The Garden: The Prep...

I'm finally going to blog about my garden in Zomba, Malawi. It's been my (Josh's) main pastime over the last months, so I'll blog about it in a few parts.

So, having no job, no prospects of work and alot of time on my hands, I thought, "Hey, let's start a garden!" Almost every inch of Malawian soil is used for maize, cassava or veggies and so our empty lot felt like wasted arable land. So after gathering a variety of garden tools from the local market with help of Medson, my fruit seller friend, I was ready to set out and start hoeing!

Empty grass field which was to be a garden

The farming tools here are very primitive, a steel blade on a wooden stick. But it works for Malawians, and almost everyone owns one. Even large farm estates, use cheap labourers with these hoes. Even along the street or in town, you find these labourers with their hoe over their shoulder looking for work. Nope...I didn't need any help! I was going to do this myself, I have lots of time and I could use the workout. Little by little, bit by bit, hoe swing by hoe swing in the Malawian heat...whew 

Little by little, one hoe swing at a time

I started smallish, not really sure how big I wanted to make this garden, hoeing, hoeing, hoeing....taking out one weed at a time out of the coarse, dry, hard earth. What I would give for a rota-tiller (what my dad used in our garden growing up). Man, I now have more respect for the Malawian labourers, this is hard work!

Very glad to stop and pose for the camera!

 Most rural and poor Malawians would work this land in their bare-feet, in fact, it is common to see people walking about their day in bare feet given the expense of shoes. And although I now walk in the garden with bare-feet (shoes get way to muddy), I was glad to be using shoes as I hoed given the spiders, biting ants and venemous snakes that enjoy their home in the tall grasses. Our security guards killed this green mamba (highly poisonous) right next to where I was hoeing. They had killed a black mamba the day before. Thanks security!

A dead green mamba

Well after a couple of hours of hoeing, dirty and sweaty, people began to come and watch me work. A tall white (mzungu) dude hoeing is something people rarely see. By this time I was exhausted but tried to put on a good show, Canadians can work the land too, you know. Either seeing my pathetic attempts to swing the hoe or by wanting to earn some money working, a couple of guys grabbed their hoes and started swinging. I was glad for the help! 

Trying to keep up with the locals as a neighbour watches on...

Day two arrived and I went back out there to start hoeing on my own again. This time the neighbourhood kids came, about five of them with a wheelbarrow and their father's hoes, and helped clear the brush and hoe as well. Our nighttime security guard chipped in with his panga knife (machete knife) to clear debris and vines off the surrounding trees and walls.

Enjoying some Sobo between working

Neighbourhood kid

So, within a few days of starting, with the help of the whole neighbourhood it seemed, my garden started to take shape with plots of soil ready for seeding, a heck of alot bigger (23 or so plots) than I expected, but hey, how much work could it be....

Basic imprint of the garden

So why have a garden anyways????

Vegetables are very inexpensive in Malawi, so why start a garden here (also given I have no prior gardening knowledge besides the chores my parents gave me as a kid to weed and shovel). Well...here are some reasons I can think of:

- No job, lots of time. Why not?

- Everyone here in Malawi uses every bit of land they have to grow maize, pumpkins, cassava and other veggies for their livelihood and for food. Our lot being empty seemed kinda a waste, was being eyed by the neighbours, and frankly, I wanted to experience what typical Malawians experience.

- At first, I partnered with a local seller in the market, thinking it could be an additional source of revenue for him, saying if he helped me with it, we'd split the harvest (I later learned that these "great" ideas had to have come from him...as I will explain in another blog)

- Fresh veggies. Yes!

- Something wholesome about gardening, reminds me of my grandmother's garden, of a slower pace of life, of appreciating where your food comes from.

Stay tuned for the next phase...

Mozambique Part 4 - Ilha de Mocambique

I apologize for the delay in blogging about the rest of our Mozambique journey- so here are stories and photos from our 6 day stay on Ilha de Mocambique:

As I was saying before, Ilha is a very quirky town- one part of the island is a bustling fishing village, while the other is more like a ghost town and funny enough where all the old Portuguese buildings and most of the tourist places are. I think what initially shocked me the most about this place was that even though it was one of the number 1 tourist destinations in Mozambique, it will still pretty run-down and poor. There were some parts in the north of the town that were really nice and rehabilitated, and some buildings with a fresh coat of paint (which makes all the difference) but the majority was still pretty run-down.

The yellow building was the coffee shop we frequented everyday!

