On your marks....

Tbilisi, Georgia - 26th-28th October 2011

And the're off !!

We started off the day with one challenge and three unknowns. Georgia was a total unknown to us, as was the entire Caucasus region. Ukraine International Airlines, our ship of the desert (or rather our ship of the skies) was also an unknown. The challenge for the day was to have a beer in each of countries on the same day. It seemed doable.

Our little escapade began in the small village of Sergy in the Jura. We had breakfast with my parents, shared a beer (it was 9am, after all, and we're not that wild) before heading off the the airport in Geneva, Switzerland, where we had beer number two. Our flight to Kiev was uneventful, and we stepped out into the beautiful Ukrainian sunshine where my friend Marina was waiting for us. As if to make our challenge easier, she'd brought a selection of delightful Ukrainian beers with her and we decided to find a bench somewhere for a chat and a drink. Sadly, she had to inform us that with our 3 hour layover, Kiev was too far to drive and so she suggested that we go to the neighbouring town of Boryspil. "I've never been there though", she warned us. It was a one street town with a few casinos, a few shops, and many cars. Unfortunately though, no benches. Marina's car bounced through the potholes of a few sidestreets looking for a bench before she decided we should probably head back to the airport car park and find a bench there. And thus ended our tour of Ukraine. The beers and the company were lovely though, even if the setting was less than exotic, and it was with great sadness that I realised at some point that we only had one hour left. Marina kindly pointed out that I hadn't changed my phone's clock to Ukrainian time and that in fact we had to leave right now. And that was that. Back to the airport. As it happened, our onward flight to Tbilisi was delayed by four hours which meant that a) we could easily have gone for a nice wander around Kiev, b) we got a free sandwich from the airline, and c) we would land in Tbilisi at 4am, which would not only end up with us being very tired, but also completely scuppered our "4 countries" plan. We did eventually end up at the Why Not? hostel, though, and settled down for a large amount of sleep.

Marina joins in for number 3 !

The Why Not? Hostel, typical Georgian courtyard house. Note the unlikely-looking balcony at the top. Tbilisi is full of these and strangely, none of them ever seem to collapse

Dragging ourselves out of bed the next day was quite a challenge but we eventually managed it and let ourselves loose on the streets of Tbilisi. It's a charming place with a nice old town, plenty of parks to wander through, and a few grand boulevards thrown in for good measure. It was up one of these, Rustaveli avenue (named after the famous Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli, of course) that we wandered in search of food. At the feet of a statue of Rustaveli himself, we found a little shack with a terrace (which went by the name of "Vache", meaning cow in French) which served us our first Georgian food and drink. Natakhtari beer passed the taste test with flying colours but it paled in comparison with Khachapuri, Georgia's greatest contribution to the world's culinary scene. A sort of pie with Sulguni cheese melted inside (you'll have to take my word for it), varying according to where in Georgia it's from. Imerulian is plain, Mingrelian has melted cheese on top, and the George Foreman cholesterol award goes to the Ajarian Khachapuri, which has large amounts of cheese topped off with a fried egg. Slightly difficult to eat without making a mess but tasty. We ordered another one for good measure, by which point it was time to meet up with Tiniko.

Tiniko is a friend of Marina's who offered to show us around Tbilisi while we were there. Over the two evenings, we probably covered the majority of Tbilisi's eating and coffee-drinking options, as well as finding the somewhat bizarre sight of an outrageous new bridge of the Mtkvari river. An impressive sight, although completely out of tune with the neighbouring old town. In the image of our friends the Sudanese, Tiniko's eyes clouded over with thinly disguised anger whenever we tried to pay for anything to thank her. M, of course, is an ungracious guest and insists on paying for everything and I just sat back and watched these two ferocious women argue over who would pay. When it started to go on for too long, Tiniko's friend Tako would sneak off and pay the bill while no one was looking. M would then insist that we go somewhere else to get them a coffee, and the whole circus would begin again.

Fortunately, Tiniko was at hand to help us read

Designer park

The Georgian parliament house looked a lot better lit up, hence I'm giving you a pic of it at night

Eventually, our new friends had to go to sleep (some of us have to work on weekdays, after all) and we went back to the hostel. There we met Ani, an American girl of Armenian descent who had jacked in her New York lifestyle five years ago to set up sticks in Yerevan, despite knowing no one there and not being able to speak Armenian. She was a fascinating character who told us a bit about the history and culture of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and offered us a bed whenever we came to Yerevan. Which was, of course, accepted with pleasure ! Ani was also a keen football fan and said she'd try to sort us some tickets for the upcoming Armenia-Macedonia European Championship qualifying game. It looked good already.

