Week 25 - Mozambique – Ihla de Moҫambique to Tanzania – Dar Es Salaam

On Monday morning we had breakfast on the terrace and then we walked to the bank while Gywn did some work on the car. The ATM was "nao operaҫao" so we walked back to the hostel in the rain. Jorge turned up and he had some old Portuguese coins that Keith bought. We waited in the lobby of the hostel reading and surfing the internet while Gwyn finished off with the car. We didn't leave until 11.00 am. At a little after midday we reached the Namialo turnoff where we turned right towards Pemba. There was a big group of people there trying to hitch a ride to Pemba and we stopped and picked up Tracey from Melbourne. However 15 minutes later, disaster struck. Gwyn stopped the car because he noticed that there was a problem with the gearbox. He decided that the best thing was for him to turn around and go back to Nampula – so we decided to try to hitch a ride to Pemba. By this time it was raining heavily. It took us about 20 minutes to flag down someone who was going to Pemba and at the same time another vehicle going in the opposite direction offered to shadow Gwyn to Nampula. We said a sad goodbye to Gwyn and then climbed into another vehicle – a late model Toyota Landcruiser driven by some guys who were working for Elvis Construҫao – a road building company. Everybody in the car was drinking beer – including the driver! It took us another five hours to reach Pemba during which time we hit a chicken! The guys proudly showed us the office of Elvis Construҫao in Pemba and then drove us to Pemba Magic Lodge at Wimbi Beach, 3½ kilometres away. We checked into a double chalet and then went to the bar where we bumped into Brian the Irish diplomat who we had met at our hostel at Mozambique Island. We ordered our dinner at 7.30 pm and while we were waiting, we sat around talking with Richard (from the UK), Brian and Tracey. Brian who has been in Malawi for the last three years kept us entertained with stories about the superstitious and fanciful ideas that the Africans have (old man who stopped the minibus from going up a hill because he had a cow in his pocket, old lady who caused a drought in her village by keeping all the rain in her pot and the lady who gave birth to a stone baby). Our dinner didn't arrive for hours and through a comedy of errors the meals came out in dribs and drabs so Suzie only got her dinner at 11.00 pm.

The next morning we woke up at 6.30 am and Keith went to the beach for a swim before we had a leisurely breakfast with Richard, Brian, and Tracey and wandered around the camp taking photos. In the middle of the morning, we got a lift with Russell (the owner) into town. While we were walking around town we saw some street vendors suddenly leap up, gather up their merchandise and start running. When we looked around, we saw a couple truncheon wielding police officers jump out of the back of a pickup truck and chase them. On the way back to the lodge, we stopped at the Pemba Beach Hotel to have a look around. The resort building was Moorish/Arabic in style with a marble fountain in the courtyard, arches, beautiful silk carpets on the walls, mosque lanterns and wooden lattices patterned with eight-pointed Arabic stars. The bar was decorated with mounted heads of various antelope and warthogs and black and white drawings of game hunting scenes. We had a quick look at the beach opposite the hostel and then we went to the restaurant. We had a late lunch of Portuguese pizza and spent some time on the internet and packed our bags ready for tomorrow. We had an early night because we were being picked up by a taxi at 3.45 am to catch a bus to Mocimba do Praia.

On Wednesday, the alarm went off at 3.30 am - just as the taxi driver knocked on our door. We dressed quickly and then jumped into the taxi. The taxi dropped us off at the bus depot which seemed to be just a busy street lined with people, buses, minibuses, and chapas (pickup trucks). We found our bus and we managed to get a seat at the back of the bus with lots of leg room. We were really pleased with ourselves. However our pleasure was short-lived - minutes later a group of women and children got on the bus carrying large bags. The children sat down on the floor in front of Suzie and a pile of bags were dumped unceremoniously at Keith's feet. After a short time the seats were full and the bus took off. But the bus only did a lap of the town – to try and pick up more people!! The bus did another four laps of the town before it was considered "full" - 53 seated adults, 20 standing, at least six children, three babies and two chickens – so we didn't leave Pemba until after 5.00 am. There were no windows in the back of the bus so it was a long hot bus ride. Two of the ladies that were sitting in the back row with us had babies that they were breast feeding and at one point we noticed one lady breastfeeding the other lady's child!!

