Aaaahhh my people, my people, my people! How the hell are you all…..as usually it has been a while since I wrote and I was speaking to my brother girlfriend, Catrina, on facebook yesterday and promised her I would write something as she said she has missed a read….So let me up date you in three ways….a bit of writing a bit of a video (might not happen) and some pictures!
 |
| Selina and Kathryn....I miss you guys! |
I will start off with Kathryn and Selinas visit from the UK. My first visitors since arriving, apart from Lauras one day visit, and it was amazing. They arrived on the 7
th of September and left on the 21
st so it was two weeks of catching up and chilling out. I wanted to make sure that I covered as many bases as possible whilst they were here without them feeling completely exhausted and so, Kwinika, being the organisational soul that he is, suggested I create a Xcel spreadsheet complete with formulas….lol (there really were formulas to it). Ive deleted it now otherwise I would have copied and pasted it right here for you to see. I think if you decided to come here for two weeks I would use the same formula and structure as it seemed to work…
They arrived on a Wednesday and so we spent the first few days until Sunday in Maputo where they were hosted my the lovely Marion and Hannah, VSO volunteers from the UK, as they had a spare room. They got their general bearings which was nice and visted FEIMA, the local craft market, capulana shops and a few restaurants (good restaurants are seriously lacking here in Maputo!). We went to a drumming session at Nucleo de Arte and the 103rd birthday of the province of Biera which was really good fun actually. The biggest cake you ever seen in your life that was hacked up in the most horrific way you’ve ever seen but I just had to remember it was just a cake….! We did a lot of dancing which was really nice and then headed home ready for our 4.30am, 8 hour chapa journey to our first destination on the spreadsheet, TOFO!
 |
| MASSIVE |
 |
| Spin me......just spin me! |
 |
| Selina and the lovely Osvaldo in his Mozambique shirt....lol |
Im not going to go into the ins and outs of the chapa BUT when we got there at 4am we were the second people to enter and we were confronted by a COCKROACH INFESTED BUS! Ive gotten used to a lot of things whilst here in Mozambique but cockroaches at 4am is not something I will ever get use to. I first saw one crawl across the head rest of the chair in front of me and felt brave enough to just take my middle finger and connected it to my thumb and blasted that sucker into another phase of its life. I was satisfied that I had cleaned up nicely but then another appeared on the window and then Selina started screaming as one crawled over her foot and after that it just seemed like they kept on coming. Selina’s screams entertained the Mama at the front of the bus and I just decided rather than go down the comedic, screaming, entertainment for others route that I would have normal held onto to I calmly escorted myself off the bus until we were ready to leave….We didn’t end up leaving until something like 6am after getting inside the bus at 4.30am and it seemed as soon as the sun rose the cockroaches left they brought in the cavalry in the shape of mosquitoes. In my life Ive never seen so many and it seemed like they were having a little party just to stress us out even further….they disappeared as we finally headed off and so we could sleep in peace.
We stayed in the same dorm room that I stayed in with the other volunteers on my first trip to Tofo. I now see Fatimas as ‘luxurious’…kind of as Im coming from the ‘bucket shower ‘ lifestyle but I think I can safely say that they girls weren’t as overly impressed with it as I was when I fist stayed there. For the time we were there it was good….luke warm running water….nice….restaurant serving pancakes….nice…..get out of your room and you are literally on the beach SWEET. We did nothing for the days that we were there and so it was just sheeeeeer relaxation. The beach was empty and the weather was nice but just a touch windy. We were lucky enough to see WHALES from the beach most mornings while having breakfast which was a picture I wish I could have captured for you but a compact camera really wasn’t going to cut it….We had one night out partying which was really good fun. We met a guy called James who was originally from Zambia but was living in Tofo with a very strange Australian accent. He said he picked it up from all the travellers that are always passing through but for me it was just strange seeing as he’d never been to Australia before ! I don’t judge….much…..just strange that’s all. Anyway he took us to the ‘FULL MOON’ party in celebration of the full moon that had lit up the night sky.
 |
| Brap Brap.... |
 |
| I really dont know who this is.... |
 |
| James |
After 3 nights in Tofo we moved onto the BEAUTIFUL Vilankulous. It truly was stunning and because there had been a full moon the tide was completely out when it was tide out because of the moon. I don’t know how its all connected but it rings some sort of secondary school science bell. It was truly amazing. The journey from Tofo to Vilankulos was supposed to be 4 hours but turned into 8 hours because we had the slowest driver in the whole of Mozambique. I had to make a toilet stop on the way and must have completely forgotten where I was. I asked the driver if we could make a toilet brake to which he replied no problem the next stop. So we stopped and he said I should get out….I said where is the toilet and he pointed to the bushes behind me….why did I look surprised. The thing was I was BUSTING and there wasn’t really a corner for me to go round and so I went as deep into the roadside bush as was possible but apparently when I pulled down my trousers every single Tom Dick and Shelia saw my full moon. Kathryn meanwhile was taking pictures whilst everyone else just stared….marvellous. I wasn’t even embarrassed when I got in the bus because I was feeling bladder light and like a new women!