Tiko (l) and Tako (r), our delightful guides

M is either deciphering the Georgian alphabet, or having a jealousy fit regarding the statue's ice cream

Tbilisi old town square

Some parts of the old town are seemingly older than others

Getting up the next morning was even more difficult - I felt somewhat ashamed at only getting out of bed at 12.30 but M snoozed on until 3.30 in the afternoon. Her slightly tougher working life probably contributed to that, as did the fact that our declared "early night" didn't materialise and we finished chatting with Ani at around 5am. Cue another wander around Tbilisi, taking in the golden-statued Freedom Square (formerly "Lenin Square", surprisingly), the park on the other side of the outrageous bridge (featuring an equally outrageous musical fountain), old district on the other side of the river which we believed was the Armenian quarter (featuring more narrow streets and more delightful old churches) and a deeper walk around the old town. It's a place full of cobbled alleyways, old small churches, cafes and a few tree-lined streets, easy to get lost in for an afternoon. And that's pretty much what we did, until Tiniko called to announce that she'd got out of work.

Outrageous bridge

Old church. With apologies to the purists, I can't remember its name...

M lives the hard life. Once again.

Tonight was to be slightly different - it was Tbilisi International Theatre Festival week and Tiniko had got herself a ticket and asked if we wanted to come long. "I'm the only person interested in these kind of things so I'm sure there'll be space !" she told us. And so there was. Which is why at 8pm, we were sat in Tbilisi's Marjanishvili theatre, contemplating a stage with three identically-dressed Iranian women on a stage with 6 toilets. One brushed another's hair for an hour while the other frantically attacked a pile of chicken with a large meat cleaver, and the three of them discussed their suicidal thoughts in Farsi. Thankfully, we were given subtitles in both Georgian and English and the chatter was broken up as one or other of the women went over and flushed one or more of the toilets. At several points during the play, a large bag or suitcase came crashing down from the heavens. And then it was over. The regular theatre-goers gave the women a standing ovation, the three of us had no idea what had just happened, and we went out to find a terrace. An interesting evening.

It's MY turn to flush the toilets !!

During the day, we'd somehow managed to decipher the intricacies of Tbilisi central railway station and ended up with 2 tickets on that night's train to Zugdidi where we were to have a long overdue reunion with Cole (see various African blog entries) and Tiniko accompanied us to the train station. Having failed to work out the system for buying tickets until we stumbled across the right desk that afternoon, we also failed to understand the platform system. The non-existent "departures" board wouldn't have helped, had it existed, given that the platforms were not numbered, and Tiniko went around asking until we found our right train. She waved us off, but not before inviting us to her summer house near Mtskheta for a barbecue on our return. We'd liked Tbilisi but Tiniko had already single handedly given us a warm feeling about Georgia and its people.

Start Your Engines !

5th September 2011 – Armenian Embassy, Geneva, Switzerland

The visa run can only mean one thing - we're on the road again ! The Caucasus awaits us and we'll be bouncing around Georgia and Armenia looking for adventure and seeing what we can find. Hopefully the well-known tourist destination of Nagorno-Karabakh will be on the list as well but it's a different challenge this time - we're on a time limit. No African-style sitting around or week-long lounging just to charge up the batteries. Between our landing in Tbilisi and our taking off from Tbilisi, we have exactly 14 days. This will be hardcore. So let's see what happens. Watch this space...

Thank You !

Over the 13 months we have many people we'd like to thank - for the small things, for the big things, for everything...

In EGYPT - Thanks for Ruben and Natalie for the company, and for Ahmed for the tour of Alexandria !

In SUDAN - Thanks for Waleed and Mohammed for their "nothing's-too-much-trouble" style hospitality! You guys deserve the best in life and we hope that we will see you again!

In SOMALIA - Thanks for T's dad for wading through Geneva's red light district during his lunch break to send us the much needed dollars when we were immobile !

In KENYA - Thanks for Tom for his wonderful hospitality, to Natascha for her company and for taking us out to Ngong where I lost lots of money on the horses. I'd also like to thank Natascha and M for looking after me when I was at my lowest with the lip infection...

In UGANDA - Thanks to Mzungu Derek, Angela and the girls for their company in Murchison Falls, we had a wonderful time with you - all the best for your hostel in Entebbe and hope that we can sign the guestbook some day !

In CONGO - Thanks to Ismael and Beatrice for the breakfast and tour of Aru - best of luck for the school, it really is an inspirational project. Hopefully we will be able to come back to your some day.