We arrived at Mocimba do Praia at 1.00 pm and we decided that rather than face another early start in the morning we could at least get to Palmas which was closer to the border. When we got off the bus, there was a chapas (light pick-up truck) leaving for the border. The chapas looked really full so we weren't sure but then Gustavo (from Argentina) who was on the chapas told us that he'd been waiting at Mocimba do Praia for two days for transport to the border so we decided to take it. We climbed on to the chapas and our luggage was strapped to the roof of the cabin. After a bit of scrabbling about we managed to seat ourselves on the rim of the tray. This was quite painful as it was a dirt road and really bumpy. As we drove along more people got on and Keith stood up and held on to the bars at the front. At one stage Keith counted twenty five people in the back! Suzie found a small spot sitting on the spare tyre which was a bit less painful but after an hour and a half of bumpy roads she decided to stand up. This was the only time that she wished she had a bigger bottom! Finally after about three hours we reached the border crossing. Unlike the other border crossings this one was a pain. Customs insisted on inspecting everyone's luggage and then the Mozambique border police took our passports and told us that their big boss (who was sitting in the back of the office) wanted money to buy juice! Unlike the other travellers we didn't give him any "juice" money. Gustavo had an issue with his passport which held things up further so it was almost two hours before we were able to get back onto the chapas with our luggage to be transported to the Rovuma river crossing. All the luggage was loaded into a dugout canoe powered by an outboard motor and then everyone from the chapas piled on. We thought that the canoe was overloaded. We got off to a bad start because once everyone was in the canoe, it hit the bottom and we had to be pushed off. From there things went from bad to worse. Night had fallen and there was no moon so it was really dark. The river was really shallow so the canoe kept running into sandbanks and having to be pushed. Finally when it seemed that we had hit a stretch of deeper water, we came across some hippos so we had to change our course – back into the sandbanks. Finally we arrived at a sandy beach and we had to transfer to another canoe. The boatmen were carrying our luggage on their heads! After a very short trip we scrambled up the bank and onto the back of another chapas. We paid the boat people and in all the confusion and shouting Keith lost his wallet to a pickpocket. Luckily we had planned for this happening at some stage during the trip so we made it a habit to carry only a small amount of cash and an expired credit card in the wallet. Unfortunately Keith still had the Portuguese shipwreck coins in the coin section so we lost those after only having them for a couple of days! The Mozambicans and Tanzanians thought it was very funny that the mzungu had been robbed which made us feel very uncomfortable.

We arrived at the Tanzanian border post at 8.30 pm and the immigration man had gone. Eventually, we worked out that we had nowhere to sleep, nowhere to eat and there was a small crowd who had had too much alcohol shouting and fighting in the village. Kilambo village had no electricity and in the dark, the village and its drunken inhabitants looked really sinister. Samson, the customs man showed us to a restaurant which was closed but which gave us tea and mdazi (like a donut but minus the sugar) for USD 20 thanks to Gustavo and we slept on Samson's lounge room floor on the cushions from his sofa. It was a pretty awful night, the room was airless with heaps of mozzies and we had only our filthy clothes to sleep in.

The next morning we got up at 6.00 am and went to immigration where we got managed to get our visas for Tanzania. Then we jumped on the back of another chapas and headed off to Mtwara. It was a beautiful morning and the bush in Tanzania looked thicker and greener. We were dropped off at Mtwara bus depot and shown to the Blue View Hotel where we had a delicious breakfast. We chatted to a couple of missionaries from the USA and with their help worked out where to go to get money and look for accommodation. We walked down to the water to see Msemo Lodge and it had wonderful views over the coral and sea. We had lunch and did a deal with Gasper the manager so that Gustavo could sleep with us without having to pay for another room. We walked back to town to book a bus to Kilwane Mosoko but decided to catch a couple of minibuses instead so we didn't have to get up early to get on the Dar Es Salaam bus. A feature of Africa seems to be these ludicrously early starts of 2.30 am to 5.00 am for transport. Another Tanzanian feature that we noticed today was the bright new tuk tuks around Mtwara which made us feel like we were back in India. We caught a tuk tuk to Msemo Lodge with all our luggage which had been stored at the Blue View for the day. Gustavo had to hang on as if he was on a chapas and we got lots of laughs as we careered along the dirt roads. We had showers amidst several short blackouts and it felt like a layer of dirt and grime was peeled off.