On one hand it was really nice that it wasn't 'resort-y' (which unfortunately might occur in the future), but it was also again hard to see all the poverty and people living on the streets. And we were immediately seen as people who had money and constantly asked to buy carvings or beads, or take a trip out to a nearby island "for good price". But it was very interesting to see all these huge buildings, especially that this type of infrastructure even exists here! What a feat it must have been back in the 16th century to get these building materials brought over.. Josh and I often though that no wonder things are so run-down, none of this was made from local building materials, so the locals probably don't have the knowledge or the money to fix it!

Walking back to our hotel

An average street

The most rehabilitated part of the island

I think this might have been a school

Church of the Misericordia

Inside the church grounds

Very environmentally friendly mode of transport- what a great idea!

One of the boardwalks, all cobblestone!

The north west side of the island

Walking towards the southern part of the island where most people live

The southern part of the island- striking contrast to the north

But I always find that there are such strong contrasts here in Africa.. there are the rich, the poor, and not really anything in between.  And I often saw this as we sat daily in the coffee shop sipping our cappuccino's and eating pizza, while out the window there are decaying buildings and children selling goods to make some money so that either they or their family can eat. It was hard to sit there and shut out what was just outside the door- for what was an oasis for us, was a forbidden place to others, as i'm sure most of the locals who live on this island have never set foot inside.

The coffee shop- we were here everyday

Decorating the coffee shop for Christmas

The view outside from the coffee shop

Kids selling these bagel like pastries

But it was on this island that we ate some of the best seafood of our lives. After being here for a couple of days, we started venturing off the tourist track and asking around for the best restaurant. We heard it was at Casa Sara (who used to be the cook for a very touristy restaurant on the island but got so good she won all of these awards and then started her own thing- wonder what conflict that caused?),  so after asking many people for directions to this place, we finally found the bamboo thatched hut and ate some of the freshest, most well prepared grilled fish I've ever had!

Casa Sara-  the thatched hut made of bamboo was amazing!

Most amazing fish ever!
Might look a little scary, but i have become pro at eating fish prepared like this!

So it was also on this island that we spent Christmas- which in our minds wasn't really Christmas.. as how weird was it to be here in Mozambique away from family and friends for that day!  But we did have a very fun and unexpected Christmas Eve dinner at our coffee shop filled with lobster, grilled prawns and swedish singing! Which made us very nostalgic for Sweden!

Christmas Eve menu including Swedish Toast!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Amazing grilled prawns

Even more amazing Lobster

So all in all we enjoyed our time on this island and even though it was ridiculously hot (some days 40 celcius with around 100% humidity) and we both caught colds (probably from going back and forth between aircon and heat) we enjoyed the fusion of cultures of this island and the general simplicity of life.  One of our favorite things to see was children playing outside with their homemade toys. It's just so refreshing to see children playing outside with such a sense of innocence. Who needs playstation when you can make a car out of old bottle caps and push it down the street??

So after our 6 days on this island we decided to abandon our plans to go north to Pemba (which would have meant another 10 hours in a crowded mini-bus or on the back of a pick-up truck) and head to a nearby island and stay at a beach lodge for a couple of days. We bargained and bartered for a good price for a 'Dhow' (a non-motorized sail boat) to take us to a nearby island.. we thought, a boat has to be better than a bus.. but little did we know what adventure we had waiting for us there! TBC...

Local fishing boats- the dhow's are in the distance

You never really think it will happen to you...

...until it does. And then it's just a strange sense of shock- did that really happen?? what should I have done differently? How could we have avoided that?
For everyone who has ever been mugged, i'm sure these questions have gone through your head...

So Josh's birthday weekend was going along great. On Friday (his actual birthday) we decided to hitch a ride with a co-worker to Blantyre (going by car instead of mini-bus makes all the difference!!) to spend the weekend at a hotel and enjoy the amenities of being in a bigger city, notably the restaurants. So we got into Blantyre around 8pm, checked in to our hotel and enjoyed a wonderful birthday dinner at Casa Mia complete with appy's, a bottle of wine, 2 entrees that we could never get in zomba, and of course dessert.  We were relieved to find out that we could charge this dinner to our room as our cash stock was low. See here in Malawi most everything is paid for by cash, the only credit card that is accepted is VISA (and that is only rarely accepted) and unfortunately we don't have the pin for our card. So this means that constant trips to the bank machine are necessary.  Also, the highest bank note here is 500Mwk which is about $3 USD. So you can imagine the wad of cash you get when you take out an equivalent of 120$ (which is the most the ATM will let you take out at one time).

