Part 1: To the border and beyond
Day 1:
Met Claire in town. About two minutes after Tim dropped me off I realize I have forgotten malaria prophylaxis, an essential for any trip to Mozambique. Way to go team. Decided to worry about that later. Ran a few errands, and then off to catch a taxi. It was weird walking around town with our backpacks and stuff, being treated as a tourist. We were lucky and got a couple seats on a taxi right away and didn't have to wait too long for the taxi to fill up. Okay, probably should define taxi in African terms.
Taxi- a kombi, aka like a VW bus, that they stuff full of people and/or cargo with a pre-determined location and usually a pre-determined route (often this is pretty straight forward as there is only one route from point A to point B). So you get on a taxi whose end point is your destination or your destination is somewhere on their route or their end point is another taxi depot along the route to your destination where you can catch your next taxi to continue your journey. Prices are based on how far you are traveling, obviously you pay more for the farther you go on the route. Prices are pretty set, especially if you are a local, but bartering can be done, especially if you are a tourist and getting ripped off. :) Ok, I think that is good enough for now, more taxi stories to come...
Had an uneventful taxi ride to Manguzi, a few hours. We were staying with another Peace Corps volunteer, a lovely girl named Carly, that neither of us had ever met, but she was more than gracious to welcome us into her home. While we were waiting for Carly, I decided I was supes hungry and had to have something to eat. Of course. So we go to KFC. Obvi. Because there are KFCs everywhere in South Africa. And within the first three bites I lapse into an awful esophageal spasm. Oh and their bathroom is out of order. Awesome. If you don't know what is involved in an esophageal spasm, no need to get into the details, all you need to know is that it's awful. And involves me hacking up a lot of loogies. So, now I have to meet my lovely host hacking loogies. Oh and then we spend the rest of the day in town running errands and meeting other very pleasant Peace Corps volunteers, all while I'm hacking loogies. Awesome. And somewhere in all of this that I managed to obtain some malaria prophylaxis. Mefloquine. Gnarly dreams. Woot woot.
When we finally got to Carly's house, I was able to do some meditation and relax enough for my esophagus to chill the fuck out. Thank god. I was starting to get concerned about my hydration in the summer heat cause I literally couldn't even swallow a sip of water. We then prepared a nice pasta meal that I was able to partake in. Sweet! Sustenance!
Soon enough it was bedtime (in the village- when it gets dark). Carly had never had guests before, but she suggested we try sleeping on the floor on top of a giant, fluffy leopard blanket.
Sounds pretty good to me. Oh wait, until you turn the lights out, and all the crazy mother fucking bugs come out! First it was the noises. We heard this bug buzzing around and bumping against all the walls. And you know how you can tell the size of the bug by the noise it makes? Well, yeah, this was a big mother fucker. So, we finally decided to turn the lights back on to find this bugger after a few too close encounters where we heard it buzz right by our face slash felt it tickle our legs. Eeek! With the lights on, we failed to find our culprit, but instead found a gnarly ass spider just chilling on the wall. Awesome. Thank god for big bad Claire who had the guts to kill it with a flip-flop slash was refusing to sleep knowing that thing was alive and crawling in this place.
After that extravaganza, we opted to create a circle of Doom! and fold the blanket in half and burrito ourselves for protection on this ridiculously hot summer night. I mean, obviously. As Claire is securing the perimeter with Doom!, I'm trying not to suffocate as I fold the blanket in two to create our caccoon slash sauna of safety. Oh but wait! Holy shit! There is a giant mother fucking millipede just chilling, scurrying around the middle of our blanket. No fucking way! Claire proceeds to fling it off the blanket with her handy dandy flip-flop. And Doom the thing to death. What a way to die.
Ok, so fan-fucking-tastic. That's it! We are absolutely, definitely not sleeping on this floor. My suggestion: gear up- aka put on jacket/sweatshirt with hood up, zipped to top, put chairs up against wall, wrap blanket around legs, shoes on. Sounds totally, completely reasonable. Who cares that it's sweltering hot in the little hut? Done. And so we rested/slept like this for a couple hours. Then Claire suggests that we shimmy our way over to the desk across the room where we could lay our heads down. Um, yes. I was totally just thinking that!
Another couple hours of rest/sleep, pouring sweat as we are still totally wrapped up. Let's just say it was a cleanse. Now this seemed totally practical to us at the time. No laughs. Okay, maybe a couple laughs as we imagined our hostess coming out to find us sleeping in such a predicament. Needless to say, we were up before her and didn't have to live out this scenario. Though our answer to "So, how'd you sleep last night?" was entertaining.
"Ummm.... interesting...."
"Interesting?"
"Yeah, we slept on your desk."
Carly looks at her one foot by two foot desk, back at us, back at her desk.
"I mean, we used your desk for our heads... we were sitting in the chairs..."
Break into laughter.
"Loooong story."
Running pretty much on pure adrenaline due to exhaustion, we caught a taxi into town and soon enough were in a taxi on our way to the border. We actually arrived at the border before it was open, second in line to cross. Way to be on the ball team. Benefits of waking up at the butt crack of dawn because of shitty sleeping arrangements. The sweetest gogo helped navigate us through the border and onto a taxi and onto our way to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
The taxi ride was an adventure, basically sand "roads". But, we had a badass driver that managed to work our kombi, weighted down with people and cargo, down the path, passing many stuck vehicles along the way. The scenery was... pretty desolate. Just open plains, a few hills, maybe one village, no crops... oh, and then a giant metropolis pops up across some water.
Ummmm... WTF?! Is it Maputo? It has to be Maputo... I mean, maybe... It has to be Maputo?
Now we are stopping. Across from this metropolis. Is this our stop? Are we here? Maputo? Sooo confused...
Yes, we're here, get off.
But, Maputo? This is Maputo?
Take boat.
Oooooooh. Boat. Boat?
No one said anything about a boat.
Hmmmm... Well let's get on a boat.
Two. For the boat. To Maputo.
Big boat or small boat?
Ummm... what?
Crap. There are two boats. Big boat or small boat?
What's the difference?
Small boat maybe quicker?
Maybe quicker?
Big boat or small boat?
Big boat or small boat?
Ummm... Big boat! Let's do it!
Woooo! Big boat!
And big boat it was. Aka giant car ferry. But, hey it was 10 meticals, so we're talking maybe 25 cents. Hells to the yeah. Soon enough we were in Maputo and our way to the hostel. After we dropped off our stuff, we got some awesome pizza and Appletiser, aka the best drink in the whole world, 100% juice + bubbles. Africa definitely does a few things right.
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