It’s been a busy and fast-moving week here. For the long weekend, Lara, Silja, Theresa (brown) and I were traveling MACHINES. Just to start we drove almost 34 hours on the bus to get from PE to Tofo, Mozambique…yikes. I admit that some of what I write might be out of order because as I think back on the week, the memories are already blurring together! We left on Friday from PE for Johannesburg on the Intercape bus, a nice and relaxing sleepliner that took us through the night up north. Arriving in Jo’burg was really exciting because I’ve always wanted to see the city but have had so many warnings thrown at me about the city having some of the highest crime rates in the world. It was definitely different from PE and Cape Town, with lots of traffic and many people getting haircuts on the street. When we got picked up by Theresa’s collegue, Tim, we went for a long drive to a different part of Jo’burg. It’s a huge city with many different levels of wealth. In the business center we went to, we were able to see the famous Nelson Mandela statue as well as the hilltop that overlooks the entire city with all of its different sections. For one day, we saw quite a bit of the city.
Next stop was Maputo. We were lucky to have someone from Fatima’s backpackers standing at the bus stop when we got off because we were all pretty sleepy at this point! After checking out our dorm room (with mosquito nets and all) we headed to the streets to find some breakfast (chocolate filled pastries..) and see the sights of Mozambique’s capital city. I realized how much more “African” Mozambique seems than South Africa when we passed the women selling fruits off the ground of the side walk, huge open markets that sold whole fish and the freshest veggies & fruits I’ve seen, “tok toks” that were tiny green motorized 3-wheelers that zipped through the city, and small girls that carried babies in wraps around their backs and toddlers that were packing fruits away in plastic bags for their mothers to sell. Children contribute to the work of the adults so much more than I’ve seen before. There seemed to be an equal number of children, ages anywhere from 4-16 selling bracelets, artwork, fruits, crafts and other things on the streets. They all have a similar business strategy, too. We repeatedly heard “Nice price for you, sister. Please, sister just look, just look for me.” It gets so exhausting to have to turn down so many sellers, especially when they don’t stand taller than 3 feet. I also began talking to one man who I bought some really pretty souvenirs from. He explained to me that he needed money for transport to get home, 46 kilometers away. He travels in between Maputo and his home regularly to be with his family and to sell his art. It seemed like a really tiring way to live, especially when the art didn’t sell for much more than what his transportation cost. Everyone you meet is so persistent to earn money because they rely on themselves alone to make a profit.
At 4:30 the next morning we woke up to catch the shuttle to Inhambane/Tofo. I thought I was stuck in a bad dream, but had to laugh when we piled into a minibus where the seats met our knees and we could barely wiggle in the space we had. It was going to be an 8 hour trip in the tiniest van ever. Fortunately it was only taking us to a slightly larger shuttle bus which would actually bring us the whole trip. We sat in this van in the lot for a good 45 minutes while people slowly piled in with bags of luggage and venders incessantly approached our windows asking us to buy from them. By the time we actually got moving, it was about 7am, and then the van broke down. Haha! But the driver and his copilot simply pushed the van backwards until it jerked forward a couple feet and the engine started… once again, we just laughed. It was a nice ride with the scenery and the opportunity to witness the streets of Mozambique.
We arrived in Inhambane/Tofo and were taken to the Bamboozi Lodge in the bed of a pickup truck of one man who was on the shuttle with us. These are towns much different from the city, with long stretches of beaches, hardly any public transportation and mostly locals, few tourists, at this time of the year. The street leading to our hostel was filled with palm trees, small local markets, huts and villages and beautiful summer homes. Very few electrical wires, making it a really eco-friendly place. Our hostel didn’t even have electricity or water running more than twice during the day, and at 10:30pm, they shut off all the electricity! At first it was a shock and then we got used to going to bed with the sunset and waking with the sunrise. At night it was pretty dark along the street leading back to our chalet, but we all felt really safe where we were. Aw and I loved our chalet with the tall pointed ceilings, porch overlooking the sand and palm trees and fresh air that was always coming through the holes at the rooftop.
While in Tofo, we went on an ocean safari where we rode in a motorboat for about 2 hours looking for sea creatures to snorkel with. This was by far one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had here! Within the first 20 minutes our skipper told us to kit up and get in the water, there was a whale shark below. I had no idea what a whale shark looked like, but knew that they were gentle and rare to come by. Immediately after hitting the water my heart nearly jumped up my throat. The nine meter whale shark was swimming toward me, just a few meters deeper than where I was. Its face was so wide and it was a blueish grey color, covered with white spots. I couldn’t believe I was swimming in the same water as this massive fish! All of the snorklers began to follow it and once my panic faded, I too swam with them to see where “Whaley” was going. Once he outswam us we got back on the boat, and the next couple hours were spent looking for other creatures, but I think most of us just wanted to swim with Whaley again! (Which we did, about 4 or 5 times!!)
After Mozambique, we took a flight to Jo’burg and rented a car to take to Swaziland. This wasn’t in the original plan but we thought it a much better option than taking the bus again for the entire weekend. Swaziland was such a good idea. It’s a kingdom where people are so friendly and they have such a cool history and culture. We saw a cultural Swazi dance and took a tour of one of the family’s villages. While some of the traditional ways are still in place, much of the culture has modernized and changed with time. The huts were so impressive in the village. They took about a month to make and could keep cool air in so efficiently (it’s VERY hot in Swazi, even now, in Winter), kept rain out perfectly, and you can even build a fire inside without worrying about the smoke getting trapped inside. Genius design. We learned about the polygamist culture of the Swazi people, and loved the fact that each wife got 3 huts to herself.. a kitchen hut, a sleeping hut, and a beer brewing hut.. that’s awesome. About 500 meters up from the village was the 2nd tallest waterfall in Swaziland. It was nestled in the woods where we saw vervet monkeys playing around in the trees. The water was super crisp but we eventually got used to it and swam up to the waterfall. Later that day, we took a sunset game drive at Mlilwane Game Park and drove up a mountain that overlooked the whole village and waterfall we visited. We also walked the path that led to the Execution Mountain, a cliff where people got pushed off if they committed a crime a long time ago. I didn’t expect to learn so much about Swaziland in the short day we were there. Especially speaking with a couple later that night who was just finishing a year of traveling the world, it made me so curious to learn about other small and uncommonly heard of countries around the world. They told us about these islands in between America and Australia that I didn’t even know existed, and how beautiful they were and how badly we NEED to see them! Listening to their stories about Thailand, Cambodia, New Zealand, Australia and all the places in between was a really inspiring way to end our week of traveling, especially as I think of how little time I have left with my own travels this semester! The good thing is that I know this isn’t the last time I’ll be exploring abroad.. I think I’ve caught the travel bug :)
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