05:15 - Pulling onto the main road outside White River RFC, the essential rack of cling peaches stuck to the dash.
Ten minutes later we were at the border post, and swiftly through the SA side of things. Again, no issues with siblings Christiaan and Adriaan Smuts rolling through the rigourous passport identification procedure. Things were already far more exciting and African, now, even though we were still stuck in No Man's Land by the Mozambican side. Immediately after we pull up we're hounded by hip young lads with good English asking if they can "help" us, for a nominal fee. All well and good and tempting, except we'd already sorted out a quasi-legal "fixer" to aid us through the otherwise excruciating border process. Ivan, a confident though not too cocky debonaire young man, diamond earring, sharp kicks, recommended by Mr Smuts, was certainly up to the job. The mandatory and quite pricey foreign vehicle 3rd party insurance was purchased (a very clever scheme I think, if it is actually implemented) from a reputable agent. Following this we handed our passports over to our fixer, with R50 stuck inside them. Off he sprinted, into the back door of the passport office, returning less than 4 or 5 minutes later, passports stamped. We gave him R100 for his troubles and drove through the border boom without a sideways glance from the military man at his post. In the entire process no official had seen our faces or any document in our possession. At last, corruption working for me, the little man! As we pulled away, an English couple in a Rentacar we lent a pen to earlier were still in their position in the seemingly stationary passport queue, while our friend and his peers dashed in and out of the back door all morning...
Wonky plate #1: Team Baizan!
Immediately we were in a different country. What was recently the ups and downs and forests and pastures of the Highveld/Lowveld was now some sort of sprawling flat green land as far as the eye could see. No jungle or even trees or grassy fields. Just green and flat. Not a house or a cow to be seen. I can only assume the land was fierce boggy or sandy, but in any case unirrigable. Weird really, having come from a very fertile and developed province only an hour ago. It's the EN1 that runs from Joburg to Maputo (N4 on the SA side) and is indeed the finest of roads. A lot of foreign cash has gone into this road lately as SA are very dependant on this "Maputo corridor", the Port of Maputo being the nearest large shipping port to Joburg/Gauteng, with plenty of room for development unlike the Durban route and port.
These were the glorious Port Engineering thoughts running through my pounding head as we rolled into the busy outskirts of Maputo at the same time as every other rush hour commuter with a car. Here I first began to notice the Mozambicans' sheer disregard for the country's standardised number plate format. Akin to the Cowboys back home, the more twisted your number plate, the hotter the street-cred. In addition, any taxi driver (remember "taxi" in Africa means an off-white Toyota HiAce with 800,000km on the clock) worth his salt had a personalised windscreen sticker boasting some nonsensical english slogan or another. And the creme-de-la-creme of taxis, and quite often the small old Merc buses boasted their uber-chic status by cable-tying an old wooden squash raquet or tennis raquet diagonally across their front grills. Classy.
(A free can of 2M beer to the first person to figure out the font used on the plate on HiAce #1.)
Scoop wrong!
By 09:00 we were seated at a breakfast table on the verandah of the infamous Costa do Sol "restaurant" on the golden waterfront of Maputo's Riviera. I knew I was in love with the place even as I dragged my wearied and hungover legs up the chequered steps in the already baking sun. The place screamed of kitsch 1950s/1960s colonialism and still maintained a quaint though tired charm that only stood the test of time thanks to some fairly determined Portuguese holidaymakers and architects back in the good old days. The curves of the banisters, the excessive columns, the marble floors and handrails, the colonial verandah and pastel green/white mosaic floor! How wonderful it must have been! I'd say there wasn't a better coffee or cocktail served in 1961 this side of Cuba.
Strange, this flood of purely imagined nostalgia.
The Costa do Sol - not retro, just real.
After several coffees and some sort of breakfast we took a bit of a drive around Maputo just for a sconce. An absolutely fascinating looking city. Still a few and new well-to-do villas down by the waterfront and the exclusive Clube Maritimo and Clube Naval, not to mention the opulent President's Residence (all on Avenida da Marginale). Continuing down Av 10 Nov & Av 25 Sep there's a pretty bizarre and mazzive statue at Praca dos Trabadores, along with some beautiful old (and preserved/renovated) buildings with typical colonial facades. I wish I had a better architectural vocabulary to aptly describe the features, periods and styles of said buildings. In any case they were lovely, just lovely.
The same can't be said for the other remnants of Portuguese civilisation around the city centre. Old townhouses with solid walls now had tin roofs, broken windows three families within and 16 chickens and dogs without. High rise apartment complexes that were the epitome of 70s funk are now shot to shit, filthy and have old bedsheets and babies hanging out the windows to dry. You see the occasional half building, which, despite still standing its original 15-odd floors is missing an entire face. You can still make out wardrobes, bathrooms, bedrooms and old plumbing poking out of the sky. Weird. There was no shortage of fancy cars driving the streets it must be said, though poverty is rife. And no sense of "High Street Shops" either. I saw a swish Nike store at one stage, all glitz, with run down pissy-doored burnt-walled shopfronts flanking it on either side. No other recognisible brand for two more blocks, then maybe a fancy clothes boutique or something.
