BootsnAll Travel Blogs

just a quick note afore I get to write up properly:

drove 10 hours from Cape town to Kimberley (and early crashed due to falling asleep at the wheel!) then flew from Kim to Joburg, then Joburg to Maputo. AND I GOT MY PASSPORT BACK!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!

anyhoo, I was supposed to get picked up at the airport by the hostel van…but didnt. so got ripped off by a taxi (not too badly though) Maputo is AWFUL! its supposed to be a nice mix of portugese and arabic, but is in fact a lot like Beirut without the nice areas! buildings are all falling down, pavements have been bombed, theres police with AK47’s everywhere and armed guards at nice houses and shops with pump action shotguns!

I met 2 people that got robbed…a BIG afrikaans guy got his wallet pinched and a german girl got her bag pinched (complete with money, cards and passport!)

oh and it rained the WHOLE time I was there!…torrential! the roads were flooded and all kinds

the good news was that I met a guy from Consett!!!…works in Maputo at the mo with his wife Christine. I met them at a cafe where I was struggling with a waitress that couldnt speak english!…can you believe that! ..anyhoo, Christine helped and we all got talking…nice to meet a geordie out here. they are a real nice couple who drove me around maputo one night to show me the best – and worst – of the place, then we had a smashing seafood meal at a real nice restaurant where embarassingly enuff, Gary paid! so I paid for coffee in a flash hotel that the diplomats use in Maputo apparently, great stories thru the evening of Garys fun and games in border control for Mozambique and his army days kept the dreary weather at bay
…and so I moved on ‘ in the rain: 8 hour bus ride to Tofo…where it still rained. nice hostel thoug h which is right on the beach (Fatimas Nest) it stopped raining yesterday, so I took a boat trip (rib) out to snorkel with Whale Sharks!…we only got to see one, but I was first into the water and it swam right undernath me!….so close I had to swim to the side to miss its tail! fabulous thing! incredible visibility too (and the water is 26 degrees!!!!)

in Inhambane today to get cash and check the place out…its OK, I guess but not THAT scenic

more later