Home » Mozambique » Day 9. Mon 25th April Mocuba to Beira

We are on the road again at 5, and I mostly sleep until we reach the Zambezi ferry at about 9. With amazing good luck we drive straight onto the ferry (Ken tells us he waited four hours last time).

Day 9. Mon 25th April Mocuba to Beira

DaveMidgley
2005-10-22 18:38:07

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We are on the road again at 5, and I mostly sleep until we reach the Zambezi ferry at about 9. With amazing good luck we drive straight onto the ferry (Ken tells us he waited four hours last time).

The road south is newly made, so we make much better time. According to the map the road is only paved for about 50Km south of the ferry, but in actual fact it is all newly tarmacked and extremely good, but we discover we are having trouble working out where we are on the map. We reach a crossroads that we think is Dondo, but when we pass through Muda and Tica we realise that we are on a new road that has taken us around the west of Gorongosa National Park. This would have been extremely good news if we had been traveling straight down to Vilanculos as planned, as it would have taken 200Km off our journey. Unfortunately Ken says that Beira is the only place where we will get a new spare wheel. From the old road this would have been a 50Km detour, but from the new road it is 250Km, putting an extra 500Km onto our journey.

Beira, the second largest city in Mozambique after Maputo the capital, is a grubby town, and as we arrive it is beginning to rain again. By the time we get rooms in the Hotel Mozambique at about 4:00 a full-scale storm is brewing.
We get rooms on the twelfth floor (I'm not quite sure why, as the hotel seems to be nearly empty) and go up in a rather dilapidated lift. Mark and I decide to walk down, and we are glad we did as, just as we get to the bar, the electricity all goes off. This turns out to be a fairly regular occurrence.

Ken has set off on his mission to find a wheel for the Disco. Mark has noticed that the makeshift bolt on the trailer has now broken, so that must also be replaced properly.

It turns out that Ken has been caught in the storm, got soaked, and had trouble finding his way back to the Hotel. He finally identifies it by the large neon sign that forms the name of the hotel, but just as he arrives the sign is struck by lightening and shatters all over the road, narrowly missing him. The good news is that he has found a spare wheel.

The guide book recommends the Pique-Nique as the best place to eat in Beira, but by this time Ken is exhausted and decides to stay and take pot luck at the Hotel Mozambique, and Chris volunteers to keep him company (they are deep into talks regarding the proposed chimp sanctuary at Mwabvi) so Blondie, Face and I get a taxi to the Pique Nique. It is a superb restaurant. The food is excellent, and not overly expensive, and the service is wonderful. The staff are presided over by a wrinkled old retainer who serves us with magnificent old-world courtesy. Stupidly I have left my camera in the hotel.

Just as we are finishing Ken and Chris appear - it turns out that the restaurant in the Hotel Mozambique was closed! We three have already booked the taxi to pick us up at nine, so we leave them to it, and return to the hotel for a last beer and bed. Chris and I are still not happy about the lify, so we take the stairs again - all twelve flights. I am gasping by the time we reach our floor - this does not bode weel, for the forthcoming climb up Mount Mulanje.