Colonial island colonies, beach camps, bush

Northern Mozambique is stunning, remote bookended by near impossible, tough and incredibly uncomfortable transportation scenarios.  However if you persist you are rewarded with remote Indian Ocean bush camps, 17th century Portuguese and Arabic island trading colonies, the freshest seafood you’ll ever eat and the opportunity to learn some unique bush medicine.

We promise to stop talking about transport soon!

Another day, another uncomfortable trip as a sardine approaching the major northern city of Beira close to sunset.  Duncan was lucky enough to have snagged the passenger seat and Pip half of Duncan’s seat and the gear box (we’ve never seen anyone change gears so often) which was handy to ask the driver where the TCO bus station was as we approached the outskirts of the city. As can only happen in these scenarios he pointed out the window and ground to a halt.  With the sun quickly setting, we hot-footed through what seemed to be a shady area to find our suspicions were correct – it was closed.

Taking his man duty very seriously to keep us safe, Duncan went into action mode and began walking very briskly towards town, which looked to be about 6 kilometres away. In a big city with all of our gear at dusk, we were both silently concerned for our safety for the first time as well as a bit short tempered. When in town Pip managed to find someone who could speak English, who quickly garnered other people on the street to find us cheap lodgings for the night.  They succeeded on both fronts.  

Unfortunately we never mentioned anything about a preference against a house of horrors.

Perhaps in its day it was a fine establishment with high ceilings, sizeable rooms with attached bathrooms, but with broken concrete floors, no water connected to taps, toilet or shower and a general air of creepiness those days were long gone.  On the plus side there was a bar downstairs that did a plate of chicken and rice, so we only had to deal with the derelict drunks in the building and not the ones lining the streets - the local rum is about 70c for 600mls, cheaper than coke and can be substituted for paint thinner.

Money talks and bullshit walks

First thing in the morning we purchased tickets, the only problem was once we checked them they were for Thursday and it was Monday.  As usual the subsequent exchange went nowhere until someone who could translate for us stepped in.  It seemed Tuesday’s bus was full.  Being familiar with the lack of any real system in Mozambique, we figured we’d just get up early and head back to the bus station the next day to stage a sit in until they got so fed up they’d find us a seat.  Duncan’s pester power is pretty good, especially when aided by a Portuguese man who screamed at the indifferent ticket matron, because by 11am we had for a small ‘fee’ secured two seats on the 4pm service.

While Duncan was picking up our dinner at the ‘dinner stop’ at 1am, Pip became very animated when the bus started to pull away. Tearing up the front of the bus and calling out to the driver didn’t seem to be working, neither did “who can speak English” at a high-pitch, so the next thing she realised Pip was almost wrestling with the driver, only to then find the bus doing a U-turn to head back to fill up with petrol.  Sheepishly returning to her seat to hear a soft “crazy muzungo” (crazy white person).

Harry Potter and the Fort of Isla de Mozambique

Harry Potter on our dhou ride

21 hours later we reached Isla de Mozambique with the oldest European buildings in Africa (16^th & 17^th century), including an old fort in various states of decay in amongst recently restored palatial buildings. Following the Mozambique civil war Isla was declared a UNESCO world heritage site and slowly the old town is being patched up and given a lick of paint. For property moguls they are for sale for around US$50k.  Duncan can’t stop talking about his new NGO – restoring Africa,  please email if you’d like to donate.

Squid for lunch

Ruby’s backpackers had been lovingly restored by a hippy Spanish couple and with a spectacular roof-top terrace made a great place to stretch the legs, have a G&T and recover from another epic commute.  Unable to get a double room we climbed up a ladder to a loft dorm where our mattresses on the floor lay beside two middle-aged geezers who’d left their wives at home for a month after both being made redundant.  Both lovely guys and comfortable in their surroundings, enjoying a beer at the bar with us in their nighties that they endearingly referred to as their nigh-gowns – how British!

Enjoying a G&T on Ruby's rooftop terrace

Retrieving another G&T from the bar Pip got chatting to Jeanever, who preferred to be called Harry Potter (more like harry pot head).  Intrigued Pip invited Harry Potter up to the rooftop to enjoy a sunset drink.  Mr Potter it turned out ran a dhou sailing tour on the island.