In TANZANIA - Thanks for Freda for your company !! We may have had our differences in looking at things but hopefully we learnt from each other and it would be a pleasure to travel with you again someday !

In MALAWI - Thanks to Liam and Kathryn for their hospitality !

In MALAWI and ZAMBIA - A big thanks to T's parents for taking over the planning and taking us to possibly the most relaxing house in Malawi and possibly the best national park in Africa.

In ZIMBABWE, BOTSWANA, NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA - Another big thanks to M's parents for their company and for believing in our judgement enough to not only come to Zimbabwe, but drive us all around it. And for putting up with two night buses in a row and that bowl of mopane worms!

In SOUTH AFRICA - Thanks to Christine and Nik for their great hospitality, and to the girls in Stellenbosch for putting is up at very short notice! Thanks also to the Davies family for putting us up and looking after us so well! Thanks to Lynette for taking us to the rugby game in Durban and the ensuing night out! And of course a massive thanks to the Strand Gang - Carl, "Kak Barman" Chris and Estelle for keeping us watered, Ivan for his wonderful hospitality and THAT enormous braai, Graham for his amazing tales of adventure and being T's partner in crime against Italian football, Jason for those deep late night conversations and that lift to Cape Town, Gerard for his company and lifts back in the dodgymobile and of course for impressing us with his snorting skills, Stefan and Ruann for putting up with us, Addie, Matthew and Lorraine for the day out at the beach.

In SWAZILAND - Thanks to Erno and Riku for sharing the ride to Mbabane ("Route not possible") and showing us around, leading us to Bombasos and to "Phoenix" for those enchiladas. Thanks to Laura for more company and taking us to Bholoja and for tales of the Umhlanga... One day, maybe you will really become Queen of Swaziland!

ALL ALONG THE TRIP - Thanks to all of you for your company and for the wonderful memories - Bast and Grant, Mav and Dixon, Rui, Sean, the Crazy Slovenian Motorbike Gang of Grega, Boris and Josko, Cole and Amanda.

And of course thank you to all of the Africans which made this trip what it was. We may not have spoken the same language as you, and if we did, we may never have known your names. We may have known you for a minute or for a day. But you have made this trip what it was, and it is for you that we want to return some day.

The End.. For Now...

16^th October-19^th October – Days 380-383 – Maputo, Mozambique and Johannesburg, South Africa

The final days are always tough. It doesn't matter how long the trip is, the final days are always days of lethargy mixed with energy. You want to fit in as many things as possible before going home but your mind is already on the plane. For us, after nearly 13 months, it's particularly tough. We've forgotten how to live a life of routine, we've forgotten how to have a home and do the same things day in, day out. Going to work, taking public transport along routes we know inside out, not having the stimulation of the new and unexpected are going to be difficult. Most of all, it'll be a return to Europe - not only are we going back to the continent and culture that we know well, but we'll be leaving a continent of mystery, excitement, and the unexpected. Africa has tested our nerves, tested our patience, enthralled and frustrated us. It's a continent that inspires the whole range of emotions and the prospect of going back to a continent which is bland and empty of the unexpected leaves us uninspired. The bus to work will be full of silence and apartment blocks. Looking out of the window we'll no longer see savannah, tropical forest, desert, unregulated commerce, buzzing markets where anything goes. The bus itself will not be full of noise and life, it will stop at the same place at the same time every day. For us, the culture shock will not have happened on the first day of the trip, but on the day after the last. But this is how life goes. The biggest challenge will not be how to get from A to B in some of the poorest and most disorganised countries in the world, nor will it be how to communicate with people who do not speak the same language as us or come from a totally different culture. The challenge will be reintegrating ourselves into a place which we know all too well and with people who have not lived what we have lived over the last year or so. Of course, we had a few days left and we were intending to make the most of it. And so we jumped into a Maputo-bound minibus at 4am from Tofo and headed back to Maputo. We found ourselves a cheap hotel to crash in, found ourselves a nightspot to watch live timbila music, a quite surreal James Brown-style singer, and wandered back, happy to be living our final days in this magical continent, at 3am.

The last minibus-taxi picture

The last "Waiting for something" pic. In this event I can't remember what it was...

The last "panoramic picture from Mozambique" picture. Maputo from the hotel.

