"Our" Whale Shark!
Maputo City Hall
Me and the warthogs
A grumpy local
Como Esta!
We have covered a lot of ground in the past week and we have much to talk about.
Mozambique a country who has just emerged a few decades ago from more than 10 years of civil war and completely ravaged by the Portuguese like the excellent tenants they were, destroyed everything before leaving. Despite the odds Mozambique seems to be doing very well and not caught up in the past. During the turbulent times, Mozambique had a brief liaison with communism - which we can still see remnants of. Some of the people we have met, older of course, had studies in the Soviet Union and could speak Russian. Also, some streets in Maputo have Russian names.
A few things about the place, one cashews are a major export and easily bought on the street from vendors. Large bags approx 400gr are only $4 - not bad huh! Mozambique, like its neighboring countries, are big on recycling glass. The bottles are always returned for the deposit.
One crazy thing we have found throughout our travels in Africa is the women are by far the hardest workers in Africa! Followed by the children unfortunately.
Our path since we last spoke; Vilankulo > Tofo > Maputo > Swaziland
Sunday - Mozambique seafood: We arrived in Tofo by around 2ish and booked our diving for the time here. Tofo is a tiny little village, not even a town and is kind of a hippy hangout. The place is very chilled and has excellent seafood. We indulged every lunch and dinner in fish and calamari! The best thing to accompany the good food here is Laurentina beer - the best beer in Africa so far!
Monday - Humpback whales: We went for a dive in the morning, but that wasn't the highlight of the day, despite being a pretty decent dive. The cruise out back and forth was full of humpback whales. Also on Wednesday we saw numerous humpbacks, sometimes a mother with calf swimming by our boat. There must have been hundreds around. Later in the day I even saw one from the beach. You would have to be lucky to see them breach, which we saw twice, but mostly they would just swim along the top or come up for air. This was our first time seeing whales! If you haven't yet, you absolutely must see these magical beasts!
Tuesday - Relaxing on the beach: Tofo's beach is huge, reminding me of Venice Beach in California, more than 100 yards (meters) before you reach the water. We spent the day, soaking sun and swimming in the reasonable sized waves.
Wednesday - WHALE SHARK: Wednesday was all about diving and snorkeling! We went for two dives, but the best was yet to come after we surfaced and headed back. One of the dives, Manta Reef is a top 30 dive sight in the world and we were spectators to a huge display of marine life, although no mantas. On the two dives, we saw lobsters, giant turtles, a grouper bigger than me, huge moray eels, puffer fish, and a crocodile fish. The real treasure was the boat ride back to shore when we spotted a whale shark. If you aren't familiar with this fish; besides being the biggest fish in the world, they are very docile and do not eat people! They don't even eat fish - mostly plankton. When we spotted it, all us divers jumped out of the boat with our snorkels and swam along with it. I'm sure it could go faster, but I could easily swim to the front of it from the back. This 7 meter (24 foot) beast was as big as a bus and so graceful, unlike Nepali buses. We have been wanting to see one for many years and finally our wish had been granted! The whale shark is kind of a Mecca of divers and its something most want to see sometime in their life!
Thursday - Vladimir Lenine Street: We took a 4am bus to Maputo, Mozambique's capital, with all kinds of drama from hippies misplacing bags, but eventually arrived to the city to face horrible gridlock. What the bus driver didn't know, is it wasn't going to move. We bailed on the bus when we got close enough to walk, leaving the other tourists and locals to wait. What we saw soon was a bicycle race going down Vladimir Lenine street (yes, they spell it Lenine - haha). The race was part of the African Nations Sporting event. We spent the remainder of the day sightseeing, visiting their 110 year old colonial train station (a standing remnant of the Portuguese), the fort, and a metal house used by the governor. As far as African cities go, Maputo is a very nice one with lots of outdoor cafes.
Swaziland, one of Africa's smallest and least populous nations is an interesting one! King Mswati the 3rd now has 9 wives, previously he had 12, but 3 have since divorced him! They actually divorced him, if you can imagine that. No instances of guillotine use in case my English readers are wondering!
The country appears to be more modern than we have seen in the previous African countries. They have decent roads and nicer housing in the villages, but like the other Southern African countries, there are a multitude of social problems; schools without teachers, mismanagement, misappropriation of funds and poor healthcare. 26% of Swazi's are reported to have AIDS; however only a small amount is done to educate the population. We have seen a few billboards, but most parents, teachers and government officials are clueless on even how to protect themselves, much less than to advise young people.
One of the impressive feats of Swazi is its agriculture production. Nowhere in Southern Africa have we seen such organised crop fields; which many contain sugarcane, corn and wheat.
Friday - Hello Swaziland: We had a nice relaxed minibus trip to the boarder and to my surprise, it was quiet, clean and didn't have people wondering around. Normally you will have touts, food sellers, moneychangers, taxis, and general chaos. Strangely, there was none of this; such a great start for Swaziland. We arrived at our hostel which was in a gorgeous valley and well equiped with a pool, bar, and very comfortable lodging (spa bathtub); however, no people. We spent the day trying to organise our time in Swaziland and what we could do without a car - this is not as easy as you might think. After we had our game plan, we enjoyed a few drinks, had dinner and relaxed, chatting with the owner and resident hippy.
Saturday - Mlilwane Walking Safari: Yesterday's safari was an incredible and unique one. Swaziland isn't really well known for its game parks, but what we really enjoyed about Mlilwane was we could just walk around on our own and get as close to the animals as we wanted - well, often the animals didn't like this. We walked up within 10-15 feet (2-3 meters) from huge crocodiles; our first we have seen in Africa surprisingly. We closely approached many warthogs, zebras, gazelles, and wildebeests. Having the freedom to walk around was incredible.
What's next; we are now in Durban, South Africa and are hoping to arrange a trip to Lesotho.
See you next time,
Dan and Marina
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