After a game drive in the park, we crossed the border to Mozambique and drove to the capital Maputo. The country immediately seemed very different from Swaziland with the climate being much more tropical and the living conditions apparently much worse. This resulted in people being very aggressive in their efforts to sell us things and despite us being very careful, there was an incident where a group of people tried to steal from us. However, Mozambique was also a place where we experienced extreme generosity, and in retrospect I think our short visit was the most interesting experience on the whole trip.

Day 28 - July 24

I woke up at 0700 after having slept very well. Unfortunately, May Tina had not been equally lucky as she had suffered from diarrhoea the whole night, meaning she constantly had to go to the bathroom and didn't get any sleep at all. On the other hand, it was quite fortunate that this happened here in this luxury accomodation and not while we were living primitively in the Drifters Bushveld Camp or Zululand.

Gunnar had brought along some Imodium pills that were supposed to cure such a problem. May Tina tried them and got gradually better during the day.

There was no animal activity at the waterhole this early in the morning. This was a little bit disappointing, but on the other hand we'd seen plenty of wildlife yesterday. We had breakfast, packed all our stuff and were ready to go on a short gamedrive before heading towards Mozambique. According to the rules, we had to have a ranger with us on the gamedrive and he arrived promptly at 0800.

We were mostly interested in getting a closer look at a lion, since this animal had so far eluded us except for a brief glimpse in the Kruger Park. The lions were kept in a special (but large) enclosure here at Hlane. The ranger showed us where to drive and after ten minutes we arrived at the gate and were let inside. For the next one and a half hour we drove around looking for lions, but unfortunately we didn't see any. In fact, the only animal we saw was an elephant, and apart from that the area appeared to be empty.

In the end we gave up and were let out into another enclosure where they had cheetahs. This time we had more luck as we had only driven for a few minutes when we spotted two cheetahs lying in the middle of the road. The cheetah is the fastest animal in the world, but from watching these two cheetahs one would never have guessed. They looked really lazy and when we approached they only just managed to find the necessary energy to get up slowly, walk five metres away from the road and lie down to relax again. After watching the cheetahs for a while we decided to return to the camp and check out.

Time was around 1000 when we got underway towards the Mozambique border. It was not a long drive but the scenery changed quite dramatically in a very short time. On coming out of the bush, at first it was flat with sugar plantations around us, but shortly after that we were going up and down hills with quite a bit of vegetation.

Almost at the border we had to stop at a petrol station. The station belonged to a swazi friend of Gunnar, and according to Gunnar this friend would be very upset if we didn't stop there. One time the guy had spotted Gunnar driving past without stopping, and had not been very happy. Today he was very pleased, though! He smiled all the time and had to shake everybody's hand before he could fill up the car with petrol!

The border was now only a few minutes away, as was clear from all the guys at the petrol station who were exchanging money into Meticais, the Mozambique currency. As we approached the border post, Gunnar warned us against taking advice or showing our documents to anyone there. He would take care of the formalities and we should only stay close to him. Apparently there were lots of guys at the border who pretended to work there, but in reality were just conmen. Typically they would ask for your passport and some money to sort out the formalities, and then they would just leave with your stuff.

We could understand his concern as we entered the Lomahasha border post. Without Gunnar we would have been quite lost here as it was not like any of the other border posts we'd seen so far. The area was extremely crowded with people and there were no signs telling you where to go. It all seemed very chaotic. There were several different houses, but we had no idea what to do where. One place was to obtain forms to fill in, another place was customs, another had something to do with the car, and finally the place where you had to show your passport. We were really glad we could just follow Gunnar around.

The very moment we got out of the car a guy came up to us and told us to give him 50 Rands and our passports. Without Gunnar, I'm afraid we might have done just that, as we would probably have believed him to be an official. However, Gunnar just told him to shut up and pushed him away. We were really glad when all the formalities had been completed and we were allowed across the border and into Mozambique.