A few days of wondering amongst the old buildings as well as the matia town (or new town of traditional thatched huts) we took up Harry Potter on his tour and set sail with a group of Spaniards for a nearby palm-fringed picture perfect island.  Along the way we’d pull alongside fishermen in their dug-out canoes to buy supplies for our island feast.  Our favourite catch was huge squid that changed colour in your hands as you held them and continued to use their suckers long after we assumed they were dead – creepy.

Avoid cheap water and local massages

Enjoying an evening G&T on the rooftop Pip was surprised to be approached by an African princess in a flowing red dress, head-scarf and elaborate jewellery. Duncan it seemed had secretly organised a massage to help ease some aches from a heavy pack and unusual sitting positions from transport. Unable to communicate, Pip took Cathanaria down to the bar area to ask the staff where to go for a massage and with no clear answer took Cathanaria up the ladder to our crawl-space room.  Half-an-hour of lady groans from Cathanaria and some general prodding, Pip was lathered in what smelt like vegetable oil.

Sleeping in sheets damp with vegetable oil, Pip woke up in the middle of the night to near-solid walls of sewredge hitting her in the face.  Gagging and suddenly very nauseous Pip climbed down the ladder to be sick and spend a few hours in the bathroom, in part to avoid the odours in our room.  If the nighty-clad geezers hadn’t left that day, we would have without a doubt been asked to leave due to a situation that had developed in Duncan’s gut.

Lying in agony, Pip deducted the prime suspect was a cheaper than usual bottle of water purchased in the non-tourist area of the island.  Having drunk at least 1 litre verse Duncan’s 500mls, Pip was in much more trouble.

As luck would have it, Ruby’s had stuffed up and double booked and we were given our marching orders just as Pip was wondering if she was going to survive.

Bouncing along

Trucks were the surprise flavour to leave Isla de Mozambique and with the wind in our hair we bounced along in the back of a pick-up-truck, crouched down in the back of a covered in ute and eventually got lucky with a lift in a private car to the Pemba bush camp – a local Mozambique driver who judging by the speed we travelled had stolen the 4WD.

Set in a bay amongst mangroves, Pemba bush camp provided thatched reed adjoining sleeping huts (only draw back being half walls, no not very private) and a fire-pit on the sand, for us to get in touch with our hippy fire-twirling ways.  It also had a good self-catering area, so Chef Duncan had a few nights of brying (BBQ’ing) fish and squid.  The poor-mans Club Med had archery, kayaks, snorkelling gear and a nature walk included.  Without a doubt the nature walk was our favourite comedy moment of the trip. 

“Soothe your breast with cabbage”

Kaya our giant nature walk guide with giant
baobab tree of magic

Kaya the 23 year old son of the South African owners met us in the bar area for the ‘nature tour’, where he insisted on rewinding the cartoon he was watching. “Do you guys like stunts? Do you like Evil Caneevil?  What this crazy kid does is SO much more extreme. It’s intense man”.  Unsure of what was about to come, we both adopted our best straight faces.  After watching a cartoon clearly designed for 6 year olds, we enthusiastically remarked how epic it was, while glancing at one another with looks of ‘is this guys serious and should we be heading bush with this man-child’?

Accompanied by Kya’s Great Dane, we stopped at several varieties of mangroves to hear well-rehearsed stories about each one, which was surprisingly really interesting. Just best not to ask questions until the tour is over, or we’d have to stat from the top. The tour ended in a giant Baobab tree, which was 1500 years old.  Kya crawled through the small door into the hollow of the tree (amazing all baobabs are hollow) to check for snakes, when given the all clear we climbed in to be greeted with a not so scary blair witch moment. More awkward than scary.

 “There is heaps of bush magic around here.  Do you know any natural medicine?”, without any hesitation Kya launched into ….. “OK, take a cabbage and put it in the fridge and put the leaves over your infected nipples”. Unaware we had infected nipples, it quickly turned out we were getting a natural medicine course for pregnant women.  “The best thing without a doubt during labour is to smoke some weed.  The babies fully developed so it’s fine.  Also if the kid gets 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd degree burns, don’t go to hospital – put papaya on the burns”.