The next day's minibus taxi ride back to Johannesburg was uneventful but we savoured it as our last long-distance trip. Our last evening meal on the walk from the intersection where we were dropped off by our Jo'burg local minibus was too, aside from a curious couple who noticed our backpacks lying on the floor next to our table. "We have noticed your bags", they told us, "and so we are supposing that you are not from here. Tell us, how do you like South Africa?". We were delighted to regale them with tales of our months here and how much we loved the country. They smiled, another couple who are very concerned with the reputation that their country, and I suppose their continent, has abroad. "We are always happy to hear that people have enjoyed our country! We hope that you have a good trip", they told us. And we were alone again, heading to the Brown Sugar hostel where we were to spend our last night.

We took Inna around the parts of Joburg that we had known last time we were here, and to an Ethiopian restaurant somewhere out in the suburbs where we had another typical long trek without a sure idea of where we were. People smiled and said hello as we walked past. I just couldn't imagine myself back home. That night, I couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the Ethiopian coffee, maybe it was the nerves about the return, maybe it was that I wanted to make the most of my final hours in Africa for some time. I know that I will be back some day, but when will that be?

Those dark glasses don't hide the pain! M chugs her way through her last Jo'burg cocktail

The last African Ethiopian meal

Admittedly cheesy. Do I look bothered?

The next day passed by and before we knew it, we were in a car headed from Johannesburg International Airport. The sky was black and the huge storm that broke out as we were on the road persuaded me that Africa was crying for our departure, as sad about this day as I was. The thought that our departure might be delayed crossed my mind but it would just be a case of putting it off for a bit. We had run out of money and our time was up. We waved Inna off on her flight and waited in the departure lounge in silence. The EgyptAir flight to Cairo was called and we disappeared into the night. Until the next time.

The final journey

T is busy plotting. Where next? And when will I be back here?

Having A Whale Of A Time

11^th October-16^th October – Days 375-378 – Tofo and Inhambane, Mozambique

And so we returned to Tofo.

Bamboozi Guest House

As good tourists sometimes do, we'd sorted out a few day activities from Tofu. Firstly, we arranged to go snorkelling with whale sharks. This is something that M wanted to do as far back as Djibouti. It was whale shark season in Mozambique, Bamboozi offered a snorkelling, and we were ready to go. We'd have to be up early and hop onto an inflatable boat to a place called "whale shark alley", quite an ominous sounding name although these creatures are docile and don't ruthless rip humans limb from limb. In short, unless we had an unexpected visitor in the form of a more carnivorous shark (which we were told was possible), we'd live to see another day. It seemed worth the risk. As Inna was swooning over one of the guides, we were fed stats about the creatures we were hopefully about to see. They could easily grow to 7 or 8 metres long and would swim around feeding on plankton (which seemed to me a bit of a contradiction as I've only grown to 1m86 despite eating rather more than plankton in my lifetime). We were sat on the edge of the speedboat, snorkel and mask at the ready, waiting for the shout to fall backwards into the water and marvel at these enormous animals.

Divers at the ready

"WHALE SHARK! GO!" came the call. I did just like on TV, fell backwards into the water and felt my mask and snorkel both slip off. I rose to the surface coughing seawater out of my lungs, readjusted my equipment and went under again just in time to see a hazy shadow disappearing off into the distance. The girls managed not to have a salty drink but didn't really see much either. A rather poor start by anyone's standards. The second shout came and I was careful to hold onto my mask and snorkel this time and ended up slightly disorientated, finding that I was looking straight into the faces of everyone else in the ground. I turned around to see what they were looking at only to see an enormous tail coming straight towards me, and that thing was BIG! Thankfully the tail didn't quite hit me (and if it had I think I'd have sent the next post from Madagascar) and we managed to follow the guy for quite a while as he went on his plankton hunting mission. The silence of the sea was a nice change from the group on the speedboat, as you just float smoothly to keep up with this animal that could probably beat you in a fight if it tried, but you somehow just don't think of that. The spectacle was just so impressive. A few more sightings occurred before we went back to shore happy. Inna invited the guide for a drink of course and took a bit of a niggling from us in the afternoon about it...

She must have been a bit shaken up by her lack of a holiday romance as, as few days later, she went out for a morning swim while M and I were struggling to get up and came back wailing. "Did he turn her down again?" I wondered. Actually it seemed that she had an unfortunate collision with a parasol and had ended up with a gash in her head. The ups and downs of travel.