Mozambique had been a portuguese colony for a long time, but in 1975 most of the portuguese decided to leave the country, after the communist movement (Frelimo) came to power and declared independence for Mozambique. After this, Mozambique was in a state of civil war for a long time, as the Renamo rebels (supported by South Africa) tried to destabilize the country. However, in the early 1990's Frelimo scrapped their socialist ideas and eventually a peace agreement with Renamo was reached. Although things haven't been good in South Africa and Swaziland, at least they haven't had a civil war on top of it.

The town at the Mozambique side was called Namaacha and it was immediately obvious from the architecture that it had been under a strong Portugesian influence. It was very different from what we had seen in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. However, our destination was the capital Maputo, so we just drove straigth through Namaacha heading once more for the coast of the Indian Ocean.

The road was not as bad as expected. Gunnar told us that after the civil war the road had been full of holes. This was a strategy used by Renato to force cars to slow down, making it easier to stop them. Only recently those holes had been filled, making the road better to drive on. As we drove towards Maputo we could see several of the places where the road obviously had been fixed.

As we came nearer to Maputo the scenery was becoming greener and more tropical, and the humidity was also obviously increasing. Finally, we could see downtown Maputo far away in the distance. However, we would not be going to the city center just yet. According to Gunnar, at least two persons were needed to watch our car while we explored the area, so the first point on our agenda was to pick up two of his friends.

We therefore turned left before we came to the city center and instead followed a very busy road in what must have been the suburbs of Maputo. There were people everywhere around, most of them selling something. Another thing that caught our eyes in the heavy traffic was the large amount of vans and pick-up trucks with too many people squeezed in.

This road was tarred, but after driving for ten minutes, we turned right into a residential area, where a friend of Gunnar called Jorge lived. The road between the houses was not even a dust road, it was loose sand - just like driving on the beach! After a few minutes we arrived at Jorge's house, but unfortunately Jorge was not home at the moment. According to his wife, he would however arrive very soon. Gunnar decided that we should go ahead without Jorge because in this country "very soon" could mean within five minutes, but it could also mean "tomorrow" or "never".

The houses in this area were not very impressive, to say the least - it was a slum area. However, one thing that was quite nice was all the green vegetation everywhere and in particular between the various shacks. The trees, hedges, etc. sort of defined your "garden", made each place more "private", besides it looked quite nice. In the Cape Town slum there was usually no vegetation at all, there were just shacks standing next to eachother in some field.

Going back on the sand road, our car got stuck in the sand two times and we had to get out and push. Fortunately, both times we were helped by a bunch of local kids. On the not so bright side, a few of the kids decided they should hang on to the back of our car when we drove away. However, Gunnar got rid of them by stopping very abruptly, making them bang their heads against the car and fall off without any serious injuries. This may sound a bit brutal but it was for their own sake.

Reaching the busy street again, we turned back where we came from. After a few minutes drive we entered another sand road to pick up another friend of Gunnar's. Fortunately, the car didn't get stuck this time and we were soon at this guy's house.

Gunnar's friend had once been a very rich man. Before Frelimo came to power he had owned two very large farms, but these had been nationalised leaving him with nothing. He was now living in the slum area of Maputo, but according to Gunnar he was quite well off compared to his neighbours. The reason was that he was the only one in the area who had a well in his garden. His only source of income was the sale of this water to other people in the area. He also worked as a priest for a congregation nearby, but he didn't get paid for his services.

His bad fortune didn't seem to have affected his mood too much, though. He seemed to be a very happy man, laughing all the time! Since he could only speak Portuguese and SiSwati there were some problems communicating with him, though. Fortunately, Borgny could translate from SiSwati into Norwegian.

Everybody now headed for downtown Maputo. According to Borgny and Gunnar, Maputo had been a wonderful and safe city before the civil war. Now its downfall was immediately obvious, although it was not hard to imagine that it must have been very beautiful once.

After driving around a little bit, we stopped at Mercado Central, a large market. We parked our car in the parking lot and Gunnar's friend would stay and watch after it while we looked around inside. According to Gunnar, it was absolutely necessary to have someone look after the car. An unguarded car would almost certainly be broken into, he said. At that point we thought he was probably exagerrating the danger a little bit.