We stayed at BEACH VILLAGE in Vilankulous which was really nice. Its run by a guy from Namibia called Lucas or something. He’s one of this people who likes to tell a few porkies just to have something wild and wacky to say in order to strike up a conversation so here are a few examples:
- One night we were at the bar and he said to us….’Girls, have you seen my forehead’ to which we replied ‘ Yeah, we noticed the bump what happened Lucas?’…..that was the licence that allowed him tell us that he was with his friend who was drinking and was taking friend home in a car. As they were drving his friend saw a dog run out in the road so he slammed on the breaks….Lucas of course explained that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt so went FLLLLLLYING through the front windscreen and landed face down, hands high still holding his beer and the cigarette that he’d lit minutes before…..of course we uttered ‘OMG that’s sounds awful Lucas!’ which is the reaction he wanted. He said it was truly amazing that the only visible sign was the bump on his forehead…..dude, do we look like we were born yesterday. You crashed through the front windscreen of a car and just had a bump on the head….GIVE ME A BREAK!
- There was also an on sight monkey at Beach Village that was wild and had been adopted by Lucas and his staff. He told us to be careful as it might bight us as he’d been bitten twice already. It doesn’t have rabies but you never know he also said. He was waiting to get the vet to give it an injection just to be on the save side. He asked us if we’d ever seen anyone with rabies….I said no. He said ‘it’s the strangest thing girls….the person goes completely white and just walks round like a zombie for days on end’. Oh really Lucas because someone told us last week that you can literally die in 30mins once you have a rabies bite…..walking round like a zombie….alright mate….
- The last one that I’ll share is his chapa story. He told us that it was not possible to get a chapa at 3am in the morning to leave for Maputo. They normally leave at 10pm in the night and you do 12 hours and arrive in Maputo at 10am….I couldn't believe it as I had never had anyone say that chapas leave at that time EVER so I was really surprised. He said that he’d normally tell the cobrador that he wants to pay for the whole back seat so that he can stretch out and sleep and that we should do the same……I thought to myself ‘you told the cobrador how you would like to work the seating on his bus’…..LOL! NEVER….another lie! There are two lies here though my people the 1st is that the chapa leaves at 2am and it’s the first one…..everyone seemed to know this except for Lucas. The 2nd was that it is just not possible to have luxury seating on a chapa even if you wanted to pay for it. If you think you are too cool to sit next to other passengers then GET A CAR!
The monkey was a little too much at times and held us hostage on more than one occasion in our room. They named him Bob after Robert Mugarbe who Lucas said was just like Bob, a terrorist! We took an Island trip with a Dhow (boat) that we got hooked up with by a 12 year old kid on the beach called Samito. He was super cool….the owner of Beach Village also told us that just picking up any old boat was not a good idea as there was stories of people being completely robbed once they got to the Island…..I couldn’t even bring myself to look at him. The trip to island was fantastic. We took a Dhow with 13 Italians who were on a group holiday together. They were singing all the way there but not on the way back as we all were in fear of our lifes because the water got soooooooooo rough. Selina was shivering and I honestly thought it was going to be a Titanic moment on more than one occasions. We were soaked from head to toe and we so thankful to have made it back to shore.
 |
| Samito |
 |
| DHOW |
 |
| ......ONE.... |
 |
| .......TWO.......BIG FISH! |
After a very chilled out 3 days in Vilankulous we took the 2am bus back to Maputo which took 12 hours. We slept most of the way and collected our bags which had been stowed in the luggage compartment and were now covered in flies and fish water…..beautiful. We went straight onto my host Mums house where we quickly took washes got our ‘glad rags’ on and went to a ‘Presentation Ceremony’. This is where, if you are a man, you present yourself to the family of the women you intend on marrying. You’ve probably met the family loads before but the is the official presentation and the guy was actually a volunteer with my organisation who had met a Mozambican women and wa ready to tie the knot! AMAZING eh! It was like a mini wedding…..3 massive cakes and one was a passion fruit flavoured which completely knocked my socks off. There was serving trays of food, loads of drinks music and then the after party BBQ that we didn’t go too as we were completely wacked having been up for almost 24 hours and Krugger Park the next day.
 |
| The passion fruit cake is that big white one at the front....AMAZING! |
 |
| My host Mum in orange getting down....whoopwhooop! |
KRUGGER PARK
 |
| Hippos....how cool eh! |
 |
| I had been praying to see a Lion all day and here it is....aaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhh! |
 |
| Zebra.....just in case you didnt know! |
So the girls went home shortly after Krugger after getting E-Coli from a restaurant in Vilankulos…..what a way to end a trip. I was OVER the moon that they both came and spent the time. THANK YOU KATHRYN & SELINA this blog is dedicated to you both. I defo enjoyed having them here and gave them a taster in Mozambican life and I think they really did see A LOT. It only hit me two weeks after they left how much I had missed there company. We laughed so much and it was just so nice just to have people to talk to that spoke your language. So I did get really homesick after they left and that really surprised me as I haven’t really been that homesick. Its amazing, but if you can believe it I only have 3 months left here. OMG!
