Mozambique Part 3 - Finally arriving at Ilha de Mocambique!

For our final day of our 3-day travel to the coast it really should have been rather straightforward- basically we were told that we needed to go out to the main road and try to catch a direct chapa (mini-bus) to Ilha de Mocambique sometime between 7am-10am. So this is what we attempted to do, so around 8:30am we made our way to the main road but ended up waiting in the wrong location (in our defense it wasn't actually that clear)!  So after much confusion (mostly because we didn’t speak Portuguese) and some advice from a very nice lady (who flagged down a chapa and told him not to rip us off- awesome!) we caught a short distance chapa to the main bus depot where we would then transfer on to a larger chapa and go the 180km to Ilha de Mocambique.  At this bus depot we met a Mozambican named Wilson who spoke some English and veered us through the chaos towards the direct chapa to Ilha (going direct can shave hours off your journey as it won’t stop in every small town along the way).  So the direct chapa was a large green bus that to us looked extremely full- all the seats were taken plus ppl were standing in the entry way. We told Wilson, “hmm.. this looks very full” and he said “There is room!” So josh and I just looked at each other and said ok, this is our last travel day, do we go now direct and be cramped, or wait another couple of hours here for another bus that may or may not go direct.  Unknowingly how cramped it would actually be, we decided to go now (our impatience often got the better of us!). So why was I shocked when we ended up standing in the entrance of this bus (about the size of a 4 person kitchen table) with 10 other ppl. We barely had room to stand and everyone was fighting for foot space as we shimmied and tried to get in a somewhat comfortable stance.

I remember looking at the clock at the front of the bus, first of all thinking, wow they have a digital clock, but also that it was 10:05am, and could I actually do this for 3 hours?  Wison, who was also standing said to me, "some people will get off at Monapo (a city half way) so there will be more room".. although in the end it turned out that they actually crammed more ppl in at this stop, it was this false hope that kept me going at the time. So I’ve never experienced anything quite like this.. there was literally people leaning (and eventually sleeping) on me from all directions- who needs to hang on when you're smooshed together like that! and for those who know Josh, know that he is a pretty sweaty guy.. so needless to say this was an uncomfortable journey! I am always shocked at the lack of need for any personal space- the mentality really is, if you can cram another person in, that is just more money!  At one point in time Wilson jokingly said to me, “we are traveling like slaves!” Enough said.

So after 3 hours of standing in this crammed position (I actually was impressed with my ability to not freak out in this situation) we finally made it to Ilha. Here we were told to get into another truck where we crossed this long bridge to the actual island.In the back of my mind I was thinking, this better have been worth it! And it was- the water was so blue and clear, the beaches so white, the seafood amazing!

The northeastern part of the island

Fresh grilled squid and chips

So our crazy traveling was over, we could hardly believe we actually did all that in 3 days (I must admit I felt pretty stretched by the end of it) and so we really enjoyed just chilling out and staying on this island for awhile. For five nights we stayed at a hotel called ‘O Escondidinho’ (I recommend) where we ended up meeting a Japanese American who lived in Paris and funny enough the same group of Japanese that we met on the train! So we enjoyed hanging out with them for a couple nights, I got to practice my Japanese, and we had some excellent conversations about life and working in Malawi. All in all we enjoyed Ilha and all its quirkiness (historically it was a Portuguese trading post- including playing a role in the slave trade- a naval base and was the capital of Portuguese East Africa until the end of the 19th century), and in the next post I'll blog about our time there.