Jenny and I encountered surprisingly few problems at the Mozambique border. Despite rumors that visas were no longer being issued there, we got ours pretty quickly (something like 30 minutes). The heat, however, made it seem like an eternity. I'm not sure I've ever sweat quite that much before. My shirt was soaked through; beads of perspiration dripped into my eyes, smearing my glasses and making it hard to see; I had to take the money belt off my waist to keep the cash in it from getting completely ruined. And we were just standing around. In the shade.
After receiving our visas, Jenny and I marched out into the dreadful sun and looked for a kombi to take us into Maputo. We quickly found a taxi willing to take us into town for a fair price. The driver spoke decent English and there were a couple of other passengers on board. The only thing out of the ordinary was that it was half-filled with shop supplies: boxes of detergent, frozen chicken, canned goods, bags of potato chips. We hopped in the front, Jenny getting stuck riding on the middle counsel and, after the driver finally got his paperwork straightened out with customs (patience!), we were on our way towards Maputo. This was not to be a quick ride, however. We were stopped by police twice on the way to the capital, each stop resulting in the following scenario:
Kombi driver gets out, shoots the shit with the officers for several minutes. Officers approach the kombi and ask Jenny and I our names, where we're from, where we're going in Mozambique. Jenny and I oblige (though sometimes give our Sesotho names because it's fun to see the reaction). Officers ask us for our phone number. Jenny and I say we don't have a phone. Officers persist. I explain that I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer, I "don't have any money for a phone." Officers do not understand what Peace Corps is but do get the Volunteer concept. Officers ask us to take them to America (or for something of the sort). Jenny and I laugh politely. A good fifteen minutes after initially stopping, the police allow us to continue on.
Though the ride to Maputo took at least twice as long as it should have, we could finally see the city on the horizon. The taxi driver promised to drop us off at the bus station after he unloaded one of his passengers and some of the cargo. We turned off the main highway and began winding down dirt roads, red dust flying up behind us. It was obvious we weren't in a good part of town, but being the middle of the day, I wasn't too concerned as long as we could stay inside the vehicle. I asked again where we were going and he informed us that, after making his deliveries, he'd drop us off at "the market" where we could catch a taxi to our backpackers.
"What about the bus station? That's where we need to go."
"You can get a taxi to where you are staying at the market. No problem."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. You can get a taxi at the market. They will take you the rest of the way there."
We pulled up in front of a shack/house and, slowly, one of the women on the taxi began reconstructing cardboard boxes and filling them, one bar of soap or box of detergent at a time, before passing them to a waiting child to cart off around the corner.
Jenny and I discussed our options. This could take hours. We still had plenty of daylight left but wanted to get to our backpackers, hit up an ATM and grab dinner with time to spare. When the driver returned I told him we were meeting someone and needed to be dropped off next. Not now, now now.
Side note – I think I might have explained this before, but just in case... The word "now" means something very different here than it does back in the States. Now means, "Oh maybe I'll get to that sometime this week, if I feel like it and if you're really, really, really nice to me." Now now means "now" in the western sense. Well, the closest I can ever hope for, anyway.
We drove up and down more narrow, red dirt roads, stopping at yet another shop to unload some of the frozen chicken.
"Now now Ntate?"
"Now now, I promise. Just after this stop."
Eventually we pulled into the market, which consisted of a clearing in front of a decrepit high-rise building crammed with kombis and people. The driver told us this was our stop and that his friend (one of the other guys on the taxi with us) with us to make sure we got on the correct taxi to our backpackers. He even gave us a few metical (Mozambique's currency) to pay our fare since we only had rand on us. Then he disappeared.
So there stood Jenny, bright orange Iggy, the driver's friend and me, in the middle of a throng of Portuguese-speaking taxi drivers (though they all knew enough English to tell us they could take us to our backpackers and we should ride in their taxi) pulling us in every direction. Jenny gripped Iggy tighter and I tried to create a plan from the chaos. The driver's friend was of no assistance, inciting a fist fight among two taxi drivers almost immediately. I yelled (in English...ha...) at the drivers to back off, stop touching us and to let go of Jenny's suitcase. Not that it scared any of them, but I've found that men here are not used to assertive women and, at the very least, freaking out a little catches them off guard. Though I'm sure they understood very little of what I was yelling, they backed off enough for us to get a hold of Iggy and began dragging it towards a guarded parking lot across the street.
