So all of a sudden well over a month has passed here in Mozambique, can't believe how fast the time is flying. The first month here was nothing like expected, mainly because of the bureaucratic problems of not being able to get a work permit and thus not being able to go to the office and start working properly. Apparently there are some check-ups every now and then and fines for unauthorized workers are extremely high. So I was able to mainly just familiarize myself with the project and Plan Mozambique through various documents and try to work a little bit from home. Altogether I was more or less on an obligatory holiday for almost a month, which is a bit of a shame as I only have 6 months here in total. However as said before, I think this is probably one of the best places in the world to be on a holiday anyway.
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| On holiday |
2 weeks ago I finally started working and just for a change then pretty much only came home to sleep a little during the week. This is mainly due to the fact that at the moment I'm living quite far and commuting can take me over 4 hours a day in total, depending on the connections. After 1,5 weeks in Maputo, I was ready to leave the city and ended up in a small beach town called Tofo. This beautiful place has been my little paradise for the last month, but I'm currently looking for a house in Maxixe, a town where the office of Plan is located, as that will save me hours every day. Seeing what Plan is actually doing here has been extremely interesting, and I have so many things I want to write about. I promise to get to that next week, now just wanted to do a small summary about some of the things I have learned so far during my first month in Mozambique:
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| Going down to Tofinho beach |
-There's always room for one more person in a chapa. Chapas are minubuses and most common means of transport. They go often and are a cheap way to travel, but they can be slightly uncomfortable too, as there really always is place for one more passenger. The first time I took a chapa in Maputo it was already fully packed, but as I was invited to hop on I ended up more or less sitting in someones lap and later had still another person sitting on top of me. Normally it's just a confusion of arms and legs everywhere, with the person collecting money hanging outside the vehicle. To get to work from Tofo I need to take the first chapa of the day at 6:15, that takes about an hour to get to the nearest bigger city Inhambane. The distance between Inhambane and Tofo is only about 20km, but the chapa stops frequently to take passengers from all along the road. Price for the trip is 18 meticais (about 0,5€).
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| Inhambane pier |
-Ferries are a really nice way to commute. After the chapa drive to Inhambane I then need to take a ferry to cross the bay from Inhambane to Maxixe, where the office is located. You can choose between a big ferry boat or small wooden boat, I personally always try to choose the small boats as I find they have more character and I have always loved being on a boat. Price is the same for both, 10 Mt (about 0,25€). The ferries leave as soon as they are full and they take about 20 minutes to cross the bay, depending on the wind and the tide. Normally they operate very well, although every now and then some small engine problems do occur. Once the driver was unable to stop the engine as we were approaching the pier and the arrival was quite a lot rougher than expected. One of the best part of the ferry ride is sometimes seeing the flamingos standing on the beach when approaching Maxixe, your day can only start nicely after that view.
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| The smaller wooden ferry |
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| Inside the smaller ferry |
-Watching the sunsets, sunrises and the starry night sky of Africa never gets boring. My camera and phone are full of pictures of the sunsets and sunrises, they are just too breathtaking and totally require you to take that one millionth photo. I'm also always up for having sun downer drinks. On top of that I have never seen such a beautiful night sky as here and the stars don't stop amazing me, whether watching them by a bonfire or laying under a duvet on a beach or while driving through the dark roads in an open-top Land Rover.
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| Sunset in Barra |
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| More Barra |
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| Sunrise in Tofo |
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| Sunset in Vilanculos |
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| Sunset view from Sunset Lodge |
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| (I did warn you, there are many...) |
-Always share your food, never eat alone and never say no to food. These are the very basic principles of good manners and as long as you remember to follow these rules you will most likely get along well with the Mozambicans.
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| Probably the best seafood meal I have ever had |
-Power cuts can be really nice if all you have to do is have dinner or beers with friends by candle light. If on the other hand you need to work or do anything else productive, they can be sort of annoying. Especially if you are like me and keep forgetting to buy a proper torch or a headlamp, it can get really dark.
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| Breakfast by the beach |
-Mozambique is an absolutely amazing kitesurf destination. I already wrote before about the great kiting in Maputo and Maragra lagoon. In Tofo you can get some good wave kiting and it definitely doesn't get crowded, a lot of the times I have been in the water by myself. You also have the chance to kite with whale sharks here, like one of the guys did a few weeks ago. I went in to the water a little bit after him and spent over 2 hours going up and down with my kite, searching for that whale shark, but apparently it had had enough and disappeared. Kiting with a whale shark is thus still on my To do -list. I also spent an amazing weekend kiting a bit further up north, in the perfect turquoise flat waters of Vilanculos. Seriously it's one of the best freestyle spots I have ever seen, the only problem is that it can apparently be too uncrowded. On Sunday the conditions were perfect and most of the times I was in the water alone, some company and peer pressure to try harder would have been nice!
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| Vilanculos on low tide, further out you have a perfect flat pool between the sandbanks |
-South Africans can probably host some of the best dinner parties ever. Just make sure the dinner table is strong enough to take the weight of 9 people dancing on it.
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| Unfortunately you can normally find quite a lot of trash on the beaches here, hopefully this will change |
-Perfect Sundays are the ones you spent surfing nice waves in the warm water with super friendly people while watching humpback whales jumping around. And realizing that at the same time you can't wait to get to work on Monday.
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| Adventures in Mozambique |