The hotel we were staying at was about an 8-10min walk away from the town and we figured that we would just walk to and from... it wasn't long and we didn't have a car, so why waste the money for an overpriced cab?  Plus we like to walk, and there are always 2 of us.. so why not? So on Saturday we walked to the town, and explored a little (which wasn't actually all that much, just some big buildings, and of course that bigger city feeling- we got asked for money over a dozen times) and of course made a trip to the ATM so we could pay our hotel bill the next day. We enjoyed some good pizza in town (from a chain they don't have in zomba), and made our way to another hotel that was near ours to have an afternoon coffee and dessert (also a major luxury as it was filtered coffee!). After that we went back to our hotel to relax a little before dinner. As for our dinner choice, we had decided to go to this Indian food restaurant that was recommended by our guidebook and we were very excited as again we don't have anything like this in Zomba.

So when we ventured out earlier it was during the day, so we really didn't think twice about the road or its potential dangers at night. So now, it was around 7pm, fully dark, but we figured it was fine, as we had just walked that earlier.  And funny I remember thinking, wow i actually feel safer than i thought i would here in Blantyre... So we made it the Indian restaurant (the road was not lit the whole way, some parts were, but it was only a short walk), enjoyed some wonderful butter chicken and mixed veg, complete with naan (plain and garlic!) We realized there that we only just had enough cash to cover the bill (we left most of what we had taken out earlier) so we thought that we should just go take out some more money that way we could pay everything tomorrow. So we walked to the ATM, and took out some money.

Lesson #1-  Do not take out money at night (even if there are 2 of you), especially in a city you do not know, you have no idea who is watching you and who will follow you.

When we were taking out money I didn't feel too unsafe, there was a security guard there and everything was lit, so that was fine. We proceeded then to walk back to our hotel (which we thought was a wonderful idea since we were both so full from the food!).

Lesson #2-  Do not walk down a dark road at night, even if it is less than a 10 minute walk, even if there are 2 of you.

So walking back down the poorly lit road, Josh and I were just talking about life, we were literally about 200 meters from the gate to the hotel, in a pitch black area, when we heard someone running behind us. Thinking back now Josh remembers hearing someone walking behind us about 5 minutes earlier (this was when we were in the lit area), feeling a bit uncomfortable but not really thinking anything of it.  So we immediately look back and see this guy running towards us, my first thought was, oh is this guy running for fun? is he training for something? (duhh danielle.. pretty funny now when i look back at it) and he runs past us, then quickly turns around and says something like 'gimme your money' while lunging at us with this huge knife (I only remember seeing the glint of it, but josh got a clearer look as he was in front of me, and remembers it being about 30cm-  it is predominantly an agricultural society here so there are machete's and huge knives pretty much everywhere...) What happens next is pretty much a blur, but all i remember is thinking, ok start making noise to attract attention, so i start yelling at him, 'what are you doing, we don't have anything!" and at this point i think josh is yelling at him as well, but the guy is now lunging at him with the knife so as we are backing up Josh throws his wallet, meanwhile i am quickly backing away, thinking 'there is no way this guy is getting my bag our passports are inside, i will run fast to the main street'- and then i remember him demanding josh's phone, which he then throws at him as well, so while he is busy with Josh I on the other hand just turn around and start running, yelling, 'I don't have anything' and all i remember hearing is "Madame, Madame, your phone!" I remember thinking, you're robbing us and still being polite and calling me Madame???  So i just run as fast as I can back down the road and see a car coming towards us- so waving my hands like a madwoman I flag down this car (it happens to be the owner of the hotel we are staying at!) and I tell her that we have just been robbed. Somehow josh is also beside the car now too. Josh tells me later that after the guy had picked up his wallet and phone he started running after me for my bag (josh was running now too), but I was well ahead of him and then when he saw the headlights he took off down a side street. So we explain to the woman in the car what happened, meanwhile the security guard for the house we have stopped nearby has just come out (with his shotgun!) to investigate the noise- he apologizes to josh that he came late (you never know, maybe he was sleeping) but we get back in the car and drove to the hotel. The women who picked us up is just really glad that we were not hurt. Which leads me to lesson #3:

Lesson #3-  If someone is threatening you with a weapon, just give them what they ask for instead of trying to fight them.

