Mozambique by born2travel.it

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22.09.2010 Praia do Tofo (MOZAMBIQUE)

In Africa you need patience. If you are not patient: you become patient! Patience to spend dozens of hours in an uncomfortable van waiting, searching, scanning, hoping to glimpse some animal during the safari. Patience to put up with border bureaucracy; patience to negotiate for a decent exchange between South African rand and Mozambican metical.

Having left South Africa with its fine Kruger Park we also leave behind the "western" world, the remnants of those old Boers today called "afrikaners" vanish immediately in the red dust of the land of Mozambique. Once across the border: the language changes, we leave behind English with its Dutch pronunciation and a warmer Portuguese welcomes us. We are in Africa: and this time for real!

In these days in Maputo internal unrest has broken out because of the rise in the price of bread and water. We wisely decide to avoid the capital and for this reason we leave the only paved road to plunge into a path forgotten by God... Big potholes, dust, sand, jungle scenery frames our route...

For hundreds of km we meet nothing if not some small child popped out from who knows where and some solitary little goat...

Sometimes I lose myself watching fleetingly their huts and through them I try to imagine how their daily life might unfold... it is hard not to feel tenderness, compassion for these people who, born here, find themselves living a life of hardship and daily struggle for survival... I am not exaggerating and the glaring example is given to me by the girl who argues with friends to grab one of our empty plastic bottles...

So, how can you not feel lucky before so much misery? How can you not feel "small" when you are stuck in city traffic or when, at home, a stupid ornament breaks and you get angry? Here every thing returns to acquire its true value.

Fannie, our afrikaner driver, carries straight on...we go back up the black continent!

23.09.2010 Praia do Tofo (MOZAMBIQUE)

You give a pen... They give you a smile accompanied by a shy "obrigado" and you immediately feel richer and happier!

The thing that struck me most about this first taste of Africa is the "waka waka", the eternal walk of these men, women and children who pop out from everywhere and walk... they go on... who knows where... they continue in single file, in groups, alone... some improvise a dance on the roadside of red sand, an elderly lady argues animatedly with a little circle of women with large and prominent bottoms. Children with heavy flasks or big bags on their heads; girls with artistic hairstyles and a thousand colourful braids... Where they go: no one knows... Where they pop out from: you can't see... We only know that they go...

In these days I have greatly appreciated one thing that for us westerners is more than taken for granted: electricity! Doing all the operations in the dark is not simple: putting up the tent, unpacking the backpack, finding the tracksuit to sleep in, what is needed to wash...

After 14 hours on the road we stopped at Praia do Tofo, a very romantic place that overlooks the Indian Ocean and reminds me so much of Dikwella.

The anti-malarial prophylaxis continues. The "lariam" so far has not produced great side effects in me, fortunately...

[Nick]: "Mozambique conveys the idea I have of Africa: poor but generous and welcoming."

Here is one of those places I will not easily forget!

We were stocking up on some food supplies at the border between South Africa and Mozambique when Fannie finds a guy who rents us his marvellous villa on the ocean for one night. It was hard to get there but it was truly worth it.

Waking up with this spectacle of nature moved me! The immense ocean that surrounds you, the fishermen returning from the fishing trip... I will never forget the barefoot jog wearing only my swimsuit, on the white beach... I would so much like to capture as much as possible of these images, of these sensations, of these flavours... How surprising this Mozambique is... And who would ever have expected it?

24.09.2010 Vilankulo (MOZAMBIQUE)

Vilankulo welcomed us with its sounds, its music, its flavours, its people...

Two local boys brighten up our dinner improvising songs with their guitar, songs that praise the goodness and courtesy of the "people of Vilankulo".

What a beautiful evening, I felt so far from my world... I was in a remote village of Mozambique...

We have the luck to stay in some huts with a roof built from woven palm leaves that overlooks the Indian Ocean. Here too electricity is a useless luxury. Lit by our dim torches we carry out the various operations. Without light everything is harder but it serves to consolidate our team spirit. We do our best in organising the primary things: clothes line, various mosquito nets, backpack for tomorrow's navigation etc.

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