Read about Ron & Viv's journey so far through Africa - MALAWI into MOZAMBIQUE, May - June 2007.
Mozambique
Bamboo poles, lots of them, stacked on a push bike - what a way to make a living!
Our camp at Casuarina camping area.
Some of the old gun placements and the small church in the background.
The Governor's Palace.
A hard way to crush rocks.
Traditional white-faced painted women along the track to Pangane.
Viv with some locals in the fishing village.
AFRICA TRIPMid to late May & early June 2007 - MOZAMBIQUE
NORTHERN MOZAMBIQUE
Here we were at the border post in Mozambique trying to converse with a Portuguese official to organize our visas – and not having much luck - when in walked an Australian. Phillip Piper was a missionary working in the village of Cuamba as an SI Mission ‘teacher preacher' teaching selected and keen local Christian people to be pastors. Speaking Portuguese he paved the way for us through the official jungle of visas, passports, car importation (no Carnets for Mozambique), 3rd party insurance, and a newly thought up tax for imported cars that had only been in for a month. The officials were no problem – just our Portuguese!
Once Phillip found out we were heading his way he kindly offered to lead us as well as offering the guest house they have at the back of their home. With all of us through the border we headed for Cuamba and it was a long drive along bumpy – read ‘normal' roads.
A Rough Track East
The border town of Mandimba just a short distance on from the border post is a worn out dusty, once Portuguese outpost, the most imposing building now being a UN warehouse used at the moment to store tobacco, which is one of the favoured ‘cash crops' they grow around here. Two big ‘Cat' dozers on the outskirts of town had been parked in the one place for so long a bloody great tree had grown up between the blade and the engine bay!
Once at Cuamba we met Phillips family - Nicola and the kids, Isabella, Drew and Joshua at their home in this small isolated north-western Mozambique town. Originally from Woolongong, they are a long way away from the everyday fare and affairs of Australia. We were then shown our rooms and then ushered into the dining room for a great meal and some lively conversation. It turned out a great end to a frustrating day and one that could have seen us camping anywhere!!!
Next morning we headed off to Malema and Ribaue, the road being particularly bad and slow between these two busy and once prosperous but now tired looking towns. All morning we had passed thru villages and a near continuous line of huts and farmlets. For much of the way the virgin bush had been pushed back 500 metres to 1km or so, the wood being piled up in small heaps for sale and small areas cleared for crops. This is one of the poorest districts in Mozambique (in one of the poorest countries in the world!) and is supposedly one of the least inhabited, but you wouldn't know that by the amount of people around.
For much of the way we were traveling north of an impressive line of inselbergs and towering granite-slab mountain peaks, these tall and impressive domes absolutely dominating the area around them. It was dark when we rolled into the outskirts of Nampula, one of the busiest and most important towns in northern Mozambique – but it holds little of interest for travellers. Checked out the Bamboo Hotel (GPS15°06'13”S 39°13'05”E) and stayed there after checking out the nearby camping options, which didn't amount to much.
World Heritage listed Ilha de Mocambique
At least from Nampula the road is blacktop and we hummed along it to the mainland village of Ilha De Mocambique which crowds along the coast and is centred around the long causeway that leads to the famous and now World Heritage listed island. We found the Casuarina camping area and after some negotiation to find out the cost we moved in amongst the low palm trees and just as low buildings and set up camp right on the beach and 100 metres north of the causeway. This place is rustic to say the least! The bar and restaurant are just a concrete slab covered with a thatch shelter with a reasonably well stocked bar at one end while a couple of old tatty photos and a few older type-written signs act as an ‘info board'. There are cold showers and a flush toilet that only works with a scoop of water from a big water container standing nearby. Cost is 100Mt for a vehicle, and 75Mt/person/night, but the sand is clean, the area tidy and surprisingly no touts to sell us something or hassle us.
The beach just near camp looks quite pleasant, sandy and about 50 metres wide with just a few mangroves near the causeway, but as the tide recedes it leaves a wide muddy expanse. Then the local people come down from the village a hundred metres to our north and have a crap on the water's edge! Using it as a toilet is something that has been going on ever since humanity set up camp on this low point of land, I guess, but it does nothing for the bacon and egg breakfast! Helen named it ‘Black Bottom Bay' which was rather good, we thought.