The owner's husband is at the front desk and he offers to take us to the police to make a statement- so we go there.. but as i had suspected, clearly a waste of time.. resources are lacking and there really is nothing they can do, so we gave them our details (what was stolen etc.) and went back to the hotel, shaken, baffled and trying not to relive what just happened.

phew.. just writing that makes my heart pound again... and I hate that this experience has now instilled fear in us. This was the first time either of us have been threatened with a weapon.. and it's a terrifying experience. We are so lucky and thankful that neither of us got hurt (I am so glad that josh threw his stuff instead of trying to fight! although at one point the guy lowered his knife and josh thought that he could have taken him but made a split second decision not to, that it wasn't worth it). And I don't care about the money (we are happy that he only got away with josh's super old phone, bank card, and the cash we had just withdrawn), but what I hate the most is that this has cast a shadow on the way we view Malawi, and Malawians..  constantly thinking, so who is going to rob us now?  We know we stand out and we know that people think we have money (we are asked for it everyday) but now we are constantly speculating about who is going to use force to get it..  We know that most Malawians are good, hard working, honest, people, but now this is a thought that's hard to shake.. uggg, fear is an ugly thing...

But we learned some good lessons, and maybe we were getting too lax about walking in the dark in Zomba and now will take some extra precautions ...  maybe that experience saved us from something bigger.. you never know.  And we found out later that apparently that stretch of road is a really bad area after dark (thanks for telling us that hotel!) so i guess you should just never take any chances!

This will definitely be a birthday that Josh never forgets!!

Douglas Blond

I'm taking a quick break from writing about our adventures to celebrate the life of my dad. 5 years ago today I lost an amazing father and mentor. It seems like yesterday, but then again not, because so many things have happened since then.. what a strange feeling.

But the memory of my dad is still very much alive as I am often reminded and encouraged by how much he loved all of us, his go-getter and non-complaining attitude (when most of the time all i want to do here is complain!) and his overall love for life. Sometimes when I laugh i remember that I laugh like he did, the whole body shake, and that makes me smile.
He is my inspiration to keep pushing through when times are tough, and to live each moment to the fullest (even as i sit at my desk for 10 hours a day!) And I know he is cheering us on as we go through all our crazy adventures.  He was such a blessing to this world and I want to celebrate that today!

This is one of my favourite pictures- just being silly as a family.. this is always how I will remember him- so full of life.  I miss you everyday dad!

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.

Mozambique Part 2

At 2:30am our alarm rang…   we dragged our sore butts out of bed trying not to wonder, why are we doing this again? After all this was the vacation we chose to have! But we both agreed that 12 hours on a train couldn’t be any worse than 4 hours in the back of a truck on a bumpy dusty road. So we walked to the train station while it was still dark (we never actually saw Cuamba in the light!) and saw that the line had already formed to buy tickets. We had no idea if there was going to be 2^nd class tickets left (you were supposed to buy them a day in advance, but because we got so delayed we didn’t arrive in time to do that) so we were just hoping. Apparently all the women got to form a separate line and were given priority to buy tickets (probably to ensure that all the women and children get tickets if it sells out…) so I was told to go in that line leaving Josh far back in the men's line...and in my terrible Portuguese asked for two 2^nd class tickets. “No Second class” is what I was told, and my heart sank a little as I wondered if 3^rd class was going to be as bad as people had warned us.. so I bought 2 of those and we then got in the lineup that was apparently the line waiting to get on the train.  

We had no idea what was awaiting us and we discussed that if the conditions were really bad we would just stay here for a couple of nights and wait for 2^nd class to be available.  As it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as we thought (while we were waiting we saw the grain car that had one window and I thought if that was 3^rd class then there was no way we were going!) and we ended up getting a seat and were surrounded by a handful of other expats. I was so thankful that I had brought my yoga mat because the seats were wooden, so I had a bit of a cushion!

The first four hours of the ride were really nice, no one sat beside us so we each had a bit of space and landscape was really interesting. Mozambique is known for its inselbergs, which are large masses of smooth volcanic granite.

Inselbergs that dot the landscape

It was really good to see the true Mozambique as the train would go by and sometimes stop in all these small villages.People (mostly women and children) would sell us everything from mangoes to bread, to fried chicken to onions, to goats.. all through the windows of the train. It was amazing to see all of this flurry of activity happening in such a short time span…people yelling, money exchanging hands, huge sacks of food coming in to the train, and sometimes as the train would start moving again goods would be quickly taken up through the window and money would just be thrown out the window on to the tracks.  It never ceases to amaze me how strong people’s necks are here.. it’s amazing how much weight they can carry on their heads.  Josh and I were also amazed at how it was always consistently the women and children doing the selling, while the men would usually be sitting under a shaded tree somewhere. The gender roles and expectations of children here are pretty intense and it just broke my heart to know that instead of going to school these kids were selling and making money for their family.. this train ride just brought all of these complicated issues to such light and it was hard to just sit there knowing that this was daily life for them..