Luxury train travel

We’re having trouble leaving Mozambique behind

After a month in Mozambique it’s time to move on to Malawi.  Trouble is it’s not that easy.  Two 3am starts and four days travelling instead of the planned two was in store for us.  Firstly Michael Schumacher’s African cousin took us from Pemba to Nampula.  The bus ride despite being terrifying was comfortable but not altogether pleasant due to some stupidity on our part – rather than the hard-boiled eggs we’ve been enjoying we’d packed a few raw eggs that slimily covered our bags.

The 4am train was amazing – we got 2^nd class seats that was actually a bed in a cabin with only 4 other people.  Even though we crawled along much slower than we’d go in a chapas, we enjoyed the space, ability to read and sleep and opportunity to buy food out the window at every stop – which we did at all 14. 12 hours later we pulled into where we

Buying some train snacks

planned to spend the night, only to see a chapas heading to our next destination. Given it was Duncan’s birthday the next day we broke our only rule not to travel in a chapas at night and squished ourselves in.  Big mistake.  All dirt road and with the sun setting and another maniac driver we once again put our lives in the hands of someone obsessed with driving on the wrong side of the road.  The 5 hour drive, quickly turned to 7 thanks to a flat tyre.

What a birthday!

Duncan’s 32^nd year began crammed in a single bed with Pip in a room not quite as big as a double bed. After a quick trip to a toilet that makes the scene from Train Spotting look good, we hit the road.  One chapas ride, quickly turned into a few and another night stuck in a town unable to complete our journey to Malawi.  Chuwinga beach had an OK place to stay on the beach and a beachfront bar, so we settled into a birthday lunch of fish and chips with some local uni students who’d hit the beach for some weekend fun. 

Given it was the first birthday of the trip, we decided it was OK to hit the top shelf drinks (which was pretty well the same as the 2^nd and 3^rd shelf, however red wine can be drunk warm).  We also decided we could splurge and have a big dinner as well as lunch, but our first

Only top shelf for a birthday

 day-nap inspired by a series of early starts and lunch time wine saw us sleeping right through birthday night.

Abandoning another broken down truck

We were so close but so far to Cobue where we could get a boat to Malawi.  Only trucks would make the journey over terrible roads and we had to backtrack to pick one up. On our way our vehicle broke down so we went into panic mode and loaded up our gear and marched at a pace that would impress any armed services unit.  Five kilometres in the African sun with no water and 20kgs of gear each was good training for the treks we have coming up.  Almost running towards the truck was it turned out a total waste of time, as of course we had to wait for the truck to be dangerously overloaded before heading off over some of the worst dirt roads yet. 

Arriving at Cobue at midday we marched to the boats, only to get the same story as the last 3 days of trying to connect transport – no boats until the morning.  Tired, irritable, thirsty and hungry we wandered over hills in search of immigration to at least get our passports stamped out of Mozambique.  Eventually we found a policeman, who set off to find the customs man.  Clearly bleary eyed from a booze-inspired kip, the customs opened up and our details were manually entered in huge leather bound journals. 

Finally five days after leaving Pemba bush camp we were finally on the lake heading off on a small wooden boat towards Malawi….

About to board the boat for Malawi

Some more photos

Isla de Mozambique

Ruby roof top terrace

Some local friends

Duncan showing the locals the faceslap

Head chef

Buying our lunch on our sail

Inside the fort

 Dunc's birthday...well the first part...

Local cattle industry

Breakfast of papaya

We wait...for transport - we hope!

They say it’s not about the destination but the journey.  If that’s the case our recent travels are spot on. We’ve been stuck in towns we had no desire to visit and are slowly getting more of what you need plenty of in Mozambique - paciencia (patience!).

We adopted in a chapas

Chapas babysitting club

Most travellers in Mozambique seem to travel either in a 4WD or as part of an organised tour, complete with comfortable bus.  The Bands prefer a mode of transport where your guaranteed not to feel your arse for hours after getting off, your likely to have a chicken screeching in your ear, your bags cost more to get on than yourself and you are regularly passed bags and children to hold for a few minutes or sometimes a few hours. The mode of transport is a ‘chapas’, translated roughly as 1970’s mini-van: legal capacity 12, usual carrying capacity 30.  We have decided a good chapas is one that has the front windscreen intact, a sliding door that closes and some pleather left on the seats.

Example of a fine chapas - deemed a
good one.