It's a long way across the causeway to Ilha de Mocambique , (about 3.5km) which has the occasional passing bay but luckily there is not much car and truck traffic but a lot of people, bike and motor bike traffic. As you come onto the island proper you pass thru the boom gate and pay your 10Mt and it was here we met Wilson, (cellphone:+258 823 88 9076) who turned out to be a great guide for the day.
The island's history dates back to the late 1400s when Vasco de Gama ‘discovered' the place for Portugual. He found an island already with a strong Arab influence and a good ship building culture in place.
With Wilson as our guide we wandered around the old Portuguese fort, built in the 1520s and which saw a number of battles between the Arabs, Portuguese and the British. It is now being used as a school while the local school is being rebuilt. Once inside the somewhat impressive entrance you walked out into a giant courtyard, the general's quarters immediately on your right while a large church was to your half left and dominating the open area. We walked past what were once store rooms and then thru' the soldiers quarters and then up onto the battlements where there were a large number of old 1820s built cannons – some still on their original wooden gun trolleys, defending the old place. The view was quite good of both the harbour and out to sea and the other nearby islands.
The small church on the very northern end of the island and just outside the perimeter of the fort itself is reportedly the oldest building in the southern hemisphere – it is certainly the oldest in southern Africa, being built in the early 1500s! It's only a small chapel measuring say 40 to 50 feet square with a dome ceiling and a few old crypts, I guess you'd call them.
Not far from here along the eastern edge of the fort was the execution yard . A wall with 6 gun slots had an entrance to the yard which had in the centre a pedestal where the condemn man stood, some 20 or 30 metres from the wall. A similar distance behind him another wall was deeply potmarked with the bullets fired during the executions. At the sea side of the far wall a hole in the side wall allowed the body of the recently deceased to be washed out to sea – or so the story goes!
We went and paid our money and checked out The Palace on a bit of a guided tour. The large rooms are furnished in the way they once were with many original pieces from Goa in India and Macau in China – both Portuguese colonies back in the days when this island was the main port of call for ships sailing between Portugual and these outposts. It really was quite impressive but a few signs and info in English would help a lot.
Still the whole island is a museum and many of the buildings date from the early Portuguese days – most look like they haven't had any maintenance since! Some even look like they have been bombed out – but people live in them!
Pemba Perfect
From here we headed north to Pemba , which in Mozambique terms is a holiday resort. Fairly low key though but one day it might be an international destination. Headed out to the delightful Wimbe Beach and found another Aussie running Russell's Place, Russell Bott coming from the Sunshine Coast. Located behind a bamboo enclosure the small camping area has a friendly bar, restaurant/braai area as well as toilets and showers; camping is A$7.50/person/night. Across the road is a great beach with views to the west (not north as you'd first imagine) along the coast. We ended up staying a few nights, and while we tried to upload to our website at the fanciest looking internet café in town (there's only three possible places) we were frustrated by the slow internet connection and gave up.
As we headed north leaving Pemba behind along the major highway we stopped to take photos of people cracking rocks with a hammer – it is unbelievable in this day an age. Later we came across a small village located near a low hump of an inselberg. They were quarrying the rock, breaking it up into blocks about 3-4 foot cube and from there they would be broken down into 1-foot blocks from where they were piled up for sale or then made into gravel. All by hand and by hammer!!!
On To Delightful Pangane
At the village of Mucojo (GPS 12°04'07”S 40°28'38”E ) with its few old Portuguese buildings you head straight on through following the one and only sign to Pangane. The track from here turns very sandy but we got through okay with little trouble once we dropped tyre pressures.
Casa Suk is the most prominent building in the centre of the village of Pangane and a short time later you pass the Pangane Beach Bar and Restaurant, which sounds rather grand and isn't! It was also closed for the whole time we were there.