So as the train rolled on we picked up more and more people and eventually there were now people sitting next to us on these small wooden benches. It was interesting to watch them buy loads of food (onions, mangoes, garlic) at each stop, although they would be constantly leaning over us to get to the window (personal space is about a hundredth of the size as it is in Canada!) and then stuffing everything in every inch of spare leg room possible! Often in these situations I really wish josh and I were small.. because together we make up quite the pair with my long legs and josh’s linebacker width- needless to say the next 8 hours were not comfortable. But I got to know some of the other travelers (met some Japanese people from JICA- the equivalent of our CIDA, who lived in Malawi) and we had some funny exchanges with the Mozambicans beside us. But there were no doors on the bathrooms (which was just a hole in the floor) so I didn’t pee for 12 hours! I wonder what 2nd class would have been like… maybe more room and cushions on the seats, but Josh and I decided that we weren’t going to find out. Although we were glad to have done this once, twice was just going to be too much.. we decided that we were going to look into flying back if we could! So around 6:30pm (after 12.5 hours on the train) we rolled into Nampula, found our hotel and went to eat our first real meal of the day. After being awake since 2:30am, we passed out around 8:30pm knowing that we would have to catch some type of transportation the following day between 7am-10am (the lonely planet guide was not very specific- so we were just going to have to wing it!) to head to Ilha de Mocambique. One more travel day and we would be at the coast! How bad could it be?? TBC…..

Mozambique Part 1

This has definitely not been “Christmas as usual”  filled with decorating the tree, catching up with family and eating till you want to burst. No, this Christmas has been spent by riding in the back of pickup trucks, ‘negotiating’ with immigration offices, and traveling like the locals do.  I’ve always said that if you can’t spend christmas with family and friends, you mine as well do something exotic, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the adventures we had ahead.

Let me start at the beginning…

We spent a lovely, mostly hassle free first two days of our holiday on Lake Malawi (as you’ve read in previous posts) before we ventured east to Mozambique. From there we planned to take 3 days to make our way to the coast and spend 2 weeks along the Indian Ocean, hitting 3 cities. Currently we are at our first destination, Mozambique Island, and over the past day have changed our travel plans drastically because there is no way we can endure the crazy amount of traveling needed to get to the other 2 cities.  I’m not sure exactly what I expected in terms of road infrastructure and modes of travel, but it is very difficult to get from point A to point B here in the northern part of Mozambique.. especially if you are on a schedule and especially if you are impatient like Josh and I!

As I look back now at the 3 days it took to get here I can laugh a little and see that they were really ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences, but during those extremely long and uncomfortable hours I wasn’t sure if i was going to be able to keep my sanity!

Day 1:

So we spent the first day making our way from Lake Malawi to the border then on to a town called Cuamba- The distance between these two points is actually not that long (200km)  but it took us over 12 hours to get there using 5 different modes of transportation! I think it really was this first day that put us over the edge. Everything seemed to go wrong and for travel ‘veterans’ (as we sometimes like to think of ourselves) it was just extremely frustrating and irritating!  After we left Lake Malawi we were driven by the lodge owners to a town called Mangochi (a ride in an actual car? the day was starting off great!), and it was here that we would catch a mini-bus (or so we thought) to the border town of Chiponde and then take a bicycle taxi to the border crossing, cross the border and then proceed with the bicycle taxi to the nearest city in Mozambique. So it was only 50 km to the border town of Chiponde but it took us over 4 hours to get there! It turned out that we needed to take a pick up truck (not a mini-bus as we had expected) and we waited for over an hour for it to leave this depot. It was rather unfortunate as the depot was slightly sketchy and we were right in the hot sun. So when it finally left (filled to the brim with ppl and goods) we were all ecstatic! Little did we know though that this truck wouldn’t actually make it the whole way and after going about 20 km up a switchback on the mountain it broke down. So now, here we are,  the hood has been opened and about 5 guys are standing around discussing what to do. At one point they were using a wrench to hit the gas tank or the carborator… josh said it was the funniest things he’s ever seen. So after about 20 minutes with no luck, they pushed the truck around, everyone got back in and we coasted back where we started from. When the truck could no longer coast (Josh and I just kept wondering, where do they think they are going to go?) it stopped near a shady spot (thank God!) and we waited for another truck to come and pick us all up.  When this one finally arrived, it looked in no better condition (josh and I were taking bets on when this one would break down, before or after the spot the other one did) but we did as told and got into the back. To our surprise we actually made it to Chiponde (but not without wasting precious time), but we were burnt, hungry and exhausted! At this moment we were met by swarms of people wanting to take us across the border on their bicycles and asking if we needed to exchange money.  Not really sure where we were supposed to go from here, we were guided to the nearby immigration point, where we had to get an exit stamp. So here we found out that we had actually stayed in Malawi longer than our visa’s had allowed (you apparently had to renew after 30 days, I thought it was 90!) so after some ‘negotiation’ with the officer we were now on our way to the actual border via bicycle taxi.