The patient recovers courtesy of amateur First Aid

Our great return to Inhambane was for the dhow trip that we had lined up. We waded into the sea, hopped aboard and got poled out deep enough to rig up the sails and with the wind rippling against them we sailed off to and island offshore. As I'm writing this many months later I don't remember the name of the island or of the extremely friendly guide but I hope I'll be forgiven for that... Our boat contained a barbeque and some fish and the guide and captain whipped up a tasty grill for us at lunch after which we went wandering around the island which seemed to contain nothing but an old abandoned hotel and, bizarrely, a homeless guy who asked us for the leftover fish. Homeless isn't anything I've really considered as a career before although if it's in this setting, abandoning European standards of living may not seem such a bad idea. It's on the "to think about" list. Our guide told us tales ranging from the ecology of the island to his first experience driving a car ("I got in, reversed into a coconut tree and the car wouldn't work any more") and we had a delightful afternoon.

Pole man featuring playful local kids

La bella fa'niente

Dhow/Island

This was, naturally, followed by a return to Tofo for beer and piri-piri calamari on the beach, and a total failure to spend the night in Inhambane (for the second or third night in a row). But who cares, really? Finally, the next day, we were set to leave back to Maputo en route for Johannesburg Airport. The home leg of the trip was beginning.

We have survived!

The long walk back to the bus station

Big City Trip

11^th October – Day 375 – Inhambane, Mozambique

Less than an hour's minibus ride from Tofo is the Portuguese colonial town of Inhambane, maybe one of the most attractive towns that we've seen on the whole trip! History leaks out of its buildings, and the upkeep of the town is mixed with a laissez-faire African attitude that sees paint stripping from the walls and results in a very charming little place. In the centre are the market and bus stop, the centres of activity in Inhambane. Surrounding them are the old streets, a real pleasure to walk around.

Old street.

Another old street (pic. Inna)

Another old street... (pic. Inna)

Inhambane isn't the kind of town you'd spend several weeks in, mainly due to its small size, but it's a great place to spend a day or two. I know how small it is as I walked around it several times waiting for the girls to finish their interminable haggling sessions at the market for various souvenirs and also a huge pile of textiles, some of which were destined to become shirts and some of which were doubtless destined to sit in a pile for ages while the owner wonders what to do with them. Some of the most tourist-orientated vendors spoke English to cater to the majority tourist market of South Africans but with others we ended up speaking Spanish while we were replied to in Portuguese. It wasn't always easy but everyone eventually ended up understanding and with smiles and repeated utterances of "Tá bom" (which I suppose roughly means "that's good" but stand corrected by anyone who knows better...), business was concluded. Over dinner at a small place by the seafront, we thought it might be a nice idea to spend some more time here and we reserved a set of dorm beds in the attached hostel. We'd be back tomorrow, we said, although our hospice syndrome may well lead us to just staying in Tofo instead.

Tic-tic restaurant

Dogs have the right of way...?

After a final wander through the Art-Deco streets of Inhambane we headed back on a minibus to Tofo, ready to come back tomorrow or, failing that, in a few days to have a dhow trip to the neighbouring islands. Life is hard indeed.

Generic sunset picture #8742387234 (subset:Inhambane)

Beach bums part 1

9^th October-11^th October – Days 375-378 – Tofo, Mozambique

Tofo (spelt in that way but pronounce Tofu, like the fake meat) is probably Mozambique's most touristy town, but it's surprisingly and pleasantly low key. As in Zanzibar, I arrived with a feeling that I may not enjoy it all that much but Tofo grew on me quite quickly. Its hot, dusty and sandy streets were great to walk around, local people would smile and wave. They'd definitely get tough on bargaining if you launched yourself into the process but there was no HEY MZUNGU!-style chasing as there are in some towns and somehow Tofo seemed to have character, which I find tourist towns are totally devoid of. We wandered up a long, sandy path through more huts and palm trees (getting deja vu yet?) to Bamboozi, an entirely natural backpackers which blended beautifully into the natural surroundings. A bar and restaurant overlooking the sea was another nice touch. It was a bit far out from the centre but Tofo is a small town and a 15 minute walk wasn't completely out of our capacities.

Tofo beach

...and Tofo town

We settled into a Mozambican lifestyle. Walking, beach, beer, piri-piri calamari. Unlike Mozambicans, though, we didn't respect the piri-piri enough and often ended up rushing for ice to stick onto our pained tongues. The days were languid, lazy and enjoyable although this had a real "end of the trip" feel to it. We would be back in Europe in a few weeks and our drive to push forever forward was quickly disappearing. I was happy sitting around watching people and time go past, thinking back over the year gone by, wishing another one was ahead of us. We'd have both jumped at the chance but our bank account was suffering dangerously by this point and we had stretched the trip probably as far as it could go. In the same way that a terminally ill person will spend his or her remaining days in as comfortable a setting as possible, so our trip's life was coming to an end and Tofo was our hospice.

