So, 4 months later, I am finishing up my retelling of the Northern Trip I took with a couple other PCVs. Quickly, this was our route that we took

Friday Dec 28th- Bussed up to Moçímboa da Praia. Camped on the beach and ate freshly fried fish for the nights of the 28th and 29th.

Sunday Dec 30th- Went back down south to Pangane, a fishing village with a beautiful spit of peninsula barely wider than a tennis court is long. Stayed there for one glorious night, where we found expired bottles of water (the last five in the town), a ‘Save Darfur’ shirt that doesn’t really fit me, and a lot of eager fisherman ready to take us to the islands in exchange for a king’s ransom.

Monday Dec 31st- Took a sailboat down to Ibo island. We celebrated the New Year with fresh fish, beers, and this guy!

Stayed there the nights of the 31st and the 1st to hike around the island and see the fort that’s there.

Wednesday Jan 2nd- Went to Quirimbas Island to hang with the fishermen, see Vasco de Gama’s Rock (or at least a concrete pillar where Vasco de Gama’s Rock used to be), see a monitor lizard, and chill at the Praça de Paz (Plaza of Peace)

Thursday Jan 3rd- Hopped on another boat to Mefumvo Island, where we crashed at a fish-packing house, bought 3 kilos of fish for 20 Mets/kilo (that’s a dollar for 2 pounds of fish!) and could finally charge our phones.

Friday Jan 4th- Our return trip by boat to Pemba, complete with the most discreet instance of a guy pooping over the side of a 20 foot boat with 15 people in the boat.

If you look at a map of where we went, we didn’t actually cover all that much ground for a week of travel. When you take into account the use of sailboats and realizing how bad some sections of road can be in the North (see the previous trip post on my passage through Zambezia), we did pretty well. The trip was relaxing and yet eventful. There are a couple of the many stories that I want to share, followed by pictures from the different parts of the trip.

First, I would like you to meet this guy.

He was our source of entertainment on our ride up to Moçímboa de Praia. He was sitting across the aisle from Elizabeth and Paulo and diagonal from Maggia and myself. I forget his name now, but it doesn’t matter, because we called him “Ok, tchau, ‘brigado” for the rest of the trip. Why? Because every 5 minutes, he would start up a new conversation about pretty much the same topic- putting younger folk in their place. Whether or not he was a real professor, he liked to impart his wisdom on the whole bus.

And he was completely hammered the entire trip.

When he would finish his beer that he had, he would get another at the next town we stopped at for snacks. When there was no town to stop at, he simply whipped out his trusty bottle of Rhino (a brand in the North) Gin and take a few swigs (as seen inthe pics). Meanwhile, he is telling us about how much we have to learn about EVERYTHING. But the funniest part was, at the end of every conversation, it was like he was going to get off the bus. He would wrap it up by saying “Ok, tchau, ‘brigado” (Ok, bye, thanks). EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!!! It got so that we would just start to crack up every time he said it, so he would think he was really funny and start in on his “you kids don’t know anything” speech once again. He was quite the source of entertainment. It may not seem like much to you folks reading this, but I had to give this guy a shout-out on behalf of Maggie, Paulo and Elizabeth.

Next up, let’s fast-forward to the morning that we left Ibo Island. We read in the Lonely Planet Guide that it is possible to walk from Ibo to Quirimbas at low tide, so we contracted out a guide to lead us through the mangroves. This is our guide, ready to take us to the other side.

We were up at 3am sharp, ready to catch the tide at its lowest. The walk through the neighborhoods on Ibo that early was so surreal. The mist hung heavy that morning, and it gave the decrepit structures that may have once housed affluent Portuguese slave traders an eerie, almost unsettling disposition as you passed by. The guide books say that Ibo has a ghostly feel to it, and I totally agree after walking through at twilight.

As we reached the mangroves, our guide picked up the pace. The clouds of mosquitoes thickened as we slogged through puddles that turned into calf-high pools that eventually turned into something of a stream that came up to our knees. We went from walking on firm muddy ground to coral, which was bad news for the girls, who only had flip-flops. Paulo and I had crocs and chacos, respectively, but Maggie and Elizabeth were unable to shield their feet from the razor-sharp rocks. Uncovered skin that was in the water was getting cut to shreds. Uncovered skin out of the water was getting chewed to bits. Floridians who’ve done some trekking in the mangroves know exactly what it is like to half-heartedly slap your arm and take out a half-dozen mosquitoes in one fell swoop. The ladies from Michigan were not used to such things. Hell, none of us were comfortable. Once we made it out of the stream, we were in soul-sucking mud that almost devoured Maggie whole. Here are a couple pics from the mangrove forest.