 This probably had to be my favorite mode of transport and besides being hot, hungry, and slightly disorientated, I very much enjoyed being cycled down the dusty roads to the actual visa checkpoint of Mozambique. Here we obtained visas to Mozambique. The cost, instead of being 25$USD for a visa was 100$USD because at this checkpoint they had power.. which meant they had these fancy machines that take your picture and print it out.. so despite our best bartering , there was no budging, and they explained that this high cost was to cover these services. So after this whole process we got back on our bicycle taxi and were cycled into the nearest town of Mandimba (took about 20min.). Unfortunately because we had wasted so much time in the morning we had missed the daily mini-bus to Cuamba (our final destination that day), but were assured that in an hour or so there would be another. It was now about 4pm, and we were not entirely convinced that there would actually be another mini-bus (these usually come once or twice a day). So not really knowing what to do (our options were to a. wait and possible stay the night in this shabby town if the mini-bus didn’t come, b. hire a private car to drive us that would cost about 200$USD or c. go in the back of a truck) we decided to go into town to go to the bank, get something cold to drink and think through our options (we had yet to eat anything that day!). To our horror our bank cards didn’t work (when we were assured that they would), so now here we were with no Metical (the Mozambican currency) , no plan, hot, sweaty, burnt, hungry and irritated after having an already stressful travel day. We were lucky though that we took along some Kwacha (the Malawian currency) and some USD so we were able to get some local currency.  So after exchanging with some of the street vendors (at an outrageous rate! But we had no other option as the banks were closed) we decided that we were just going to suck it up, pay the 200$USD and get to Cuamba tonight. See the problem is that we were pressed for time because we needed to take the train from Cuamba the following day and if we wanted to ride 2^nd class (it only goes on certain days) we had to get to Cuamba that night. So after a quick fanta and some water we asked the street vendors again kinda just for fun, “how do we get to Cuamba?” and just at that moment a large truck went by packed with people in the back, they pointed and said, that truck, so someone whistled and it stopped as we made our way over to it. There was no room.. My Canadian love for personal space and a seat was just screaming inside my head, are you kidding me?  But it was this (which cost about 10$ each) or spending 200$- so josh just looked at me, I at him, and we said, ok let’s do it.  Again, a picture here is worth a thousand words, but it just wasn’t possible nor the thing to do. Besides, Josh was hanging on for dear life sitting on the back corner of the truck and I was at the front standing and holding on to the truck bed and “luggage rack”.  I just kept looking back at him thinking, ok, here we go- 4 hours of this!?  So in this truck holding about 25 people plus all their goods (tires, grain, food, a chicken) we made our way to Cuamba down a bumpy dusty ‘highway’. I felt myself lucky that I was standing as I didn’t feel the bumps as Josh did (he was lucky to still have his butt after that ride!) and actually found it a little exhilarating standing there with the wind in my hair and nothing but the vast mozambiqan landscape ahead of me. 

Standing on my left was another Malawian and on my right was a former Malawian, now  living in mozambique. They both spoke English and we actually had good conversation (they were asking me if I played sports and if this was my real hair-lol). But after about 3 hours of standing, and trying to shift my feet so that I could balance my weight equally I needed to sit down. People would come and go from this truck, shouting out for the driver to stop at random places on the road (one thatched village looked the same as the others.. we wondered how people knew which was their’s!) and eventually I was able to sit on a sack of grain near Josh. At this point it had become dark and the sky was absolutely enormous- we saw stars that we never knew existed and I felt lucky that we were able to experience this despite everything.  Around 9pm we arrived in Cuamba (the Malawian who lived in Mozambique was so nice and showed us to our hotel- we would have been so lost without him!), checked in, ate our first meal of the day and prepared ourselves to leave the next morning at 3am to line up to get tickets for the train that left at 5am.... TBC....