Don't lose hope girls, there is still time to do things!

The path to Bamboozi

Still, there was a bit of life in us yet and we'd lined up a little visit to the close-by town of Inhambane and a trip around the surrounding islands on a dhow, a typical Arab-East African boat. It wasn't grand adventure but they were perfectly reasonable hospice activities.

Hospice activities #1

Sea, sand and sun

7^th October-9^th October – Days 371-373 – Závora, Mozambique

Our taxi eventually turned up and whisked us off in the direction of the Junta bus station. This being our first time in Maputo we had no idea what the Junta bus station looked like, although at some point we ended up on a roundabout next to a wasteland with loads of buses on and I predicted that this may be it. The taxi driver, however, had other ideas and shot off in another direction, talked on the phone for quite a while and then indicated that he was chasing our bus. When we eventually met up with it and got thrown onto it along with our bags, it trundled back to the Junta, sat there and waited. Eventually it moved northwards and the ticket man asked us for 3 times more than the bus was supposed to cost. This was the tourist bus to the beach town of Tofo, we were told. Hurrah ! After protracted arguments, we managed to get a price which was cheaper than was listed on the back of the ticket, but also more than we would have paid on a normal bus. Such is life.

Tired of Africa already

Our destination was Závora beach, a small cottage run by a South Africa we had met in Pretoria a short time ago. Scott was running a volunteer project in the area and had a few spare beds which he would rent to us for a decent price. There was no electricity and no town, just a hut on the beach. We'd already given up on our preferred idea of going to northern Mozambique - it seemed far more interesting than the beach-and-more-beach south but it was just too far away for the time we had left. We'd have to settle with what we had time for and so beach-hopping would be it. Inna was tired from work anyway and she didn't seem too put out by the prospect. It was the B option for all of us but we didn't mind all that much.

We met Scott in the small town of Inharrime on the main road, went to buy some food for the next few days and hopped into the back of a pick-up to squeals of delight from Inna, and bounced down a sandy road through small villages and palm trees towards the beach cottage. Here we would proceed to play games, read books, sit in the sun, wander on the beach, and chat with two volunteer girls who were working there for a while. Of course, we're still young and so the girls took us up the beach to a hotel one night where we had beer and playing pool, but in short, we enjoyed the nature, the sun, the company. And err.. that's it.

Splashin' around

Group photo (there wasn't much else to do, was there??)

But of course it wasn't all relaxing! After a year, T finally gets a picture taken to prove that he, too, did some work on this trip. It took Inna's arrival for this to happen. Thanks!

Not the most unpleasant bus stop in the world. The pick-up back to Inharrime is on its way..

After a few days of this, we upped sticks through Inharrime and Inhambane to Tofo, another beach town. I was spending my time fervently denying that I was abandoning my Somaliland-and-Burundi style travel preferences to become a beach-bum - let me clarify and state that I don't mind beaches from time to time but a) not for too long and b) not utterly surrounded by other tourists and tourist-hunters trying to rip you off. I was concerned that Tofo might be exactly that, and I was about to find out...

Back to Africa!

4^th October-7^th October – Days 369-371 – Maputo, Mozambique

Arrival in Maputo was an experience that we hadn't been through in a while – it had been weeks since we'd arrived in a new big city, and Maputo was in a new country. We had no idea where we were, we didn't speak any of the local languages (as, after months in English-speaking countries, we were suddenly plunged into Portuguese-speaking Mozambique) and, having played the parts of head clowns in the visa circus of that afternoon, we arrived in Maputo quite a while after dark. Fortunately, the minibus driver was a Swazi who had taken pity on us being put through the visa treadmill and gave us a lift to Base Backpackers, the crashpad we had lined up. As we offered him a small tip for his troubles, he almost fell over himself in gratitude (a nice surprise as I was worried that he wouldn't consider it enough – although we were almost cleaned out of cash by that point) and we disappeared into our room. A nice Indian dinner over the road eventually followed (after a painstakingly long decision-making process finally solved when I just walked in) and we crashed for the night.

