7 weeks holiday… paid by British Council ;) Part 1

We’ve packed our things, moved them to our new house and said our goodbyes. Now it\s time for holiday! And that on British Councils account (really our saved up stipend).

Kruger National Park

Rachel, Ian (Rach’s boyfriend) and I decided to start off with a trip to Kruger National Park for an African safari experience, while the two others were off to Swaziland to visit some friends of Danielle. We spend two days in the park, all wrapped up in warm blankets on the back of a safari van, soaking up the magic play between animals and nature, whilst humming to Elton Johns “Circle of Life”. 3 teenage lions play fighting and a family of giraffes got the most impressive prize.

Off we go, wedged in between luggage and locals on a bumpy combi (local taxi/bus) to Maputo to meet up with the other Hoekers for a final goodbye. It’s time for Danielle and Rachel to make their way back to Wales. We first make friends with a little boy, and before we know it we are friends with the whole combi and get money exchange, Mozambique SIM card, directions and taxi to the hostel and food sorted for us… Did anyone say to be careful about using local transport?


Maputo

It’s great being in Maputo again. It feels like home. The novelty of coffee shops with fresh croissants, live music, a night life! great architecture, seafood!!! and a tropical climate feels ohh so good! The first days I spend just soaking up the atmosphere, hoping Catherine that I will travel with for 4 weeks in this country will like it as much as me. When the rest of the crew + Claire, Dan’s friend, arrives from Swaziland, we hang out on the beach, eat seafood, drink REAL coffee and go out listening to funky music, before we have to say good bye for real and suddenly its just Cat and me left in the city!

Cat and I spend a few days freaking out. Suddenly it is only the two of us, and that for the next 6 months! We run around, trying to organize ourselves and our lives, our project for the next 6 months in Lesotho, our travels in Mozambique for the next 4 weeks, before we hit ourselves in the head, or maybe each others heads and say… “Hang on, we’ll be all right you know. We’ll be rock n rollin in fact.” From that moment our holiday turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life!


Maputo - Beira

Our bus to Beira is leaving at 4.00am in the morning and we have arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 3.00am, but we go out and have too much fun and have to rearrange our departure for the next morning. The bus stop is pitch black and full of scary drunk men, but our local “Express bus” is there waiting for us, so we toughen up (girl power!?), haggle the prices with the help of our taxi driver, complaining that our seats are not good enough (sticky leather seats in the heat is not to prefer) and get given some better ones. We feel good about ourselves. Holiday here we come!

18 hours, many conversations and Portuguese lessons later we meet Miguel, Tania and Thais, their 6 year old daughter, friends of my family, in Beira. We spend 2 days in their house, being treated like queens! It is so relaxing to be in a family home after so long, having a whole house, with internet connection, warm showers, a washing machine (first time in 6 months!) and a big Schaefer dog called Biba and a beach 5 min away to ourselves. We cherish every moment!

Events to mention in Beira are first of all the recording of Manune Jackson’s music video, taken place at “Sunlight Food Court” where we had dinner with the family. It involved 4 black guys dressed in silver and gold Bruce Lee outfits, dancing hip hop, 2 bodybuilders in NOT matching Bermuda shorts and a Rastafari lead singer with constantly changing outfits. Got to get hold of this video when it’s done!

Another one, not so funny, my bag with passport and Cat’s camera were snatched right in front of us on the beach. We followed the guy’s footsteps in the sand and with a (fit) police officers’ and some local souvenir sellers’ help, we luckily found my passport chucked by the side of the road. Unfortunately all our photos and camera were lost!

We owe a big thank you to Tania + Fam for sorting us out with everything, the police, passport photocopies, flight and bus tickets etc etc, and generally for being so open and friendly to us. We had a great time with you. Be sure we’ll come back and visit you!


Beira - Quelimane

Next morning up at 3 again. The bus to Quelimane is leaving at 4.00am. I will never forget Miguel’s concerned look through the bus window as we wave goodbye with our knees under our ears and our luggage where the legs are meant to be, set for our 15 hour bus journey going north.