As we made our way to the street, I spotted a police officer on a motorcycle and waved him down. I tried to explain our situation and showed him the address of where we needed to go. Though he didn't speak English, nothing was lost in translation. Two female foreigners surrounded by a restless crowd of taxi drivers requires very little explanation. He began speaking with the drivers while they (presumably) argued with him about which one of them could bring us to our backpackers.
Just then, our saving grace appeared. The man who owned the parking lot across the street came over to Jenny and asked us to come with him. Anything to escape the madness. The police officer followed and, after much discussion, debate and yelling (at the taxi driver's friend, presumably for dropping us off in such a bad area), the man had one of his employees drive us to our backpackers, free of charge. We tried to offer him all the metical we had on us (a pitifully small sum) but he refused. Escorted by the police officer, we received a private ride right to our door. Something I love about Africa: even in the most desperate situations, people's capacity for caring never ceases to amaze me.
After checking in, figuring out where the nearest ATM and food shops were, Jenny and I scrambled out to get supplies before taking much needed showers. Too bad we started sweating again the second we stepped out of them. We reserved our spots on the 5:30 a.m. shuttle to Tofo and, after a great dinner of curry prawns and a few drinks, turned in for the night.
When considered in the context of African public transport, the shuttle to Tofo could have been a lot worse. The minibus picked us up right at the backpackers, and since our group was the first on, we were able to pick seats by the windows. Our luggage was stowed (Iggy had to be strapped to the back of a seat) and we headed to the taxi rank where the minibus picked up local passengers. As we waited for the shuttle to fill.
An hour and a half later, we were on our way to the beach. Cement buildings painted with blue, yellow and red advertisements streaked by as we sped through village after village. Every time we stopped to let a passenger off, people selling everything from soda to cashews to honey to kabobs pressed into the windows of the bus. Each stop supplied us with a new collection of goodies, many of which we'd never seen before. The conductor (the man who lets people on and off the taxi and collects money) was kind enough to explain to us what many of the unfamiliar items were used for.
Mid-afternoon we finally arrived at our oasis. Sand at our doorstep, ocean wave crashes audible from our beds. A couple of men from the bus kindly lugged Iggy to our room and, after checking in to Fatima's (our backpackers), Jenny and I headed to the market to pick up drinks, snacks and bargain on sarongs and souvenirs. Sweaty and tired of being harassed by boys selling shirts, pants and necklaces, we changed into swim suits and took a dip into the ocean. Salt stinging my lips, the warm Indian Ocean water was just the thing I'd been waiting for.
Jenny and I took our beach time easy, lounging and playing fetch with a local dog on the beach. Hans, a guy from the Netherlands who lives in Jo'burg and who we'd met on the shuttle, invited us to join a group for dinner at the place he was staying.
Around 7 p.m., bottle of cheap rum in-hand, Jenny and I strolled down the beach and met Hans at the market. Once at his place, we met Nick, a Brit working at Tofo Scuba. After an AMAZING dinner of grilled prawns and chicken, rice, salad and potato pancake-type things, we headed to Fatima's for drinks. Jenny regaled Nick with tales of her SLR camera and chased crabs across the sand (which Hans did a mighty good impersonation of) until we were all too tired to keep going...or the bar closed. Not sure which, but I'm guessing the latter.
We also had the opportunity to take in a snorkeling excursion at Tofo Scuba. After signing wavers and being fitted for fins, we piled into a jeep and headed to the boat launching area. On the beach, a marine biologist explained to us what we'd be looking for during the excursion (whale sharks...huge, but they eat plankton) and the procedure for boat launch, getting into the water and returning the the beach. We pushed the boat into the waves, jumped on and began speeding over giant crests in the open ocean.