Our first full day in Maputo was just spent wandering around. I wouldn't exactly say that it's a beautiful city but it's certainly charming and I liked it pretty quickly – it's full of life (at least during the day) and has a strange mixture of architectures too – narrow Portuguese-colonial streets and main roads of large concrete buildings which looked like they took their inspiration more from the earlier independence days when Mozambique liked to think of itself as Marxist. With Soviet economic and military assistance probably came Soviet architects and the results are plain for all to see. There's something about the mixture of these large concrete buildings and the African adaptation of them – similar buildings we saw in Russia were still grey and looked miserable but in Maputo they were colourful – clothes and textiles flapping from the balconies to dry, colourful shops and cafes on the bottom floors and of course the noise and activity that you'd find in a city the size of Maputo. And, just as the city still has its buildings from those days, it has also kept the street names – our wanderings took us down streets and avenues named Vladimir Lenine, Ho Chi Min, Patrice Lumumba, Karl Marx, Mao Tse Tung, Robert Mugabe, Ahmed Sekou Toure and so on. Great African or world visionaries who didn't cozy up to communism and its ideals were strangely absent...

The "Marginal"

Old meets new - Maputo fort which stands in the middle of a 70s apartment-block jungle

The day (if not much energy) was spent wandering lazily, dropping into cafes for a bite here and a Coke there, sitting on the wall along the seafront and eventually finding a small bar for a 2M, Mozambique's best (in our opinion) beer, and a chat with the owner, a Portuguese guy who came here a few decades ago, never left, and is now the proud owner of a Maputo bar and a Mozambican passport.

Travelling with two girls, I suppose that it's inevitable........

Our second day came with a mission thanks to Jay, a guy who'd lived in Mozambique for a while who we'd met in Johannesburg. He'd told us about a fish market where you could buy a fish or 2 and take it to a restaurant out the back where it would be cooked and served up for you any way you wanted. We hopped merrily into a minibus heading north along the coast (or rather crawled into it – we're back in Africa now where the concept of a vehicle being « full » is rather a hazy one) and, with bodies twisted into shapes they had probably never been twisted into, rattled our way up to the district known as Costa do Sol, where M assured us that we had to change minibuses and go further. Would Lonely Planet be reliable this time? Would M's faith in it ever be shaken? When the minibus emptied out enough for us to breathe (and we even got a seat eventually) I asked the guy for the Mercado do Peixe. He smiled uneasily and pointed back to where we'd come. Ah well. We walked down the beach for a few kilometres, stopped for refreshments under the trees, and carried on our way. A woman passing by obviously saw the looks of slight confusion and asked us where we were going and told us that it was quite far back into town. An African perception of « quite far » is difficult to judge. Sometimes it means exactly that, and sometimes it means that it's about 300 metres. Whether this is a reflection of the speaker's reluctance to walk or the speaker's assumption that whites are lazy and use their cars to go everywhere (which, having seen how the majority of whites in Africa are, is quite understandable) is not obvious to me. When we asked for precisions, though, she told us that it was about 4 or 5 kilometres and so she ushered us into another minibus, telling us where to get off.

Some of the fish, which began a long trip from the ocean, via the Mercado do Peixe...

The lucky ones ended up in our plate.

Here, we satisfied one of Inna's wishes for the trip by buying a coconut and a straw for 10 meticais, and walked off towards the famous fish market, easily identified by the overpowering smell of fish and large amounts of people selling fish. We settled of 3 kilos of red snapper and kingfish, which was expertly fried up and served with rice, salad and coconut. Not bad. As we left, we spied the « Restaurante Caipirinha » where we savoured one of the bar's eponymous drinks, and the heavens opened in quite a spectacular way. This meant that we ran to the neighbouring pizza restaurant for more sitting around.

Inna discovers how tough life has been for us over the past year

We got dropped off in town a reasonable walk from where we were staying and wandered through the darkness back there, stopping at a small shop for a bottle of water where we were served by an old Portuguese guy. « How are you? » he asked. « Fine, fine, just enjoying a night time walk... » Inna replied. We were then treated to a small warning of how it was dangerous to walk around in Maputo at night, as I tried to think how many times we'd been given this warning about various towns. Maybe we just look tough or maybe we've just been extremely lucky (or maybe these warnings are overly precautious) but we've walked at night in many larger towns and never felt a threatening situation or come across any sort of trouble. On this evening, we were just asked for money by a guy who claimed that he'd just come out of jail and needed bus money to get up to his home in Xai-xai, but when we told him that we had nothing, he just disappeared off into the night. We did the same, facing an early morning in the Junta bus station.

Maputo, 4.30am. We're back in Africa, and that means painful wake-up times

Pointless detour

1^st October-4^th October – Days 366-369 – Johannesburg, South Africa and Mbabane, Swaziland

Inna had been talking about coming to Africa for a few months (or even a few years) and various problems meant that she'd nearly have missed us. In the end, we managed to stretch the trip with a bit of inventive budgeting (i.e. creating a state of denial about how little money we had left) and Inna, a friend of M's from Helsinki, would provide company for the last two weeks of the trip. She'd been to South Africa before with her parents and remembered a guided tour of Johannesburg by car, with tinted windows, and strict instructions to not unlock the doors at any point. This would be a slightly different view of the city...

