Home » Mozambique » South African Adventure 1999, Part 10: Mozambique -- symbolising the best and worst of Africa

After a game drive in the park, we crossed the border to Mozambique and drove to the capital Maputo. The country immediately seemed very different from Swaziland with the climate being much more tropical and the living conditions apparently much worse. This resulted in people being very aggressive in their efforts to sell us things and despite us being very careful, there was an incident where a group of people tried to steal from us. However, Mozambique was also a place where we experienced extreme generosity, and in retrospect I think our short visit was the most interesting experience on the whole trip.

South African Adventure 1999, Part 10: Mozambique -- symbolising the best and worst of Africa

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 20:33:32

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of the places where the road obviously had been fixed.

As we came nearer to Maputo the scenery was becoming greener and more tropical, and the humidity was also obviously increasing. Finally, we could see downtown Maputo far away in the distance. However, we would not be going to the city center just yet. According to Gunnar, at least two persons were needed to watch our car while we explored the area, so the first point on our agenda was to pick up two of his friends.

We therefore turned left before we came to the city center and instead followed a very busy road in what must have been the suburbs of Maputo. There were people everywhere around, most of them selling something. Another thing that caught our eyes in the heavy traffic was the large amount of vans and pick-up trucks with too many people squeezed in.

This road was tarred, but after driving for ten minutes, we turned right into a residential area, where a friend of Gunnar called Jorge lived. The road between the houses was not even a dust road, it was loose sand - just like driving on the beach! After a few minutes we arrived at Jorge's house, but unfortunately Jorge was not home at the moment. According to his wife, he would however arrive very soon. Gunnar decided that we should go ahead without Jorge because in this country "very soon" could mean within five minutes, but it could also mean "tomorrow" or "never".

The houses in this area were not very impressive, to say the least - it was a slum area. However, one thing that was quite nice was all the green vegetation everywhere and in particular between the various shacks. The trees, hedges, etc. sort of defined your "garden", made each place more "private", besides it looked quite nice. In the Cape Town slum there was usually no vegetation at all, there were just shacks standing next to eachother in some field.

Going back on the sand road, our car got stuck in the sand two times and we had ...