Usually hesitant to hold friends kids, Duncan has taken to babysitting on Chapas with gusto.  Travelling

 north to Vilankulous, Duncan’s babysitting club went for so long that we couldn’t figure out who the girl belonged to.  Over a few hours we’d begun to plan for life with our new daughter, before she was suddenly grabbed by one arm and hauled off the chapas without so much as an adeus.

The locals have got controlling kids to a fine art – we’ve been on several 5-8 hour chapas rides with babies, toddlers and small children in terribly cramped conditions and you never hear a tantrum or more 

Chicken getting a ride

than a few little sounds of discomfort.  Kids are so used to being passed around and looked after by their younger siblings, family members and complete strangers that they seem much more chilled than Aussie kids.

The kids always make a good distraction from what we have coined ‘fresh air of doom’.  It’s where the relief of seeing a window open to cool the body is quickly dashed when the pungent BO (strangely sweet) of an African man, who despite the temperature is wearing a second hand ski parker and insists on keeping his armpit in line with the window. 

A very secret garden

Baobab backpackers, Vilankulo's

Baobab backpackers in Vilankulo’s was a great spot – little thatched huts set in a nice garden and a laid back beachfront bar and restaurant.   On our first night at the bar, Pip got chatting to an elderly man who resembled Santa Claus (Duncan recons he was on the run).  It turned out that the bong-smoking St Nick, was 67 year old marine ecologist Paul, originally from Melbourne although in Africa for the past 23 years. A truly amazing storyteller, Paul captured Pip’s attention for the night, while Duncan could occasionally be heard from across the bar at increasing decibels  – “whose next for a schooling at pool.  It’ll cost you a beer a lesson”.  

Our room at Baobab

Pip was forced to be the disciplinarian and retrieve Duncan from the bar at 9pm, which these days is a good hour after we normally turn in.  Party Pip and Duncan must have missed one of the connecting flights here.

Over the next few days we both spent lots of time with Paul and his South African travelling partner Shannon, mostly listening to Paul’s theories on life and having a giggle at spotting him punching a breaky cone at 6:30am. As only a stoned man can, Paul had traded a chicken that he’d purchased for no particular reason on the beach (and spent the day carrying around in a plastic bag) for a few kilos of local shell fish that we gladly shared with them. We probably should have been wary when he gave us a tip for a backpackers 50 kilometres up the beach that was “like this place was 30 years ago man, it’s meant to be super chilled”.

Inhassoro was indeed a really cool spot, but after our chapas gave up the fight despite five push starts and only 2^nd and 4^th gears working, the engine finally went where the interiors did decades ago.  A few hours later on a new chapas, and towing the old one, we pulled into town only to find that Marimba’s secret garden was so secret that it didn’t even exist.   Why had we not questioned Paul’s advice, particularly given it was given only a few minutes after his sunrise joint?

Now on sunset and starting to panick that there was no accommodation in Inhassaro, we were suddenly greeted by a perennial dwarf.  It was quite a shock given we were both on edge already. We think we kept cool faces, but we can’t be sure.  Our only regret for the trip so far is not getting a photo with him!

The secret garden debacle continued the next day when we got a two hour chapas to the junction only to realise it was a Sunday and we were unlikely to pick up another one to where we needed to get to.  

Rescued by Zimbabwean twins that had recently returned after having been in exile for seven years after Mugabe threw them off their farm, we ended up having the most comfortable ride of the trip. James and Henry were great to travel with, although Duncan only revealed later that he’d seen a giant rifle in the back when he was packing our bags! Their parents now live in New Zealand, but neither of the twins wanted to stay away.  Henry is prospecting for gold, while James who was fought in Afghanistan and Iraq as a British paratrooper picks up work as a security specialist for the accelerating mining industries in Zimbabwe.  The boys thought that Zim was safe now and that life was slowly returning to normal, although conceded they’d never be able to go back to their farm which now lies in ruins, where once it employed 100 in their livestock, tobacco, cotton, horticulture and honey business.  Zimbabwe like Mozambique is now exclusively subsistent farming, not great for food security in a region where famine is only a few thousand kilometres north.