This is just the beginning, though. We came out of the mangroves on a mud flat right at sunrise. It was quite a beautiful site

We still had to cross the pass between Ibo and Quirimbas. Our trusty guide (who spoke almost no Portuguese- this was about the 100th time that we thanked god that we had Paulo along to help us) took off his pants (as seen above) and set off with one of our bags across the pass. Here we are right before I put my camera away, going into the water.

Notice the sticks used to guide the way across the pass. Well, we quickly found out that we were a little TOO early for low tide. As in an hour or two too early. As in the water was too high to walk with bags. I may have been able to do it alone, but I have a good 5-6 inches on Paulo, Maggie and Elizabeth. Of course, our guide didn’t realize all of this until he had led us to the middle of the pass. With all of our shit on our heads and water up to our chests, the guide told Paulo “maybe we can go this way” and pointed to a part that looked much deeper. He went and explored alone, but as soon as the water hit his chin he came back and needlessly told us “nope, too deep”. So, we were about to wade back to the Ibo shore to wait for the tide to go out some more when we saw a small outrigger boat paddling across the channel. We waded until water was at waist level, then had Paulo negotiate our passage with the captain of the vessel. It looked like the kind of boat that would hold 2-3 people max, but it ended up holding five soggy rats, plus baggage. Our guide got half his payment for going halfway, and the captain got the rest.

It felt like we took the whole morning to get to Quirimbas, but when we hit the shore it was only 7:30am. The boat master (I think his name was Adolfo, but one of my companions can correct me) ended up taking us back to his place where his wife prepared us hot milk-water and some of the best begias (I still have no idea how to spell that) that I’ve ever had. After our snack we took naps, then were led on a tour of the island by Adolfo. Never have I been in a more random situation where such a gracious person took care of me. He let us set up our tents in his yard, use his water, and had his wife prepare food for us. He didn’t request any money except for food supplies, but we ended up leaving him a generous tip for hospitality services rendered.

His tour alone was worth the trouble of the mangrove forest from hell. We walked across to the other side of Quirimbas, showing us sites where the island was supposed to be constructing a new school and administrative post. We got to the other side and he showed us this.

This is Vasco de Gama’s rock. Well, there was a post here that was supposedly erected by Vasco de Gama when he explored the island. It was there for hundreds of years, until the 1990s when some mysterious people came to the island one day. They went to the rock and destroyed it. Adolfo said that they removed something that had been inside the rock, and then erected the marker that you can now see. Kind of a poor substitute, but it makes you wonder what the hell was inside the original rock that warranted such action. Elizabeth and Paulo actually related a similar story about a school near Pemba where one day, a Portuguese man who had was a descendant of one of the founders of the school many, many years ago came to Pemba. The school was being torn down, but before everything was finished, he came in with a team and excavated underneath the school, removing some unknown quantity of valuables that belonged to his ancestors. No one knows exactly what he took but it’s a famous story, and I think that it reflects the average Mozambican’s attitude towards the Portuguese as primarily interested in money and valuables.

Adolfo gave us quite the complete tour, including a chance encounter with a monitor lizard (!!!!!!!), this old church, and the Praça de Paz where we took a bunch of group shots.


At night, Adolfo’s house sat right next to the local movie house that was showing the Terminator trilogy that night. Even with the generator running full blast and Arnold’s “Come with me if you want to live!!!” blaring next door, Quirimbas was still one of the more serene places I have visited, and you just can’t beat an island with only two streetlamps for stargazing. Quirimbas was my personal high-point of the trip, though there were many positive moments throughout.

I think I will just post pictures now and write a little about some of the more interesting shots.

Moçímboa da Praia

Check out the size of this boat! There are more pics on my picasa site of it. It looks as if these guys were building the successor to Noah’s Ark… except that Moçimboa da Praia is a heavily Muslim community.

This is where we camped for the two nights we were at Moçimboa. If you look closely at the first picture, you’ll see a basket sitting under Maggie. That is a basket that had 4 kilos of small mangoes that we got on the bus that we took up there. That basket cost 10 Mtn (less than 50 cents). We killed all of them in less than 24 hours. Oh, the glory that is mango season. How I will miss thee.

