Trip to Mozambique
for Diving mainly ... Vance and Bobbi Stevens
Bobbi and I flew from Dubai to Maputo via Nairobi on Kenya Airlines Friday a.m. June 19, 2009. We arrived in Maputo that morning. Although the connection at Nairobi was only an hour (plus delays) we reached Maputo with bags safely on the conveyor belt. Getting a visa at the airport was not a problem. Nor was changing money, nor was getting into town, about $10 in a cab.
Going on Lonely Planet we asked the driver to take us to Base Backpackers. It was on a quiet residential street in a sunny, leafy African capital. But it was full. The lady at the desk helpfully called around for us and found us a room at the nearby Santa Cruz hotel, which we walked to. We got a room at the back of the hotel off the street but there were lots of noises from around the hotel so though we were exhausted we couldn't nap much. We ended up walking around the town, to the fort, the central market. We found the place a bit plain, lots of potholes, not much to do it seemed, poverty, typically African. We wandered eventually to a sidewalk cafe and ordered beer and found camaraos on the menu, double checked that these were indeed prawns, and had a great snack with beer. We then wandered at dusk in an area with restaurants called the Feira, children's rides, seemed like it might become active later, but getting dark, not sure how safe it was there, we headed back to the hotel.
It was dark early. 7:30 on my watch, about the right time for sunset in Abu Dhabi, but only 5:30 in Maputo. We climbed the street up the hill to our hotel. We were so tired, had been so stressed working up to this trip, we just went to bed, and stayed there till 6:30 breakfast next morning. The hotel was plain but at least quiet, with a soft a/c noise overhead.
A new day ...
We’re in mozambique. We arrived in Maputo the 19th of June. We spent two nights there. The first day was a little depressing. We arrived tired after flying all night in two short hops, got a room in town and tried to rest, went out, didn’t see much of interest except that we ate shrimps at a bar where we stopped for a 2M beer and happened to see camoaroas on the menu for 160 metecals, or about $5. Later we found that was quite a deal; shrimps of similar amount and quantity were from 220 to more that twice that price almost everywhere else that tourists might go to.
Next day we gave Maputo another shot but we were essentially trying to find a way out of the place. First we weren’t sure we were in the best hotel location so we went to a nearby Fatima’s Backpackers and found a black Mozambiquan manager there who wouldn’t look us in the eye, didn’t seem like a real backpacker, and quoted us a price for double accommodation just off the office and commons area (noisy) for almost what we were paying at the hotel Santa Cruz, so we decided then and there we either stay at our hotel or find a way out before noon checkout. Going on the latter option, we walked the streets getting whatever information we could on going to Isla de Ilhaca, an island with paradise internet reviews not far from Maputo, or Ponto d’Ouro in the south, a scuba mecca 11 km from the SA border, which required a ferry ride and then hit or miss 4x4 transport which some people thought we could manage in a day, though not too late in the day as it was getting to be while we gathered information.
The more we walked around Maputo the more we thought this is not where we want to be but conversely the less likely we would be able to get out that day. To make a long story short we eventually hit on a travel agent who gave us the idea to take a bus to Ilhambane a bit to the north, and on the way to the bus company offices to get that ticket we stopped by Base Backpackers to speak to the lady there who had sent us to the Hotel Sta Cruz and we found out that they had a bus going next morning at 5:30 a.m. to Ilhambane, direct to Tofo, one of the diving highlights in Mozambique, known for mantas and whale sharks. By then we were tired and lacking an obvious onward direction, but this seemed a good bet, so we booked it.
This left us the rest of the day free so we decided to head for a “popular” seafood restaurant out one of Maputo’s north beaches just past the backpackers out there. We found a way to get there for less than 10 meticals ($0.30) per person, on a chapa, crowded local minibus transport. The restaurante was on a beach crowded with Mozambiquans standing about, engaged in hawking, trying to get around up the ribbon of tarmac, some perhaps enjoying a day out. At table, we started with caiparihnas which I hadn’t had properly since Brazil http://www.flickr.com/photos/psteichen/3344619421/. We followed with beer and wine and prawns and calamares, plus main courses. It wasn’t expensive, and we headed back to Maputo in the daylight, arriving at dusk, time for bed, not sure about our safety walking about the potholed streets in the dark shadows in that town.
[The backpacker places were full of notices about avoiding certain parts of town, how to deal with corrupt policemen (get a notarized copy of your passport and hand them that), carry your passport separate from your money ("they don't want your passport" one sign said). I later learned that there were a lot of heroin addicts in Maputo, one reason perhaps for the problem.]
Having gone to bed so early it was easy to get up at 4:30 next morning and head over to Base, a short walk from our place down reasonably lit but still forebodingly empty streets. At Base Backpackers, we were allowed in to the compound to wait with other passengers and the gate was shut and locked behind us. Others appeared, and the bus finally came just before 6. We all piled aboard and went for a pickup at Fatema’s. As more people got on luggage was moved around so as to make extra seating but not all seats were taken so then we headed for the Maputo bus station. There in typical African fashion we sat for the next two hours until the bus filled with passengers and luggage was shifted even more to make room for their live chickens etc. Eventually by 8 a.m. we left Maputo on our journey for Ilhambane / Tofo.
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