« And that's all she wrote... | Main | Flexability equals more fun in Africa »
November 23, 2005
Life as a backpacker!!
yo ho yo ho a backpackers life for me. So what have I been up to and what will I be up to??? So my travel partner, meredith came down with a terrible kidney infection, major back problems and not good all around. Lucky for her and us, she went to college and was good friends with the son of the director of UNICEF Swaziland.
So we have actually been staying in Europe, well land that is owned by the European Union and used by diplomats. His wife is Ghanan, and knows how to cook, so I have gained MAJOR weight back. I have a little pudgey belly now. She cooked amazing Turkish Lasagna, best thing EVER. So staying with the Brody's has allowed us to come up with more of a plan or less of one.
So we finally left Swaziland, briefly it sort of seemed like it was holding us in, not letting us go. But now we are in Maputo, Mozambique. We hitched out of Mbabane, and then took a bus to the border...Speaking of borders, we actually ran into problems because, we were stamped into Swaziland on our PC passports, and when we resigned, took it back from us.
When we went to MOZ embassy they would not give us the visa cause we had no Swaz entrance stamp on our personal passports. So thanks to a tip by our trusty backpacker firends, told us to try and sneak over the border, not really 'sneak' but it's worth a shot to see if swazi's don't look and just stamp us out. And that's exactyl what happened, we went to South Africa for only a few minutes and came back, so we got our exit and entrance stamps..WOOT...so back to the present as soon as we crossed the border into MOZ, it was very noticeably different, you could easily see the portuegese influence in the architecture directly on the other side of the border.
But we came on a bus with a lovely lady who was Swazi and married a portugese man, so she spoke four languages, english, and siswati, portugese, and bantu, which is MOZ language. She went all the way to Maputo with us and helped talked a taxi guy out of over charging us. So we are at Fatima's backpackers. Maputo is known for its fresh fish, being on the Indian Ocean. So tonight we are going with a group of others our age, so the fish market, and buy amazing food that you take to a restaurant and they cook it for you. So, it's four students on break for south africa and two from Finland. Tomorrow we are all going to Vilanculos, which is some of the most amazing beaches in the world, or we are told.
Maputo is an interesting city/capital. The population is over 1.5 million, which is bigger than the whole countries population that I was living in for the past 5+ months. IT was intimidating at first. But we walked around all day today, and feel confident in knowing it and ready to move on the the next place. You can tell the Portuegese feel all over the place. Many condemned buildings all over the place. It's hard to tell if all the run down buildings are from the Civil War or not an interest in refurbishing the places. It sort of looks like Cuba a little, not that I have been there, yet, to know what it's architecture looks like. It really doesn't feel like a city either, there is no business area. It would be like going to Chicago, and there being no loop. It's weird. Well I have to go and get ready to go out to the Fish Market. Ok, later everyone.
Posted by colin at November 23, 2005 02:31 PM