Break Part One: Mozambique

(A note before I begin: I don't know if you know this, but South Africa is not the most technologically advanced country.  Surprising right?  So uploading pictures here is a total pain.  If you would like to see all my pictures from my break please feel free to look at my facebook albums of people and animals.)

Hello everyone!  I am finally back in Cape Town after my AMAZING Easter break and I thought I'd share my adventure with you in pieces, because a lot happened.  For the first part of the trip myself, Laura and Alex flew from Cape Town to Maputo Mozambique.  I was a little worried about the visa situation once we got there, because some guidebooks say you should get your visa in advance, and others say you can get it when you get there.  We got off the plane and the customs agent said "no visa?"  I said "no" and she told us we could buy them for 25 USD or 170 South African Rand, which is about $17.  Easy-peasey.  We probably could have just run past customs and out the door and no one would have stopped us in the airport.  However, all the police in Mozambique have AK-47s left over from the civil war because it's cheaper to use those rather than make hand guns, so it was probably good we got visas.

We got to our backpacker's in Maputo, dropped our stuff off and went in search of dinner.  Maputo was a completely new experience for me.  It was the first really 3rd world city I've been to and was kind of shocking.  In the late 1960's the Portuguese government finally pulled out of the country, destroying technological equipment and pouring cement down wells as they went.  For a while the country was run by the Marxist organization FRELIMO until the civil war broke out, last 17 years and ending in 1992.  It's pretty apparent that absolutely nothing has been repaired since before the revolution.  The roads are full of pot holes, the sidewalks are cracked and damaged by tree roots and there are man sized holes that go down 6 feet with nothing to keep you from falling in.  Trash is everywhere and there were children fighting over garbage like the lord of the flies.  But even still the city had an amazing energy that made you want to explore.

After dinner we went back to the hostel to sleep because we had to get up at 5:30am to get the shuttle to Tofo, which is 8 hours north of the city.  The shuttle ride was pretty great.  I really love long car rides when I can just look out the window the whole time and this was one of the first times I really felt like I was in Africa.  There were grass huts on the side of the road and women carrying huge loads balanced on their head with babies tied to their backs.

We finally got to our hostel in Tofo, which is a very small coast village, and the second we saw the beautiful clear Indian ocean we had to go for a swim.  The water was incredibly warm and made it difficult to imagine going back to swimming in freezing Cape Town with a wetsuit.

In Tofo we met some very interesting people.  Specifically, there was a group of 3 surfers and a very old man.  The surfers had been sponsored to travel from Cape Town to Mozambique, filming for a surf website.  On the night we met them one was passed out drunk on the table at the hostel the entire night.  The next morning when I got up I saw he was sitting drinking coffee so I went to talk to him.  I was really surprised to find that, sober, he was incredibly intelligent and knew an insane amount about African history and politics.  The old man they were traveling with was the best by far though.  His name is Bruce Gold and he's a surfing legend from J-Bay.  He has no money and his brian is totally fried from years of drugs, but he's such an institution that everyone in the town allows him to pay for things with seashells.  He can still surf the biggest waves in J-Bay despite being 61, riddled with cancer and toothless.  He was by far the happiest man I've met.  This is Bruce:

The next day Alex and I realized we might have a bit of a money problem if we couldn't get to an ATM so we walked a very long distance in the hot sun to the only ATM for miles only to find neither of our cards worked.  Visa somehow managed to get the monopoly on ATM machines in that country.  Luckily I had enough Rand which they accept there to get by, but Alex owes me quite a bit of money now.  Walking by all the hunts was fun because the little kids come out to say hello, and hello, and hello, over and over again because it's the only english that most of them know.  The rest of the day was filled with more swimming and sunning and that night there was a dance party in the hostel with all the locals and other people visiting that was really fun.  That was probably one of two nights where I stayed up until midnight.  My malaria medication makes me incredibly sleepy and I spent most nights going to be at 8:30.  What a loser.

The next day we met up with some international friends we had made at the backpackers and decided to go on an ocean safari.  Tofo, for some unknown reason, has the largest population of whale sharks in the world, and it's pretty easy to go out and swim with them.  We, of course, were one of the rare groups that did NOT see a single whale shark. We did, however, swim with giant manta rays.  To be specific, I swam with giant manta rays.  I was like the manta ray whisperer.  Every time the guide told us to jump out of the boat quickly before the manta got away I was the first one out and I was always right on top of the animal, so close I could touch it.  Now you might be asking yourself "Laurel, how big IS a giant manta ray?  Are they like giant pandas that you expect to be huge and then you seen them and they're actually smaller than most other types of bear?"  Well, I obviously don't have a picture of me with one, but, and I'm totes serious about this guys, it was the same size as this one:

BAM! Did I say it was giant or did I say it was giant? (Don't doubt me again).  A lot of people got stung by jellyfish, but being one with the sea they left me alone.  Then we did some regular snorkeling and saw nemo fish and lion fish and all sorts of fun stuff.  That night we taught a bunch of the foreign kids how to play Kings Cup which was  a lot of fun.  One of the french guys joined the game late and didn't get the full explanation.  We someone pulled the card for "waterfall" Laura told him that he couldn't stop drinking until she stopped drinking, but she didn't mention that most people fake drinking so they have enough beer for the rest of the game.  When the waterfall started he chugged his entire huge beer and finished before everyone then said "Wait, I am confused."  Oh those crazy french.

The last day in Tofo was exceptionally lazy.  We lay around in hammock, reading and napping.  The next morning we woke up at 4am to get the shuttle back to Maputo.  That was the most uncomfortable 9 hours because I was in the seat over the wheel-well and had my knees practically at my chin the whole time.  We stopped at a gas station and there were some little kids begging for money.  I gave the smallest one a 1 metical coin, which is about 30 cents, and I have never seen such a huge smile on such a little face.  He ran back to his friends to show them so I have them all 1 metical coins and they were very happy.  We got back to Maputo extremely cranky and hungry and went out for pizza and ice cream and walked around the city more.  Then we went back to the hostel because the next day we had to leave for swaziland.  But that's a post for next time!