before starting the last leg of my journey, across Mozambique, tomorrow.