New recruit !

We picked her up from Jo'burg International Airport and asked the info desk how to get a taxi back into town. After a small explanation of our meaning of the word “taxi” (a minibus taxi, rather than a white paranoia private taxi) and an inquisitive look from the info desk guy who probably hadn't heard this kind of request too often, he pointed us to the far end of the airport where we could get a ride to Kempton Park and another one to MTN station downtown. “So this is big bad Johannesburg !” she exclaimed with a hint of possibly surprise. We wandered through town again, bags on backs, to Park Station, Jo'burg's main transport hub. It's a large, confusing place and with the help several helpful standers-around, we wandered through the station, past the KFC, up the staircase and into the chaotic minibus taxi park where we eventually located the minibuses to Swaziland. The Mozambican visa question had caused us a bit of confusion – the price had recently gone up to 80€ although a phone call to the Mozambican embassy in Mbabane confirmed that they were selling it for 85 rand, a mere tenth of the price. We had hence decided to make a little detour through Swaziland in order to pick it up.

Park Station, minibus section. Despite the smallness of the fine, I went for a different option

“You'll see the difference as soon as we cross into Mozambique”, we told Inna. “It'll be the real Africa. South Africa is nice, but everything works. You never get flat tyres, things run on time...”. This, of course, is why we ended up sat on the hard shoulder halfway between Johannesburg and Nelspruit with the driver desperately trying to flag down passing minibuses to replace his flat tyre. A flat tyre for which he didn't have a spare, obviously. Great!! A few other minibuses pulled over for a chat, one of which unloaded a gang of friendly drunken Swazis returning home from a wedding. One of the guys asked if he could have M as a wife but then confided “I already have a wife. She is already too much for me. Anyone who takes a second wife must be crazy!”. The gang piled in again having turned up the radio and given us a rousing demonstration of Swazi dancing and we eventually got going, thanks to a breakdown truck which had brought us a new tyre.

"You won't find this back home" series #3528043

It had been a while...

Mbabane greeted us again under a shroud of darkness and after a bite to eat and a beer at the Phoenix (a regular haunt for us the last time we were here), we headed off to Bombaso's and were greeted like old friends. The previous bunch of Finns had departed and we spent the evening in the company of a new bunch of Finns which gave Inna a soft landing, M a chance to speak Finnish in a group, and me to take stock of how terrible my Finnish had become... Our stopover in Swaziland turned out to be useless, however – it was a public holiday in Mozambique and the embassy was closed and after a bit of headscratching, we hopped into a minibus to Manzini, where we'd connect to a Maputo minibus, trying our luck on the border for a visa.

Good morning Mbabane!

The trip started off well, aside from an Ethiopian-style argument with the ticket man:

- You must pay for the bags.

- No. The Mozambicans are not paying for their bags, so we will not either.

- Yes, you must. (repeat ad nauseam)

Eventually, he got bored of this discussion, shrugged his shoulders and wandered off. However, when he took our money for the tickets along with that of the other passengers, he kept the money that he'd wanted to charge us for the bags and I started to enquire about where the rest of our change was. One woman in the minibus seemed to speak English, translated for the other passengers what our predicament was and under an increasingly loud torrent of abuse in Portuguese, the ticket man returned our change and we hit the road. At the border, however, we turned from heroes to zeroes as the other passengers sailed through the immigration formalities and we got our visas done. It turned out that, unlike the one we got between Malawi and Zimbabwe many months ago, this post gave super hi-tech visas featuring digital photos, digital fingerprints and so on. Unfortunately, it appeared that the border guards were not too familiar with technology and as time ticked on, our visas didn't seem to materialise. One border guard would hold the passport saying one of our names, the other would repeat it with a questioning tone, and there would be a deadlock. It took quite a few repetitions before the passport-holding border guard would decide to spell it for the typist-border-guard who seemed to have been introduced to a keyboard for the first time only that morning. A picture was taken, more details were taken, and the driver would come in telling us that he was leaving in 10 minutes. This happened for all three of us and, after two hours, we emerged in the dark to a riot in the minibus as the other passengers seemed rather unhappy about being made to wait for so long...

EU taxpayers, be reassured - your tax money is not being wasted in Mbabane...