Ashim's Camp (GPS 11°59'59”S 40°32'39”E) is located just north of the village and at the far northern end of the beach just south of the low cliffs of the final point of the mainland. Protected a little from the easterly wind that blows near continuously (the SE trades!) it is a sandy spot amongst tall palm trees. A few camps - John and his wife, Gill, along with Barney and his wife all from South Africa, (who we had met at Pemba) along with Rick and Gareth two overlanders from the UK we had met earlier, were under the shade of the she-oaks just above the high tide mark. We had to settle for setting up camp 20 metres back from the water! A few stone and thatch roof huts with sand floors and just a bed (no bedding) make up the rest of the Camp. The camp has cold water bucket showers and basic salt water flush toilets set behind a brush reed wall. Fresh water comes in a bucket brought from the village well. Camping costs 130Mt/person/night.
Next day we were up at first light to discover that Neil had lost his stove, gas bottle and table during the night. We got the bottle back but alas not the stove or table - so much for the two (!) guards we had on during the night.
There was a fair amount of movement on the beach – boats getting ready for fishing, boats being repaired, etc, so after breaky we went for a walk. Just around on the front beach above the high tide mark a bloke was building a dhow. He was a nice fellow and showed us what he was doing – he not speaking any English and us not speaking any Portuguese. The keel had been laid first then the major uprights at the bow and stern. With long pieces of bamboo to hold the uprights in place and to get the general lines of the boat you could easily see what the craft was to look like. This boat will be about 40' long, have a beam of about 12' and be about 10' deep.
An adze, saw, a couple of hammers, a chisel and a hand-bow driven drill and a file to sharpen his tools was all the tools he seemed to have. Large hand-made nails about 6” long – some about 10” long were being used to hold timber in place, a hole being drilled first. Major joints such as the keel and stern post were bolted with big long bolts - but we only saw a couple of bolts being used. Corking around the nails used in the stern wooden sheeting was raw cotton ‘hemp' soaked in water to seal the holes, so we assume that is what is used all through the construction.
Later two blokes came in on a much smaller boat and they had about four major timbers for the boat, taken from the forest somewhere along the shores of the bay. These had been chosen for their thickness and shape and were carted up the beach to where the boat builder was working. Later he started to mark them out (using a piece of bamboo as a rule) and adze them into the right size and shape.
Went for a wander up to the village to check the local market out. All the store keepers were open, their small shops lining a narrow sandy street in the village for about 100 metres. I guess there were about 20 stalls, selling everything from clothes to vacumn drinking flasks, from cigarettes to cooking oil and kerosene to mealie flour, the latter of which comes in big bags. Down the middle of the sandy street the local people who didn't have the luxury of a stall or shop had their goods on display on the ground – bundles of firewood and small piles of long yams made up the main centre displays while along the edges of the road, other fruit and nuts were on show and for sale. It was untidy and vibrant.
We didn't get hassled but we got plenty of looks and lots of attention. We found a man selling bread rolls from the verandah of a store (5Mt each), then another with a single bottle of cordial (70Mt). Many had cans of coke, fanta and sprite so we shopped around, some were 20Mt each and one 15Mt each – the young guy got our business.
We loved this place (even after losing the stove!) and could have stayed longer. There's snorkeling to be enjoyed on the offshore islands – they are part of a marine national park, but I'd hazard a guess and say the fish life wouldn't be too great – the pressure it is under is immense!
To the Border
Once through the village of Macomia we turned north at the main road junction (GPS 12°13'47”S 40°08'43”E). The road immediately turned to worn, pot holed dirt and we cruised along at about 40kph. After about 40km the road became blacktop but it had long stretches of potholes, so you couldn't go much faster. Now at least there was a break in the near continuous line of huts and villages.
We stopped in Mocimboa Da Praia for fuel. The main street is something else and was once quite a grand boulevard. Now it is potholed and dusty without a scerrik of bitumen, the buildings along side it almost in ruins but still being used. The fuel station had fuel though and we filled up – power coming from a small 5kva generator. By all accounts there is an unbelievable amount of jungle timber being shipped out of the tiny port here. With log trucks driving down the main road it is no wonder it is a mess!