Bazaruto island - amazing tides

Diving with our ears

After some amazing diving in Tofu, we weren’t sure that Vilankulo’s could deliver.  The diving trip is a great way to get out to the Bazaruto Archipelago though and much cheaper than staying on one of the islands for $500 a night!  The archipelago was amazing – islands of huge sand dunes that looked down to marshes that had goats and crops to sustain the 2000 inhabitants.  The local fishing was of course amazing and when we were leaving they came in with a humongous mullet that our dive company bought for 4,000 metecal or A$130.

Catch of the day

The coral was superior to Tofu, but it was rough on the surface so the visibility wasn’t great.  We did spot a shark, causing Duncan’s air supply to drop quickly.   While wondering whether he had gone to find his friends, we were relieved to hear the eerie sounds of humpback whales calling out to each other.

WWF would be proud

Duncan is always keen to get involved with local activities, so was excited to see a village hauling in a fishing net from the beach.  Duncan joined the group slowly hauling it in by wrapping sticks around the rope and walking backwards with it, while Pip was poised with the camera and playing with girls in the sand with only men involved in the haul. When the net finally made it to shore, we were horrified to see that two huge turtles were stuck in the nets.  A few minutes of panic that we’d helped kill them, were thankfully unfounded, although the local boys repeatedly kicked and jumped on the huge turtles backs as they tried to make their way out to see.  It was amazing to touch and be so close to such huge turtles, the larger of them we guessed (pretty well turtle experts) was close to 150 years old.

Hauling in the fishing net

The turtle being released!

More turtle rescue photos at the end...

Good cop/ bad cop

Not liking what 'bad cop'
had to say

Macgoober was keen to put his skills to the test again on the charcoal (he claims the secret to a good fire is the coconut husk), so we wandered into town to negotiate a fish. Like most developing countries a few gringos walking around attracts any local who can speak some English wanting to help you out. Some genuinely want to help you, most want to take you somewhere to buy something and take a clip of the ticket.  Regardless of their intentions we generally have to rely on them to get anything done – our Portuguese still leaves a lot to be desired! 

In a back alley with some young hoodlums it began ….  “280 metecals a kilogram for this fish – very good amigo”, to which Duncan replied “what’s your best price”, “best price, best price for you my friend”.  This tends to go on for a while, before bad cop Pip gets in on the action “150 for the whole fish”, to replies of “no, no big fish”.  Then the fake walk away, some talk of maybe feeling like chicken and we get a fish.  Plus we managed to get the crayfish man who we’d insulted with our earlier negotiating to give us one crayfish for 100 metecals - $4.  Escorted by our friend in the Port Douglas top we then got some eggs, tomato and lettuce for a nice little salad.

Australian charity t-shirts?

It’s not just the Port Douglas top, Mozambique is full of Aussie second hand t-shirts.  We haven’t got to the bottom of it yet, but we’ve seen Wallabies jerseys, Sydney Swans, O’Neill, Skins, McGrath Foundation and our favourite was one of our chapas drivers (always men) in a curves women’s gym top. 

Hope everyone’s well!

Adeus Amigos for now.

Photos

Dhow leaving at sunrise

Cheap beer, warm beer.

 The turtle rescue

Local village

Extreme photography

Bazaruto 

Chapas photo series

At every stop (there are many!) some kids are selling local produce

The broken down chapas gave up it's fight

Stranded with the broken down chapas

Standing room only!

Whale sharks, manta rays and a burnt oesophagus – a fantastic first week!

Whale sharks, manta rays and a burnt oesophagus – a fantastic first week!

Just 7 days in Mozambique and we have swum with whale sharks, dived with manta rays, seen hump back whales and been more cramped on a mini-bus than we ever thought possible. 

The journey

Thanks to some heavy duty sleeping tablets and a lady with a wicked flat-top hair cut at Johannesburg airport who got us on a flight 6 hours earlier than we’d booked, we made it to Maputo the capital of Mozambique in 25 hours. Maputo is a shadow of its former glory in the 70’s – in need of a good coat of paint and new pavements.

Some research on the final flight revealed that only Portuguese is spoken in Mozambique. Luckily Pip managed to dig up a few essential phrases from her Brazil vault (Treen was always put in charge of languages!), that enabled us to get our hands on a giant avocado, but still made getting around very tricky!