After this merry bout of civil war sightseeing we belted back to Costa do Sol for a fine feed of calamari and a few hair of the dog beers. I've never tasted any sort of seafood quite like the grilled (not battered) lulas and put it down to only ever having eating frozen or inferior calamari in the past. The things were massive too. It was a welcome intro to a country renowned for its fresh fishes and it's distinct lack of freezers.
In a while we got going again, back on the EN1 heading north. The first 10-20km out of town were horrendous, with between 4 and 6 lanes of traffic occupying 2 official lanes of road at any one time. And most of us seemed stationary, except for the psychotic taxi drivers who cut and weaved through ditches, rubbish heaps, footpaths, front yards, forecourts, workshops and oncoming traffic to make up the odd second here and there. I don't know who they were fooling. It was a joy to watch though, and not too terrifying as the speeds involved were low enough. Just complete madness that took years off the vehicles I previously believed to be indestructible.
Good work lads. By the looks of things unemployment is fairly rife, though not many seem to mind.
The road began flowing again after about an hour or so though. Soon enough we were at our turnoff just outside Marracuene on a fierce dangerous bend in the road. Our trusty GPS told us to pull clean across the road and down a blocked off bumpy old lane so we did just that. A town popped out of nowhere and we drove in and around it for a while on what we assumed were (or once were) its streets. As ramshackle as this little village was you never did see a prettier town square, gardens or town hall. About the only respectable sights about. Again I was rushed by a wave of the how it must have beens. Somehow or another we found the tiny little mud road that leads to the concrete slipway that receives the small ro-ro ferry servicing the island. The island being not an island but a fairly inaccessible delta leading to the Indian ocean. Though connected to land elsewhere I don't see how the hell you'd get onto it.
We'd a bit of a wait for the ro-ro so I crawled into our freezer for a few Black Labels. As soon as the tabs were popped - the glorious hiss of the icy tin - the Cruiser was surrounded by an assortment of young men trying to sell us a manner of things and to tell us a wealth of tales. All with the goal of getting a sip or two, naturally. We eventually did purchase some Tipo Tinto, but more of that later. Eventually the barge steamed up and flung itself against the estuary bank, slowed by the reeds and stopped by the thud of the concrete. Cruiser was second on board, by far the longest vehicle and vying with a fancy (Indian?) tractor for weight. Twas a fairly tight squeeze in the end and the extreme listing of our vessel crossing the sound was none too comforting.
(Remember to click photos to enlarge).
Vroom! Cruiser shapes up against a Swaraj tractor - the pride of the island.
Next in line for the ro-ro. The closest building on either side of the water is, naturally, a bar. A lifesaver, as you can't go an hour in this heat without a beer.
All aboard! Cruiser climbs on without the assistance of some fairly buckled looking ramps. Check that clearance.
A tight squeeze - she's listing to port even before the Swarage potters on board. Luckily I'm the closest soul to the only lifevest on board, which appears to be impossibly strapped to the railing for some reason or another. The currents sweeping between the two landing points wouldn't be worth fighting. You'd be swept out to Madagascar in the blink of a hat.
A quick trip across. We met with the woman whose lodge/campsite we'd be staying in - a complete hard nut from Christiaan's part of the world. A family friend, if I have it right. All roads from hereon in were sand, pure sand and she completely floored it, us following. The going was very heavy and we barely made it, huge revs running. We were still running on quite a high tyre pressure having just come off the tarmac, and only 2WD to boot. Her campsite was well off the beaten track, about 5+km down sandy lanes and well away from any other lodge. It was before dusk when we began setting up though it fell fairly lively. We finished setting up our bivouac in the dark and by God were the mozzies biting! I've never felt any irritation like it. The hoors stang like hardy horseflies only there was an eternal supply of them. We made sure to braai within a fortress of slow burning mosquito coils. The braai? The fattest lamb chops of the finest cut I've ever had. Must've been 3cm thick each. I'll be a long time dead and buried before I forget those choppies. A couple of beers, barely, each, and we were out for the count. I think I was tucked in by 21h00. What a day!
Base camp at Macaneta. Rough lodgings.
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PS, if anybody is a fan of Gary Larson and The Far Side comics, they'll recognise this chap as being the generic Joe Soap type character that always seems to fall foul of woman problems, alien abductions and hilarious pranks performed by his pet or farm animals. It's him - the hair, chin, glasses, gut and clothes - to be sure.