Turned west at the aerodrome round-about (GPS 11°20'10”S 40°27'27”E). Just on the outskirts of town there was a police roadblock, the women copper carrying a AK47. They checked our indicators, horn, brake and reverse lights and with them all working they let us go. They were pleasantly polite.
We camped that night on the outskirts of the small town of Palma on the not-so-busy airstrip! It was a quiet night but we had spectators in the morning who gave us no trouble and we were away early to head for the village of Quionga and the nearby mission, where you can camp under the big shady cashew trees nearby. (GPS 10°35'32”S 40°30'27”E). There's a basic loo and cold shower while the camping costs a donation to the mission.
The missionary couple, Andre and Anne Marie have been at this remote spot for 2 years. The problems are immense here – far from anywhere and still on the ‘frontier' with most of the people paying at least lip service to Islam, they have only found a dozen or so ‘Christians.' The people are having it tough with lots of wild animals to contend with – elephants and hippos raid their crops and many have lost all their food to the raiders; a leopard was shot two days before we got there, as he had been threatening and even mauling a few people while in their gardens; lions are an occasional problem on top of the more normal things of disease, malaria, floods and famines!
The country here – especially the sandy track and the creek crossings reminded us of the run through the Jardine Swamps on Cape York. There were a couple of water crossings and a couple of creeks – luckily we were in the ‘Dry'; in the Wet this would be impassable! Got to the Mozambique border post, which is situated in a couple of old mud huts, with no electricity, beside the track well south of the river. A new border post is being built (as it was 2 years previously) and a new large generator standing on one of the verandahs is still not connected to anything.
We arrived at the wide fast flowing Rovuma River (used by Dr D Livingstone on his last journey to access the interior), about 5.5km further on. The Ferry point on the south side of the river (GPS 10°32'01”S 40°23'17”E) is near a small hamlet where a group of big mango trees has the only shade. The locals are trying to scratch a living from the surrounding forest slashing and burning the forest close to the river's edge. We stopped in the shade for most of the day waiting for the bloody ferry and being constantly harrassed by the locals.
At 4pm our time the ferry arrived. It was a bit bigger and better than we thought – similar but slightly smaller than the Jardine ferry but it only had one engine (of two) running but could take six vehicles at a pinch with a few passengers as well. After a lot of mucking around six vehicles were on board but Fred and his trailer was still on the shore. There was a bit of confusion about a second run and with placating words of ‘we shall try and get back but we need 3 metres of water', we headed off to the north shore to leave Fred fend for himself.
By the time we got to the north bank and they had dug the bank down so the vehicles could drive out (the tide was dropping and not high enough for the ramps) it was getting dark, the sun having set as we approached the north bank and a few dugout canoes had glided by.
On the north side of the river the ferry point is located at a small cluster of rough reed built stalls (GPS 10°31'04”S 40°22'55”E) and from here an often muddy, chopped up tracks leads to the Tanzanian Border post , situated in the village of Kilambo (GPS 10°29'56”S 40°20'48”E). The border post was shut but was opened up on our arrival and we were processed thru' immigration – they were friendly and spoke pretty good English but weren't going to be rushed. With permission to camp in the border post grounds we decided to let customs wait until morning. Neil and I set up camp as did John & Gill while the others pushed on in the dark. We couldn't see the point and after speaking to Fred on the sat phone we had a meal and called it quits, it had been a long day but we were in Tanzania! Fred joined us the next day but that's a story for the next instalment.
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The delightful and friendly
Piper Family.
The track
was particularly slow,
but the scenery impressive.
The track was slow, but the scenery impressive.
The 'causeway'
(more like a
bridge), that takes you to the
Ilha de Mocambique.
The old
Portuguese fort.
The old Portuguese
fort and
giant internal curtyard.
The delightful
main Pemba Beach.
Our
almost idyllic camp at
Pangane.
The
busy fishing village just up
from our camp
.
Impressive
boat building by
hand .
The road to the Mozambique/Tanzania was slow with a few water crossings.
Vehicles waiting to drive onto the ferry on the Rovuma River.