The second picture shows the friends that we made while we were there. This was our first of many “thank god we have Paulo” moments. I had just taken a dip in the ocean and wanted to wash off with fresh water. There was a well about 50m from our tents, which apparently cost 1mtn to use. Yes, that is practically nothing, but we still felt that the only reason we were charged was because we were a group with three white folks. I exchanged words with the leader, which did not go well. Paulo smoothed things over, though. Eventually, he got them to let us use their fire and pan to cook fish (see below). They even protected us and our stuff from other people (read: drunks) on the beach.

Check this picture as well as the others on picasa. That is a massive baobob tree sitting on a mini-peninsula of sorts. Whoever owns that house has one of the coolest pieces of real estate that I’ve seen in this country so far.

Notice anything interesting about this picture? I guess that’s kind of a stupid question, but there’s one thing in particular… it’s the reason I took the picture in the first place. The guy that is talking to Paulo and Elizabeth (this was during a negotiation session for a boat to the islands, before we decided to go down part of the way by road) is wearing a capulana. This is common in the north, at least where we were in Cabo Delgado. If I were to walk down the street in a capulana and I was not in a parade or going to some really special ceremony, people would think I was absolutely nuts. Up there, though, men wear them as normal everyday garments.

I wish that the South would embrace this kind of clothing. It is so hot in summer, and this would make things so much more comfortable.

Below is one of the monuments at Moçimboa da Praia. The map above is part of another (Gaza got a little screwed in terms of coastline on that map, but I’ll let it slide). From what I have heard, the monuments are much more common in areas where the War for Independence was hotly contested. Somewhere like Xai-Xai has the one obligatory monument in the city square, but Moçimboa (and even Pemba) have murals and statues and monuments up all over the cities commemorating the leaders and movements against the Portuguese. I got a little to close to take a picture, in fact. In front of the Administrative Post in Moçimboa, I walked up to a plaque to pop off a photo. Apparently, the only people who are supposed to walk on that square are the President and Community Leaders. Oops.

Oh, and there is Paulo’s fish. It was delicious.

Pangane

Here are a couple shots of our ride from Moçimboa da Praia. I started the day off on a sour note, having called Chana and learned of UCF’s defeat at the hands of Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl. One day, guys, we’ll get there.

Below are shots of Elizabeth and Maggie looking less than enthused about the ride, which was packed with folks. For most of the ride i had a lit’l one sitting on my lap. People were jokingly trying to sell him to me. Or were they joking? There reasoning was pretty sound: if I could get him back to wherever it was I lived, he would have a much better life than growing up to be a fisherman in Mozambique. I couldn’t argue with that, but I told them I did have a policy of not taking kids unless the parents could come with me as well. They told me they were too busy to leave, so we didn’t have a deal :)

Also, there is a shot of my favorite one-eyed bearded fish street vendor. That fish looks disgusting. No one bought it.

Look at all of the fishing boats. This was the time (high tide) when they all came in with their catches. It was the same everywhere we went- a makeshift market on the beach. Blankets of varying types of seafood ready to be sold for the right price (which was usually quite cheap). After the nets got emptied out, there were also some very beautiful shells that got left as refuse. The sensible islander in me spent a good 45 mnutes walking up the beach throwing back live shells.

This is the view from the place where we camped. It’s an official lodge, with some of the best fresh squid I’ve ever had. The wind was quite wild when we got there, but by the next day it was perfect sailing weather for the trip to Ibo.

These kids are so damn cute. They wanted their picture taken so bad, so I doubt it’s the first time that a foreigner has stopped to capture their awe-inspiring cuteness.

I did this in the morning waiting for the boat to take us to Ibo. It reminds me of something my Mom would do. That’s a good thing, of course :)

Ibo Island

Here’s the boat ride to Ibo the next morning. We started at around 0630hrs and got to Ibo at around 1030, i think. We made pretty good time, I remember. It was us 4, an Italian family of 3 (including a little girl with an iPod) and a horrendously annoying belgian woman who wouldn’t shut up about her property that she bought on the island. I didn’t feel that she warranted a picture. However, we have pics of Maggie and Paulo with their game faces on.