For those of you who don't know, I get terribly motion sick. Planes, trains, cars, boats, doesn't really matter. I should have known better. But how could I pass up an opportunity to snorkel in Mozambique with a whale shark? At least I wasn't the first or, by any means, the only person to get sick. The waves were wicked; the marine biologist actually fell off the boat! Of course it was at this point that Jenny looked at me and said, "You know, in the States, there's no way in hell we'd be out here like this without life jackets." I hung on tighter.
After what seemed like an eternity, the guides spotted a whale shark and into the water we jumped. I swam in the general direction the guide was pointing, sticking my face into the blue, seeing nothing. I checked again to be sure I was looking in the right place and, validated, looked once more. There it was. A giant, smiling mouth, bigger than me, straight ahead. I've never been in the water with such an enormous animal before and got the heck out of its way as quickly as possible. After it swam slowly past me and out of view, I took my face out of the water and noticed Jenny hanging on to the side of the boat, looking ill. At this point, being in the water had not made the motion sickness any better and I decided to check on her and get in the boat. At least there I could feel sick without the added stress of swimming.
The rest of the ride seemed to last forever. I'd guess a good third of the people on the boat got sick. Finally, everyone piled back in and, having no luck spotting another whale shark, we beached the boat and were free to go. Apparently sea sickness is something people just get used to...though not without a lot of pain.
Too few hours later, at 4 a.m., Jenny and I climbed on to the shuttle back to Maputo. The shuttle arrived around 1 p.m. and after fishing Iggy's spare key out of my pack, Jenny and I took a metered cab to the rank and boarded a kombi to Nelspruit. It wasn't filling and, after several hours of waiting (and arguing with men about the metical to rand exchange rate) we finally departed with just six other passengers.
This kombi ride was legit, and much faster than our trip in, but still ended up arriving in Nelspruit long after dark. We called our backpackers to get the number of a metered taxi and, on the advice of the owner, went to the police station to be picked up there. It was nearly 9 p.m. by the time we reached the backpackers and, of course, there weren't many options for food. There were no nearby restaurants and both the pizza place and metered cab company weren't answering the phone. Though obviously unhappy about it, the owner of the backpackers said he would make us something. "Something" turned out to be a full meal of cooked veges, steak, beets, salad and chocolate cake. Though he did it grudgingly, we are forever in his debt. We went to bed exhausted, but at least with stomachs full.
We left the backpackers at 4:15 a.m. to ensure we were at the gate to Kruger when it opened at 5:30 a.m. Mission accomplished; we were even a little early. That being said, our safari had a very slow start. We drove (un-caffeinated...bad idea!) for a good hour or two without seeing a single animal. Then, finally, we came upon an elephant standing next to the road, seemingly oblivious to the cars stopping to snap photos. The rest of the day was slightly more exciting with many more elephant sightings, what seemed like thousands of impala, several herds of zebra and a few giraffe, monkeys and buffalo. I managed to spot one hippo, far in the distance, and Jenny thought she saw a cheetah or leopard. Unfortunately, our excursion didn't include any rhino or lion, but all in all, it wasn't bad for one days' work.
Possibly the most productive part of the day was Jenny's driving tutorial. As I mentioned earlier, I don't know how to drive a stick shift. We decided Kruger was a great training ground (little traffic, relatively flat roads, slow speed limit) and I took the wheel. I stalled more times that I care to admit and peeled out almost as much, but it was a good primer. Hopefully my new skills will get some practice again soon!
Jenny and I celebrated (or lamented) her last night in Africa with dinner at an Irish pub (yeah, random, I know) and a bottle of champagne we'd purchased in Stellenbosch.
And, before I knew it, it was over. After shifting items in and out of Iggy several times, Jenny's luggage was allowed on the plane (though still slightly over the weight limit). We said our goodbyes and she disappeared behind the check-in desks, on her way home.
It's always hard to say goodbye to a friend and, I've found, even harder here. But I know I'll see her again soon. Maybe it was that, maybe it was knowing I had work to come back to, maybe it was that I hadn't left Africa, but this return to Lesotho was much less painful that the last. But that doesn't mean my time spent with Jenny over our crazy vacation meant any less. She's the first person from my "real life" to come here, see where I'm living, what I'm doing, experience my life as it is now. That's something that means so much to me. But I guess it also helped me realize that my life as it is now is pretty real too.
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