29 August 2009: Traveling Again
Posted By Sika on May 26, 2010
Woke up in the morning feeling like blech warmed up into more, ickier, concentrated blech. Blech in my head, blech in my sinuses, blech in my throat, blech in my stomach.
And yet, I had to get to Inhambane, or I might as well go straight through: my days left in Moz were numbered. I drank a test Sprite, which disagreed with me, but I was able to control it. And my mom called, so we talked while I waited to see if traveling would be possible. I managed to leave, though, by 8:30.
I got myself turned around a bit in town. Well, actually, I didn’t, but I thought I had. I was eventually able to find my way to the Maxixe chapa stand using the tried and true method of asking women where I was going. It involves a lot less hassle.
The minibus left pretty much at 9, even though there were a couple seats available, which filled up quickly once we got on the road. The ride was pretty uneventful for the first couple of hours, except for the ubiquitous and unwelcome playing of Westlife. But then a lady got on with about 15 chickens, all shoved under our seat. As more people with katundu got on, the chickens were shoved forward until our feet were on the only islands of bare floor in a sea of chicken, feathers, beaks, and claws. The lady lost something, and in the process of fishing through the mass of chicken found an egg instead. Which was amusing, but after that I was worried I would not only step too hard on a chicken, but that I might also step on an egg and end up with yolk all over my foot.
The road, starting about 60km north of Massinga, was a maze of potholes and illogically placed but enthusiastically applied patches that only served to amplify the roughness of the road. It took us an hour and a half to go 60km on that rough road. After Massinga, though, the road was good again, so we got into Maxixe around 1330.
The ferry was fairly easy to find; I saw it just before the chapa turned toward the chapa stand, and then I asked a couple times just to make sure I was on the right path. Thank god left, right, first, and second are all the same in Spanish and Portuguese.
At the ferry, there was a ticket window, but also a guy outside selling tickets or Mt10. He told me the ferry was full, which now I think was a lie, but I guess it’s ok because it saved me Mt2.50 and I got over to Inhambane faster in the covered small craft.
Inhambane is small but lovely, and has a very nice feel. The dorm beds at Pensão Pachiça (Mt300) are not very interesting, but the shower is hot, everything is clean, and when I arrived I had a 10 bed dorm to myself.
There’s a cafe called Verdinho on the main road that has good food and one computer available for internet at Mt80/hr. The old mosque I saw as I wandered my way to food and internet looked like a kid colored it in, in a completely charming way. I didn’t see much else—although I had thought it ridiculous to go and spend hours on the internet, I then realized the next day would be Sunday and nothing would be open, and so did exactly that.
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