We woke up early on Friday morning and had our breakfast overlooking the beach. Then we caught a taxi to the bus depot and got on a minibus to Lindi. On the way we saw tall coconut palms with notches cut into the trunk to allow people to climb up to get the coconuts. Three hours later we arrived in Lindi and transferred to another minibus. We arrived at Kilwa Mosoko at 4.30 pm. There was a porter with a trolley so we put our luggage on it and went to check out the rooms at a nearby guest house. The rooms were only just OK so we decided to get in a tuk tuk and go to the Kilwa Seaview Lodge because it was on the beach and had rooms for three. We got a lovely airy room on the top floor of a "banda" (A-frame chalet) with a double bed for us and a single bed for Gustavo. We had a chat to the manager Mike and found out that there was a one hour time difference between Tanzania and Mozambique so it was actually one hour later than we thought. We spent some time settling in our room and showered amidst some short power cuts. This was a bit of a problem because the water supply was powered by electricity! After dinner we watched the news on BBC World for the first time in weeks!

On Saturday, we had an early breakfast and then walked into town. We walked to the old boma administrative building where we bought tickets for the island and met our guide. We walked with the dhow master and the guide to the harbour and set sail in the dhow. There wasn't much breeze so we had to sail across to a point south of the Portuguese fort on Kilwa Kiwisani and pole/paddle our way past the mangroves for 500 metres. The water was clear and the dhow was silent which made it a very peaceful experience for us. The dhow sail picked up the breeze very well, as it was a big expanse of sail relative to the small boat. The design was so simple yet effective that you could appreciate that it had not changed substantially for a couple of thousand years. We reached the Portuguese fort and had a look around before walking through to the ruined two-storey Makutani Palace, then a small mosque before the great mosque. While it was all very ruined you could appreciate the huge size of the complexes and the great mosque was very atmospheric with its rows of arches and domes echoing Cordoba. There was a huge fig growing through one wall. Next to it was the smaller Persian mosque. We walked to the ruins of the Malindi mosque and cemetery which contained several substantial tombs. Then we walked on to the Husuni Kubwa palace complex overlooking the passage to the mainland. It had a pool and collapsed dome and we saw a large skink trying to eat a centipede. The dhow arrived in the mangroves below and we had a fast return journey with favourable wind. It showed us how fast the dhow could move. On land again we walked to the shop and bought some chocolate and organised our bus tickets for Dar Es Salaam. Then we walked around the general market streets and then visited the food market with an outside fish section and beautiful vegetables and fruit inside. There were okra, potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, dried fish, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, coriander, cassava, tamarind, two types of eggplant, dried mango, ginger, garlic, red onions, bean pods, palm fruit that looked like a pear and much more. We spent a lovely afternoon by the pool talking to Wolfgang (the owner of the lodge) and playing with his sons. Then we went back to our room for a shower and to pack up our stuff before dinner. When we tried to leave our room for dinner, we discovered that the door to our room was faulty and we couldn't open it from the inside. We spent a good ten minutes whistling and calling for help before we were rescued by some other guests.

The alarm went off at 5.00 am on Sunday morning and we picked up our packed breakfast and loaded our bags into the taxi which took us to the bus depot. As usual it was totally overloaded and we didn't have the best seats in the back corner when we left at 6.00 am. The sun rose as we drove fast until the tar road ended. We stopped many times to pick up more people and one lady had a chicken in a special one chicken woven basket. The girl on the back seat found a huge chongolola climbing on her during the trip and we saw many kingfishers and a troop of baboons on the way. The landscape was mostly flat and green with many mango trees, paw paw, maize fields, cassava, and coconut palms. We had the usual onslaught of desperate cassava, orange, dried fish, cashew nut and drink sellers at each stop. The bus stopped at a local diner where the locals had a choice of kebab skewers, chicken pieces in soup, and tea. We arrived at Obungo 8kms from Dar Es Salaam and caught a taxi to Jambo Inn where our reservation was missing!!! The place was full so we checked out Safari Inn and Econolodge and took the latter as a triple for TSh 35,000. We walked around town a bit and it was all very dirty, dodgy and vibrant. We walked down to the harbour where there was plenty of shipping from container ships to ferries to Zanzibar. There were plenty of touts as we turned homewards at City Hall on Morogoro Road. We tried to go to the internet cafe but there was no electricity so no internet. Dar is the capital city of Tanzania but no electricity – people might say Africa is improving but it is still pretty hopeless.