The less comfortable journey

Waiting in the pre-dawn cold for a bus to Tofu, after a half-hour walk we were amused to see two Dutch guys (unsure whether lovers or brothers) from our guest house comfortably aboard with good seats.  With the general disregard for any system the driver attempted to jam both packs under the back seat, but eventually gave up and allowed one of the bags in the aisle, which in time acted as a substitute seat. We thought we’d scored by moving from the tiny double seats to the back seat, until we turned up at the local bus station and about three times the amount of people that could comfortably get on the bus boarded.  It could have been worse, with a seriously big mumma looking like she was going to try and be the fourth person on our three person seat.  Luckily she was distracted by someone selling sweeties and a 6 foot man whose hips were substantially smaller took her place and the four of us got nice and cosy for eight hours.  Somehow the time passed without too much discomfort, aside numb bums, as we took in the continual rural huts and ladies walking along the highway with huge piles of wood or coconuts on their heads.  The men always empty handed, with the exception of a bottle of the local rum.

The local rum

Being too lazy to explore with our packs, we booked a hut where the bus dropped us.  Third hut lucky door lock that worked, but sadly the same couldn’t be said for the toilet block.  The only rational solution was to wander into town to try the local rum with some of the locals who were busily trying to sell the days catch of barracuda, tuna and giant prawns to tourists.  The markets are crazy, with the local delicacy – giant prawns – being controlled by three aggressive ladies, that we termed the prawn mafia.  Their rigged scales and crazy comments, not to mention mean ways when you try and ask a question had us in stitches after a few sips of the local rum. While enjoying the sunshine-syrup, a well-endowed American girl and her South African boyfriend, Lacy and Don, told us about much nicer accommodation another kilometre up the beach.  It took us a while to work out that they’d be taking a cut, but we figured if it had working toilets we’d give it a crack.

Flashpacking!

Right decision.  Somehow we went from thinking we’d maybe treat ourselves to a double room to getting the beach view suite, for a very very good price. The South African owner has since had a go at us for paying so little, but luckily it was all locked in for five days so we are living it up!  We are now officially flashpacking – backpacking is for the commoners.

Diving heaven

Being right beside a dive school, we got straight out to snorkel with whale sharks.  A truly amazing experience.  We saw a total of three whale sharks, each between 7- 12 meters long.  We chased them around and dived down to swim alongside them, but quickly wore ourselves out. Swimming alongside them is one of the greatest experiences of our lives. 

Then we signed up for 3 scuba dives, convincing the dive instructors that we didn’t need to waste time on the refresher course – we’d dived recently. 

 “Yeah us Aussies are water babies” …. “Are you sure you’ve dived in the last two years”. …“Yeah mate”.  Fast forward two hours with the skipper yelling “masks on, regulators in, prepare for negative entry…dive, dive, dive”.  We both stared at one another with panicked eyes and rolled off the back of the boat thinking ‘what the f&^k’.  Pip preceded to descend, having dived most recently (5 years ago in Brazil) while her dive buddy’s 10 year dive gap saw him flailing on the surface, thinking to himself ‘how do you use this gear’, while looking below to see the other divers quickly descending.  Throwing caution to the wind, he swam for the bottom trying to overcome his fear of sharks.

The next 45 minutes turned out to be some of the best diving of our extensive diving lives.  The remote Mozambique reefs still remain relatively untouched and the coral supports populations of tropical fish, huge tuna, sharks, several variety of turtle and most impressive -huge manta rays the size of small cars.

Doxy strikes again

Pip scored a ‘super freckle’ from the malaria medication doxycycline in Brazil, but after the rums on our first night in Tofu, Pip upped the anti by panicking about missing the days tablet but forgetting that you can’t take Doxy’s and lie down.  Now with a burnt oesophagus, Pip has had to struggle with swallowing and worst of all can’t enjoy a lager of an evening with the giant prawns that Duncan has been cooking up over hot coals!

Magyver….more like Magubber

Since Dunc repaired Pip’s broken pack with gaffer tape, opened an avocado using his pen knife and cooked prawns on hot coals (started without using matches or a lighter) his asked me to call him Magyver…..more like Maguber – you wouldn’t even get a patch for stuff like that in Girl Scouts.  Dib dib dib. Dob Dob Dob. 

Photos below.

Emails

If anyone wants to email us our emails are pipmcconachie@yahoo.com.au or duncan@scalepm.com.au 

Hope everyone is well!

P&D