After getting out of the car, we were immediately surrounded by people who were selling various stuff. The place was also crowded with beggars. By walking very fast into the market itself, we managed to shrug them off for this time.

Judging by the area covered, the market wasn't really that big. However, the "shops" were put up really close together and it turned that almost anything could be bought here, ranging from food to ivory, body lotion or hair. Shopping here was not really cheap, though, even by Norwegian standards, and it was very expensive compared to South Africa and Swaziland. For example we bought a two liter bottle of coke for 30000Mt (approximately 15R). Anyway, it was fun just browsing without buying very much as the market was full of people and was very lively.

When we left the market a lot of things happened very fast. As we came out into the area where our car was parked, we were again immediately surrounded by beggars and the people who were selling stuff. We headed straight for the car, which we could see was still there, with the crowd following us.

One guy who was selling watches seemed to be concentrating on me. According to him he had a very good offer: 250R for a watch. I wasn't interested. He was not a very tough bargainer, though, because the next moment he was selling it for 150R. "Citizen! Citizen!" he was shouting, waving the watch in front of me to prove that this was a quality watch, not just some piece of junk. On looking more closely at the watch I noticed that it was a "Citezen"(!) watch, not "Citizen", so I still wasn't interested.

When we reached the car he was selling it for 100R ,and when I still just waved him away, he was selling it for "any price". All five of us were now standing around the car, with a crowd of maybe ten persons around us, some of them selling something, others just plain begging. As Gunnar was unlocking the car door, one of the guys took the opportunity to put his hand inside Gunnar's pocket, hoping that Gunnar would not notice. Fortunately, Borgny did notice and she immediately slapped the guy's hand, forcing him to quickly withdraw it from Gunnar's pocket without having obtained any money.

The next thing he did was just stand still and put his hands up in the air, trying to look very innocent. "Who me? I didn't do anything!" Borgny tried to push him away, but he refused to leave. We were all feeling slightly uneasy about this situation, and now that the car had been unlocked we got inside as fast as we could.

One guy was standing right behind the car, looking like he was just waiting for a moment where we were not paying attention to him, so that he could open the trunk of our car without anyone noticing. May Tina was concerned about this, so she waved at him to get out of the way. He then put on his most innocent expression and took one step back. We now turned our heads towards the front. Two seconds later, May Tina quickly turned around and threw herself back into the car and closed the trunk. Fortunately, she had heard that someone was opening the door at the back and had reacted quickly enough to avoid anything being stolen. Apparently a guy had been bending down behind the car so that he could not be seen through the back window. As our attention was focused elsewhere he had slowly tried to open the back door. He now stood up, put both his arms up in the air trying to look very innocent. "Who me? I didn't do anything!".

We were really glad to get away from Mercado Central. Although, nothing seemed to have been stolen, we were feeling sort of shocked by the behaviour of that crowd. Apparently Gunnar had not been exaggerating at all when he said that an unguarded car would most likely be broken into.

Since we were all quite hungry, we drove around to find somewhere to eat. Finally, we stopped at a place called Mundo's. On parking the car outside, we were again immediately surrounded by a bunch of people either selling stuff or just begging for money. Fortunately, the restaurant had a guard that was looking after the cars, so we figured it was reasonably safe to leave it there.

The restaurant was quite nice, though. We had a table outside so that while eating we could also look after the car, just to be on the safe side. There was a hedge separating the restaurant from the street outside. Unfortunately, there was a small hole in the hedge just where we were sitting, which gave the streetpeople opportunity to show the stuff they were selling to us. It was terribly annoying having these people there all of the time, trying to make us buy some of their stuff. We tried to look another way, figuring they would give up if we weren't paying attention, but no such luck.

It was not that we didn't have any sympathy for the people who were probably living under terrible conditions and had to sell their stuff to survive. However, at that moment we were still in a state of light shock after the events outside Mercado Central, and our first priority was to avoid getting mugged for real.

