MAPUTO, Mozambique

13 JUNE 2011

MOZAMBIQUE – Country number 15 – MOZAMBIQUE

MAPUTO

A long but comfy overnight bus ride brings me to the Mozambique border where there are umpteen transports heaped with all number of goods and food, lined up awaiting the frontier opening.

The profit margin must make it worthwhile, I guess, even down to the many bags of onions and loaves of bread my fellow passengers are carrying. Locals wearing coats are frisked and many run to the front of the line, pushing in. I’m lined up with a young south African (read white) couple when one BIG bloke (read black) pushes in tempting me to have a go at him whilst the South African bloke is very quiet. Eventually the pusher in removes himself to stand behind me, where a women there tells him off and he heads off somewhere else. 

In later conversations with the couple, he tells me that he couldn’t believe I dared to say anything to the pusher in, and he thought we would all be killed there and then. I reassured him that I find it really annoying that folk allow other folk to lord it over them and of course I have a big mouth! 

Malangatana mural

We are all headed to the same backpackers, Fatima’s Place in Maputo and we share a taxi on arrival in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo. Soon enough I’m traipsing Maputo’s streets trying to see as much as I can in one day as I have an early 5.30am departure to Tofo tomorrow morning. First stop is the ATM to get a pocket full of Metacals (or metz) before discovering Maputo. The Portugese influence here is very eviden, not least with the language which has only small nod to Spanish. I quickly practice my sim, nao, obrigado and bom dia (yes, no, . thank you and good day). The streets also have plenty of the African clamour that I have been missing from Southern Africa so far. 

Maputo Railway Station

There is plenty of colours here with street stalls, huge coloured mansions and a gorgeous ‘wedding cake’ railway station, tastefully restored and dating back from 1916.

There are six museums here in town but I give a wide berth to the Coin, Revolution and Geology Museums as only the art interests me. The Nucleo De Arte (artists’ co-op) is dismantling an exhibition and the National Art Museum has an open door with staff inside but “we are closed today”. I make a last effort to drop by the Natural History Museum to view the Manueline architecture and a fab Malangatana mural.

I finish my day with fresh vegies cooked up with a Maputo classic, Piri-Piri prawns at Fatima’s outdoor kitchen! Mmmm

Oh but those drunken girls bursting into the dorm at 1am to sing happy birthday to their mate annoyed me somewhat – the pitfalls of dorm accommodation so it’s a good thing I can fall back asleep again at the drop of a hat!

FACT: Vasco De Gama landed at Mozambique Island in 1498, en route to India. Trade centred on ivory, gold and slaves in that order. In 1975 Mozambique gained independence but as the Portugese pulled out in a huff they left the country in a state of chaos. So what else does a newly independent country do but embark on a radical social change. Alas by 1983 this Marxist ideology had the country bankrupt and susceptible to be destabilised by South Africa and Rhodesia governments distrustful of of their politics which then led to a 17 year conflict that ravaged the country.