This post is loooong overdue. Robert and I took our first vaca out of the country in March to Mozambique. If you’ve never been to Mozambique, which is a likelihood, I would highly recommend it! It was just like Malawi, in terms of Africa and transport, but everything was simply better times a hundred million gagillion. I never wanted to leave! If it ever came up, I would strongly consider moving there (at least to the south coast) as an ex-pat for a good number of years.
So Rob and I crossed the border into a place called Tete, which everyone said was an ugly city with nothing in it, but let me assure you, it was no less than 5 times bigger and better and more interesting than Malawi’s capitol. Then we took a plane from Tete down to the capitol, Maputo. Maputo is like, a real city. Blew my mind! Keep in mind, this is the first time out of Malawi in over a year, standards were low. But there were huge buildings and culture and restaurants and jazz bars and street art fairs. Did I mention that I never wanted to leave? After Maputo we hitched up to Paria de Tofu and Barra for some of the best diving in the world, and I didn’t make that up. It’s a fact. More on that below.
List of the top ten things in need of mentioning about the trip:
1. The food was unbelievable! Everything was delicious! Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese, which automatically makes their food way more legit. I think I’ve mentioned before that every former British colony was unfortunately forced to inherit the British miserably bland taste in food (except for India). Hence, Malawian food blows. But Mozambiquan food! They know how to use spices, and in fact everything was spicy to the max! Everything had seafood in it! And the bread! Holy gods, the bread! They have this roll, called pao, that they sell everywhere and eat with everything. Essentially, it’s just like a French roll, but c’mon! A French roll! As street food in Africa! It was unbelievable after the BS we get here. Once Robert and I got up to the touristy coastal areas, we made it a point to eat seafood at least once a day. Prawns the size of my hand, lobster, calamari steaks as big as the plate, fish, clams, crawfish, everything! With butter! I’m near tears just thinking about it. Damn, we gotta get back there.
2. So, as previously stated, Moz was colonized by the Portuguese, so everyone spoke Portuguese. The tourist places spoke enough English that we were understood, but it was necessary to supplement it with a little Portuguese tongue twisting of our own. I’d gotten a Teach Yourself Portuguese book on my kindle, and learned the very basics. Everyone said that if you knew Spanish you could get by pretty easily in Moz, but Portuguese felt more like French to me. The only French I know is what Christina Aguliera taught me in the Moulin Rouge song… But it was actually really fun, trying to wade through an entirely different language out of necessity. I actually don’t think I’ve ever really been in that position before, where the principle languages everyone knows don’t include English. Everyone in Europe knows English, Israelis speak better English that I do, India does its business in English. Mozambique was definitely new linguistic territory.
3. The Indian Ocean blew my mind. I’ve never been in the Indian Ocean before. It was beautiful! Pristine beaches, clear aqua water, warm temperature, and a sunrise! And it had seafood in it!
4. Talking about the Indian Ocean, the diving was unbelievable!!! Mozambique is one of the best places in the world for diving, known for its manta rays and whale sharks, neither of which we were lucky enough to spot (another reason I gotta get back there!). We missed the beginning of the whale shark migration by about two weeks. And unfortunately, the day after we got to the beaches a huge storm hit and the water was too rough to go out for about three days. But we did go on two incredible dives, one shallow (about 12-14 meters) and our first deep dive (33 meters). It was also my first real life salt water dive. Salt water marine life is insane!!! Everything was spikey and huge and poisonous. The coral was bright and bizarre. On the shallow dive I think Rob and I racked up 3 sting ray sightings and on the deep dive the fish were as big as my kitchen (yes, I thought about taking one home to fry it up). There was one potato fish as big as a boulder that I had an intense urge to try and hug, to see just how big and cushy it was. We saw a few angel fish on the shallow dive, but the ones we saw on the deep dive were almost three times as big. The schools of sail fish were frightening, each fish as long as a car. We saw those puffy fish that, unpuffed, look spikey and mean, and we also saw those crazy fish featured on Planet Earth that change color and texture to blend into wherever they are.
