I just got back from a vacation in Mozambique – which I can actually see from my backyard, so I suppose it was about time I made it over there. I think that the best part of being an education peace corps volunteer in Africa is probably about the same as the best part of being an education worker anywhere else in the world –ridiculous amounts of vacation time. So for spring break (well, autumn break. I am so tired of this stupid southern hemisphere) we decided to head to a tropical beach.
We spent a night in Maputo, the capital, which is a little bit sketchy but can be pretty interesting if you’re willing to walk all over the place to find stuff. Probably the best part is the ridiculously fresh seafood. There’s a fish market right on the beach, and then all of these little restaurant-like places that are basically glorified kitchens. They cook your food for you for about the equivalent of $2 a plate. Its completely delicious.
After a night in Maputo we got into a bus for a comfortable and delightful 8 hour ride up Tofo beach – which is incredibly beautiful and totally worthwhile. You know all those corona commercials where you’re looking from the perspective of a person in a hammock and its all white sand and completely clear blue water and coconut trees? Pretty much just like that. And I spent about the whole week in that hammock. We also tried to go snorkelling with whale sharks (what a ridiculous sentence to write. Who does that? Who says, “oh, last week when I was snorkelling with whale sharks”) but sadly we never actually found any. We just rode around in a boat off the coast for 2 hours instead. It was a nice boat ride. Maybe some other time.
Generally the whole trip was really amazing (especially the part where I accidentally pulled the handle off the backpacker’s propane stove and created an enormous fountain of flames and explosion that kind of threatened to burn the whole place down, when all I really wanted was to make spaghetti. That was fun.) Mozambique is definitely much more what people probably think of when post-colonial Africa comes to mind. Its very poor, but you can see the remains of the Portugese/Arabic/European influence in the architecture and infrastructure, which is occasionally very pretty even in a completely run down state. It has a very Caribbean tropical feel to it, lots of palm trees and sudden rain storms. I kept thinking to myself how much mom and dad would love the place, its so beautiful and so very real and down to earth at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if Mozambique and its beaches start becoming a real touristy resort destination in not too many years. (Maybe 20). I'm glad I got to go there now and get the 'backpacker' feel before that dissapears. Of course, it is also a complete economic mess: the people are poor, the streets are covered in filth, and the cops are corrupt.
We actually got hassled by a group of cops when we were walking through Maputo on our last night. They wanted our passports, but only one of us actually had his on him. They wouldn’t accept our PC IDs, were giving us a hard time, and generally things were looking like we were headed towards a night in a Mozambican jail (and…ew) because God knows we didn’t have the money for bribes, when this dude in a car pulled over and just started shouting at them over and over in Portugese. I have no idea what he was saying, but he was pissed. So the cops turned to us and asked if there was a problem here. We said most definitely not and got the hell out of there.
So Mozambique was fun.
*This might look pretty familiar to a few of you getting letters pretty soon. Sorry, but I can only write the only thing so many times in so many ways, you know?
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