We drive through stunning Gorongosa National Park, witnessing the most beautiful sun rise over misty tropical forests and reed hut villages. By this point I’m praising myself for all the yoga lessons I’ve done in my life, but I’ve stopped feeling my legs a few hours ago. Hope they’re still there. And yes, I realize they are as an Unidentified Object (feeling a bit like a lizard) is crawling up them. I scream and the whole bus start laughing of the stupid screamish white girl, saying “Ha ha ha, rat, rat rat!”.

Reaching the Zambezi River at mid day, we have to wait for two hours to cross on the small ferry. We spend our time watching the fit men sorting out luggage on the bus roof tops, the young boys selling refreshments to people waiting and the women feeding their many children and smoking cigarettes the wrong way around!?!

We make a friend that promises to help us sort out tickets for tomorrow mornings’ bus, 4.00am again, and to find a place to sleep for the night. His name is Jacinto and is a Mozambiqian, training to be a Catholic priest in South Africa (we think…) He is one of a few people that can speak English, as our Portuguese is not that up to scratch… yet. Two others to mention is two diamond sellers from Congo on holiday… hmmm!?! We go for the Catholic priest. He seems the most reliable. And he’s got big beefy muscles and can look mean. And yes, the guy sorts us out with tickets and a place where we can have a shower and some food, and after we drink most of the bottle of wine that the owner offers to us and later asks us to pay for, he sort things out so we don’t have to pay and escorts us safely back to the bus that’s departing in a few hours.

We learn quickly that playing vulnerable little girls pay off ;)


Quelimane - Nampula

Quelimane to Nampula, beefy priests’ home town, is 11 hours away. Another breath taking sun rise over Mocuba, a rustique, colonial architecture mixed with African reed markets town. I fall head over heal for this magic part of the world. Since hitting Gorongosa National Park yesterday my heart has sunk and I can’t do anything else than stare out of the window and soak in every smell, sight, and sound of this place. The colours changes from deep red to okra to bright greens to yellow to red again. I have to go back here!

Reaching Nampula the landscape changes from tropical forests to mountainous terrain. Apparently some of the peaks are over 2000m high. Jacinto teaches us a about the types of food we see drying in the sun outside the straw huts, lagosht(?), cassava, and about the crops we see in the fields and the names of the mountains and the rivers and the villages and provinces. He also goes into detail on how to open and scrape a coconut and how to separate the milk and the meat. All very useful, but we’re start looking forward to having our own peaceful hotel room all to ourselves…

I wake up very excited in the morning. This is the day we will reach Ilha do Mozambique, the goal for our trip to the north, somewhere I’ve wanted to see ever since I saw my parents’ pictures of the place. I have felt bad about dragging Cat with me all this way, not really knowing what to expect. What if it is a disappointment after all our travel efforts and money spent? I’m nervous!

Before we set off, we visit Jacinto’s former job, as a radio reporter on the local Catholic radio station. They report in Portuguese, French, English and the local tribe language Mokua. We meet DJ Silva while he’s on air and see the evening news being recorded in another studio. Interesting!


Ilha do Mozambique

And then we’re on our way to the Island, Ilha. It takes us 2 hours, again getting to know people on the bus to help us further. There is always someone that wants to talk, share food and stories. In the dark we+luggage get shipped over to the back of a bakkie, together with bags of rice, groceries and a handful of locals. “Casa do Gabriel, por favour” we say hopefully. It is dark, we have no idea, but everyone seems friendly.

We see contours of buildings and palm trees, a mosque, the sound of the sea. The bakkie’s hooting. We get dropped off outside a massive double door with big round handles. Shit, we didn’t book. Wonder if they’ll open for us…

Doors open into the most beautifully designed hostel I’ve ever seen. The owner is an Italian architect that fell in love with the Island and decided to move here. He is not just an architect but an interior architect as well. Every room is carefully put together in a mish mash of Mozambiqian/tropical island style mixed with Italian/Greek classicism. Stepping into the bathroom for the first time I feel like a Greek goddess missing her toga. Here I have a shower while watching the stars through the open reed roof. In the morning we wake up to freshly baked rolls, papaya jam, REAL butter and coffee… All this to no more than a bunk bed in a dorm in Maputo!


More adventures to follow…