When we got to Ibo, the tide was out, so we had to walk in about about 500m. The Mom from the Italian family was the first in the water, barefoot. As she landed on the mudflat in about 2 feet of water, she yelped and cursed. She had gotten stuck by a sea urchin. The rest of us, secretly thankful for her being the guinea pig, put on our sandals and waded to shore as the Italian cussed out the boatmen (who spoke little to no Portuguese) for not warning her. In the end, she made them wait as she took out her tweezers, plucked out the spines, and waded to shore. She almost had them take her and her family back to Pangane (which would’ve been hilarious, since they didn’t look like they were liking the boat ride too much). We never saw them for the rest of the time we were on the island



Here is some of the architecture of Ibo. We quickly drew the attention of some local kids who have the jobs of attracting people to certain houses used as lodging. The one we ended up choosing was run by a kindly older woman. Her arrangement (unbeknown st to us at the time) was part of a community tourism initiative that the Ministry of Tourism sponsored along with US AID to bolster the industry on the island. For every registered guest at her place, the tourism board takes a cut and she keeps the rest. In exchange for giving money to the Ministry, she receives publicity on Park (since we were now in the National Park of the Quirimbas Islands) literature and stipends to maintain her house. I thought this was very cool- in fact it was one of the coolest programs I had seen in Moz so far.

Here is another monstrous ark, as well as a boat that I thought my Dad would really like. It was a beautiful little sailboat, something I can see him oogling over if he were with me.

Here are a few random shots of the beautiful Ibo island including one of what I thought was Royal Poinciana tree (my Mom’s favorite). Turns out I am in the same Family (the Fabaceae Family, to be specific; thanks Wikipedia) but these are in fact Acacia trees. Oh well. Mom, when you come, you will see a lot of your favorite tree’s cousins.


Check out what’s in that coral formation. It’s a sea turtle shell. We are pretty sure someone stashed it there to pick up later. Totally illegal, of course.

We found this graveyard right on the coast of the island. Elizabeth informed me that Muslims bury their dead with a marker at each end of the body (see below). I felt weird taking pictures of a graveyard, but I think it was worth it just to show you all.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken so far. He’s right outside the fort that you see above (I think he’s actually sitting on a water cistern)

So, these are a few New Year’s Eve-themed photos (as well as our main man pictured near the top of the post). This first guy is explaining what is written on the wall. It basically say that as of Jan 2, 2008, all drunks should not drink for at least 2 months to recover from the party. You can see that we were the life of the party that night. Maggie- wtf? It’s new year’s eve! Oh, not with the bf, I get it :( Well, we had a pretty good time anyway. The TV shot is of the mayor of Maputo City ringing in the New Year on the state-run TV station. It was almost like Dick Clark!


Here are pictures from the main fort on the island. Now, the coolest part about it is that you can buy silver jewelry from the silversmiths inside. They melt down everything from casings to coins to make their wares. I found these kids wandering around the fort. They belonged to someone, but Mom was not around at the time, so I told them to pose for me. Paulo, Elizabeth and Maggie had gone to the beach so I took advantage of my subjects, since my Mom always tells me you should have SOMEONE in the picture. There are more with the kids on Picasa.

This place reminded me a lot of my trip with my dad to Fort Jefferson that we took when I was in high school. One of my favorite memories of that trip is playing frisbee in the fort. This fort was a little too small to play frisbee in.



Quirimbas Island

I showed most of my good photos already, but here are a couple more from my favorite day of the trip. I think this makes the second fisherman in a hardhat that I have photographed in Mozambique (see my post on Machanga)

Mefumvo Island

These are really the only two photos I have from Mefumvo. Paulo cooking us a whole hell of a lot of fish, and the place where we stayed. Notice that just over Paulo’s shoulder, again, is the water. Island-hopping is amazing.

The Return to Pemba

This was our return to Pemba. I had ripped my foot open on a nail on the boatride to Mefumvo, so I whipped out the gauze and duct tape. Worked like a charm! The boat ride was a little choppy, as you can tell from Elizabeth’s face.

We hit land in Pemba’s “old district” where the poor folks live. Coincidentally (not), the worst flooding in the city happens here. Youc an tell it’s a charming place after a good rain :(

At least we had a welcoming party!!!!!

We hopped in a truck to go back to E’s house. THis was my parting shot of the bay where we landed in Note the weather that day, and check out what it looked like 24 hours later (to the right). Yeesh!

After we got back to the land of amazing street food, I spent a couple nights in Pemba as well as a night each in Nampula and Quelimane. The trip back, I will say, was much less painful. Whereas my trip up to Quelimane was about 60 hours, the trip back was about 28. I finished what has turned out to be one of my favorite books that I have read in-country “All the King’s Men”. I definitely could not have asked for a better use of 2 ½ weeks of holiday, followed immediately by a great week in Maputo at the Moz 11 Mid-Service Conference. But those stories will not be told here. In the coming posts I will post on the JOMA conferences from which I just returned.

Ok, tchau, ‘brigado.