5. The return of the autorickshaw!!! I thought I’d never see an autorickshaw again, at least not outside of India. I was so pleasantly surprised to see them zipping around the capitol with their green cabs and happy yellow burlap covers. They were my transportation of choice in India, where they are driven as daredevil death machines. They don’t call them autorickshaws in Mozambique though, they call them tuk tuks. But for some reason I couldn’t get that to stick in my head and instead kept calling them things like vroom vrooms and tic tacs.
6. I was blown away with how expensive everything was. I’ve heard that Malawi is one of the most expensive places for a tourist, but things were almost five times as expensive in Moz. 1000 Malawi kwacha, which is a good chunk of money, something like a decent lunch in a Malawian city, translates to 100 Mozambiquan meticais (pronounced met-i-ca-ish, and mets for short), which will buy about half a breakfast, or a tuk tuk ride down the street. Rob and I took to buying their amazing pao and slapping some peanut butter on it for meals not reserved for seafood.
7. Maputo has markets for everything. The markets didn’t look any different than the markets we have here in Malawi, ya know, half wood half cardboard shacks, but each market was specialized and wonderful! They have the vegetable market, the fish market, the bread market, the art market, and, my favorite, the alcohol market, where you can by name brand alcohol at bargain prices. And I love me a bargain!!! And good alcohol! Also at this alcohol market, they have little stands and shops set up like mini outdoor bars, where people can come up, sit on a stool, and order a shot or drink of any type of non-fraternity-like alcohol they wanted served in a Dixie cup, for pennies! Rob and I taste tested pretty much everything, different scotches and tequilas mostly. We had the most pleasant afternoon chatting up men in suits getting off work and marveled at how impossible this would be in Malawi. People in Malawi take shots of crap alcohol, which tastes more like molten lava, which they suck out of plastic baggies. The point of which is to get so disgustingly drunk that they forget they live in Malawi. PC Moz volunteers have it made!
8. The expat and tourist populations have a huge presence in Mozambique, which means we were invisible!! Well, almost invisible. We were still white foreigners carrying huge trekking backpacks. But no “azungu!” or “give me money” following us everywhere. It was a much needed breather.
9. I was gonna write 9 and 10, but this post is getting way too long. But just so you know, 9 was gonna be about our new South African friends we met on a hitch and stayed with for a night and 10 was going to be about the jazz scene and gelato in Maputo. Go to Moz! You won’t regret it!
So Rob and I crossed the border into a place called Tete, which everyone said was an ugly city with nothing in it, but let me assure you, it was no less than 5 times bigger and better and more interesting than Malawi’s capitol. Then we took a plane from Tete down to the capitol, Maputo. Maputo is like, a real city. Blew my mind! Keep in mind, this is the first time out of Malawi in over a year, standards were low. But there were huge buildings and culture and restaurants and jazz bars and street art fairs. Did I mention that I never wanted to leave? After Maputo we hitched up to Paria de Tofu and Barra for some of the best diving in the world, and I didn’t make that up. It’s a fact. More on that below.
List of the top ten things in need of mentioning about the trip:
1. The food was unbelievable! Everything was delicious! Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese, which automatically makes their food way more legit. I think I’ve mentioned before that every former British colony was unfortunately forced to inherit the British miserably bland taste in food (except for India). Hence, Malawian food blows. But Mozambiquan food! They know how to use spices, and in fact everything was spicy to the max! Everything had seafood in it! And the bread! Holy gods, the bread! They have this roll, called pao, that they sell everywhere and eat with everything. Essentially, it’s just like a French roll, but c’mon! A French roll! As street food in Africa! It was unbelievable after the BS we get here. Once Robert and I got up to the touristy coastal areas, we made it a point to eat seafood at least once a day. Prawns the size of my hand, lobster, calamari steaks as big as the plate, fish, clams, crawfish, everything! With butter! I’m near tears just thinking about it. Damn, we gotta get back there.
2. So, as previously stated, Moz was colonized by the Portuguese, so everyone spoke Portuguese. The tourist places spoke enough English that we were understood, but it was necessary to supplement it with a little Portuguese tongue twisting of our own. I’d gotten a Teach Yourself Portuguese book on my kindle, and learned the very basics. Everyone said that if you knew Spanish you could get by pretty easily in Moz, but Portuguese felt more like French to me. The only French I know is what Christina Aguliera taught me in the Moulin Rouge song… But it was actually really fun, trying to wade through an entirely different language out of necessity. I actually don’t think I’ve ever really been in that position before, where the principle languages everyone knows don’t include English. Everyone in Europe knows English, Israelis speak better English that I do, India does its business in English. Mozambique was definitely new linguistic territory.