There really was a big difference between South Africa/Swaziland and Mozambique. Although there were poor people in S.A., we never had any problems with aggressive begging. Here you were surrounded by people wanting your money from the moment you stepped out of the car. Mozambique really seemed like a horrible place at that time.

For dinner, I had a Chicken Kebab and May Tina had a pizza. Food was also slightly cheaper than in Norway, but more expensive than in South Africa and Swaziland. For my meal, I paid 85000Mt, which is about 42.50R.

During dinner, Gunnar's friend told us that while he had been guarding our car, a bunch of guys had broken into a car nearby, stealing everything and even walking away with the car door itself!! Things were really getting more and more insane by the minute! What sort of a country was this? We had heard all sorts of stories about crime in South Africa before leaving, but apparently even Johannesburg must be child's play compared to Maputo! At least that was our impression.

We were also feeling really bad about leaving Gunnar's friend all alone to watch our car. I'm sure that can't have been very safe for him, and now we really understood why Gunnar wanted two persons to look after the car. At least we gave him a little bit in return by buying him dinner at Mundo's.

After eating, and fending off the beggars and salesmen who surrounded us when we left the restaurant, we drove a little bit around in Maputo before heading back to the suburbs. All of us were just glad to get away safely, and didn't have any desire to get out and further explore the city.

We drove Gunnar's friend back to his house. As we got out of the car, Borgny noticed that her jacket was missing. It had been lying in the back of the car, but now it was nowhere to be seen. We couldn't find any other explanation than that it had to have been stolen during the events at Mercado Central. Nobody could figure out how the guys had managed to sneak it out of the car without anyone noticing, but since jackets usually don't vanish spontaneously, this was our best guess. Fortunately, the pockets had been empty so no harm was done apart from losing the jacket, which of course was bad enough in itself. We were just grateful that they hadn't gotten hold of our camera and videocamera which also had been inside the car.

We hadn't expected to stay very long at the home of Gunnar's friend, so we were quite surprised when he announced that he and his family would prepare something for us to eat. Eat now!? Was the guy nuts? We were all quite puzzled, as we had just eaten dinner 30 minutes ago, something which he should have been aware of, considering that he had been eating together with us!

It was quite a large meal we'd eaten at Mundo's, so none of us were the least bit hungry. Well, we figured it was probably just a light snack they were preparing, so we all just had to eat a little bit, to make sure Gunnar's friend was not offended in any way.

We were shown into a small concrete building with holes in the walls, in which there was a table in the middle with chairs around. Apart from that, there was nothing on the floor, no decorations on the walls or anything else like that. Gunnar explained that this was his friend's "best dining room" and that we were very honoured to be invited in here, as it was only used for special occasions.

Before any food arrived we all had to wash our hands. A woman walked around to each of us with a bucket of hot water so that we could wash them. A towel was then passed around for drying our hands. This "ceremony" made it all seem like something really special. We were quite honoured that they were doing everything to please us and make us feel comfortable. After all, except for Gunnar, we were total strangers to them.

Then the woman brought us the food, and to be honest we didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She brought in a large plate with chicken, a large plate of french fries, a large plate of fish, newly baked bread, a large bowl of salad and various fruits. How in the world would be able to eat all of this!? We had just eaten 30 minutes ago and weren't the least bit hungry! May Tina was still not feeling 100% after the "diorrhea" business, and even the thought of eating another meal now was making her sick.

On the other hand, the hospitality shown towards was just amazing, unlike anything we'd ever seen before. Here was this guy living in the Maputo slum, having no source of income except money generated from selling water from his well. He and his family have prepared this fantastic meal for a bunch of "rich" strangers from Norway who they had never seen before, and was most unlikely ever to see again. But it's all really not necessary since none of us are hungry. Was there not a single sane person living in this country?

Finally, each of us was given soft drinks. Everybody got a bottle of Coke, except May Tina who received a Fanta. This was exactly the same as we had been drinking at Mundo's so the guy must have memorized it for this occasion! This was just too sweet of them, especially considering the prices of soft drinks in this country.