3. The Indian Ocean blew my mind. I’ve never been in the Indian Ocean before. It was beautiful! Pristine beaches, clear aqua water, warm temperature, and a sunrise! And it had seafood in it!
4. Talking about the Indian Ocean, the diving was unbelievable!!! Mozambique is one of the best places in the world for diving, known for its manta rays and whale sharks, neither of which we were lucky enough to spot (another reason I gotta get back there!). We missed the beginning of the whale shark migration by about two weeks. And unfortunately, the day after we got to the beaches a huge storm hit and the water was too rough to go out for about three days. But we did go on two incredible dives, one shallow (about 12-14 meters) and our first deep dive (33 meters). It was also my first real life salt water dive. Salt water marine life is insane!!! Everything was spikey and huge and poisonous. The coral was bright and bizarre. On the shallow dive I think Rob and I racked up 3 sting ray sightings and on the deep dive the fish were as big as my kitchen (yes, I thought about taking one home to fry it up). There was one potato fish as big as a boulder that I had an intense urge to try and hug, to see just how big and cushy it was. We saw a few angel fish on the shallow dive, but the ones we saw on the deep dive were almost three times as big. The schools of sail fish were frightening, each fish as long as a car. We saw those puffy fish that, unpuffed, look spikey and mean, and we also saw those crazy fish featured on Planet Earth that change color and texture to blend into wherever they are.
5. The return of the autorickshaw!!! I thought I’d never see an autorickshaw again, at least not outside of India. I was so pleasantly surprised to see them zipping around the capitol with their green cabs and happy yellow burlap covers. They were my transportation of choice in India, where they are driven as daredevil death machines. They don’t call them autorickshaws in Mozambique though, they call them tuk tuks. But for some reason I couldn’t get that to stick in my head and instead kept calling them things like vroom vrooms and tic tacs.
6. I was blown away with how expensive everything was. I’ve heard that Malawi is one of the most expensive places for a tourist, but things were almost five times as expensive in Moz. 1000 Malawi kwacha, which is a good chunk of money, something like a decent lunch in a Malawian city, translates to 100 Mozambiquan meticais (pronounced met-i-ca-ish, and mets for short), which will buy about half a breakfast, or a tuk tuk ride down the street. Rob and I took to buying their amazing pao and slapping some peanut butter on it for meals not reserved for seafood.
7. Maputo has markets for everything. The markets didn’t look any different than the markets we have here in Malawi, ya know, half wood half cardboard shacks, but each market was specialized and wonderful! They have the vegetable market, the fish market, the bread market, the art market, and, my favorite, the alcohol market, where you can by name brand alcohol at bargain prices. And I love me a bargain!!! And good alcohol! Also at this alcohol market, they have little stands and shops set up like mini outdoor bars, where people can come up, sit on a stool, and order a shot or drink of any type of non-fraternity-like alcohol they wanted served in a Dixie cup, for pennies! Rob and I taste tested pretty much everything, different scotches and tequilas mostly. We had the most pleasant afternoon chatting up men in suits getting off work and marveled at how impossible this would be in Malawi. People in Malawi take shots of crap alcohol, which tastes more like molten lava, which they suck out of plastic baggies. The point of which is to get so disgustingly drunk that they forget they live in Malawi. PC Moz volunteers have it made!
8. The expat and tourist populations have a huge presence in Mozambique, which means we were invisible!! Well, almost invisible. We were still white foreigners carrying huge trekking backpacks. But no “azungu!” or “give me money” following us everywhere. It was a much needed breather.
9. I was gonna write 9 and 10, but this post is getting way too long. But just so you know, 9 was gonna be about our new South African friends we met on a hitch and stayed with for a night and 10 was going to be about the jazz scene and gelato in Maputo. Go to Moz! You won’t regret it!
Sounds awesome Stace (Stancy?) We'll have to book a special trip to go diving in Mozambique and go on a proper Serengetti safari.
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