Well, we just had to do our best to pretend we were enjoying the meal. Not eating anything would have been tragic. I'm sure they needed the food more than us. So we all did our best, taking a little bit of each kind of food. It was all very good, and I'm sure we would have enjoyed it a lot if we hadn't eaten a full meal 30 minutes ago.

The guy himself was obviously enjoying the meal. In fact, he seemed to be eating just as much as he did at Mundo's, so I guess he needs a lot of food to keep going. Again, he seemed like a really happy guy, laughing and smiling all the time during the meal.

Despite trying our best, we weren't able to make much of an impact on the amount of food on the table. There was a lot left when we gave up. Borgny explained to him that we had really enjoyed the food, but were just not very hungry right now. He seemed to find this very funny, as he really bursted out laughing when she told him. This was a truly happy man, if we ever saw one!

We thought that at least there was a lot of food left for his family now. However, they had other plans as we were not allowed to leave without taking the leftovers from the meal with us. They put everything in a large pot for us and carried it out to our car, making sure we would not forget anything.

When we finally got away it was only a short drive to our accomodation for the night, the "Centro de Recuperacao Juvenil", a center for streetchildren. The purpose of this center was to get children off the street, give them some education and help them to a normal life. It turned out to be run by two young Norwegian couples.

The place was very nice and the children who come here must really consider themselves very lucky. On first arriving, we were met by a young Norwegian woman called Gro Eva who was out talking a walk with some of the children. She welcomed us and told us where we should stay.

The house in which we were staying was currently empty as it was intended for someone who were to be in charge of the place, but had not arrived yet. There were four bedrooms so we all got our own room again, and we also had a huge living room and kitchen to ourselves. None of the children were living there as they had their own buildings.

After settling in, we took a short walk around the area. Time must have been around 1830, as the sun had already set and it was dark. However, the change of temperature from Swaziland and S.A. was very noticable. Even though it was dark, temperature must have been around 20 degrees. It was very pleasant to walk around in shorts.

Coming back to our living room we vere visited by a young man called Ove. He and his wife were in charge of the center, together with the other couple of Sigurd and Gro Eva. He told us about how things worked (or rather didn't work) in Mozambique. Apparently the center was funded by Norwegian foreign aid at the moment, but the support from Norway was decreased by 10% every year. The idea was that eventually the center would become self-supporting, i.e. generate its own income without relying on support from abroad.

The two Norwegian couples were now responsible for finding ways of generating income for the center. Their current idea was to make money by selling water. It turned out that the water below this property was of extremely high quality, and they were hoping to make the sale of this water into a business.

It was very interesting to listen to him and learn about the problems they were facing. All of them had only arrived a few months ago so they were still idealistic and full of enthusiasm. However, it appeared that the Mozambique bureacracy was doing everything in their power to stop them from helping. They still hadn't received the necessary permits for staying in Mozambique, even though they had been here for several months and were in contact with the authorities every day. As a result, they were at the moment staying illegally in Mozambique and were all receiving daily fines of around 10000R each. Obviously, they didn't have the money to pay for this, nor did they have any desire to pay these fines because the children definitely needed the money more than the bureaucrats! This was one problem they had to solve very quickly!

After talking to Ove for some time, we went to visit Gro Eva and Sigurd in their home inside the center. Their house was decorated very nicely inside, just like a typical Norwegian living room. We were treated to apple cake and chocolate mousse, and sat there a long time chatting with them. We were very impressed with their enthusiasm for the cause, even though the buraucracy was working hard against them. We hope they can keep their enthusiasm and idealism alive because it seems that in Mozambique they would really need to.

Around 2130 we said goodbye and went back to our house. Borgny and Gunnar went to bed first, while May Tina and I stayed up a little bit longer, discussing this very eventful day and reading some Norwegian comics that were lying around. Around 2215 we were too tired and also went to bed.

After lying in bed for a while, I suddenly woke up because somebody seemed to be trying to open the door to our house. May Tina had also heard this and we were slightly worried that someone might be trying to break in. However, nothing seemed to happen, so either the guy had given up, or maybe there wasn't really any danger at all. In any case, we went back to our rooms and fell asleep quite quickly.