Tanzania Part 1: The Strangest Border Crossing Ever.

July 30th-August 2nd

After being dropped off at the Mozambican border, Stefan took some pictures of the road leading to the border. This turned out to be a punishable offense and a power-tripping border-officer promptly locked him in a confined room despite Meret's pleas in Portuguese. Fortunately, his plain-clothes wearing superior didn't think that it was such a big deal; he merely asked him to delete the photos and all order was restored.

We then took another pick-up truck ride to the Ruvuma river, which also serves as the geographical and political division between Mozambique and Tanzania. This may be one of the few border-crossings in the world that you can only traverse by boat.

Like all other modes of transport, they crammed way too many people onto this tiny boat and it easily could have sunk at any moment. At the same time we had been royally swindled into paying 4 times what the locals paid. By this point we were all at our wits-end after the difficult journey and were fed up of being taken advantage of, so we all started yelling and swearing at the guys running the boat. I even pleaded with a woman on the boat to tell us how much she had paid, but she couldn't look me in the eyes.

Not only did we pay over 20 dollars for a five-minute boat ride, but midway through, we approached another boat and for some reason that still evades me; everyone and their luggage was changed from one boat to the other. After some more bitching and arguments regarding their Mzungu pricing, we finally got out of Mozambique. Freedom at last!

Not so fast.

We then piled into the back of yet another pick-up truck, known in Tanzania as a daladala, probably Swahili for purgatory-on-wheels because it is not particularly great, but not as terrible as the infamous Mozambican chapas.

After a short distance we arrived in Mtwara: the first semi-major city in Tanzania. It was incredibly laid-back, had electricity, running water and nothing touristy to do whatsoever. Perfect, finally some well-deserved rest.

We stayed at a terrific guest-house that had a shower, A/C and all the Al Jazeera you could watch.

Our days were primarily spent eating chipsi mayai (french fry omelets) and drinking Kilimanjaro beer and Konyagi: a gin-like drink that is known as "the spirit of the nation". Chris' 25th birthday celebration involved plenty of it, which obviously led to dance battles, club hopping, playing bongos with a band that didn't want me around, driving Toc Tocs (like motorized Rickshaws) and drinking boxed-wine in cars with locals.

Who said Mtwara wasn't fun?


After a day of recuperation following Chris' birthday bash, we took a bus to Dar es Salaam. We stayed in the Arab quarter and enjoyed some delicious food which consequently gave us the runs. Stephan had decided he was going to stay in Dar a few more days then make his way back to Arusha. As for Meret, she was going to meet her friend in central Tanzania.


We therefore had to part ways with our Germanic travel buddies who had helped us so much and had endured all the same punishment that we had. Chris and I knew the only way to get over their parting would be to venture to the infamous island of Zanzibar and party away our sorrows.

Mozambique Part IV: The Maize Express, Mzungus and my Sore Ass.

July 28th-30th

While we were on Ibo, we had hired a boat to take us back to mainland Mozambique in order to continue our travels north.


In northern Mozambique, the language gradually shifted from Portuguese, to a dialect in between Portuguese and Swahili, to full-on Kiswahili (as it is known by its speakers) in the north. Up to this point we had been helped by the linguistically gifted Meret, who is nearly fluent in Portuguese, even though she will undoubtedly deny it.


As her prowess in Portuguese became unfortunately obsolete, our other travel companion, Stefan, who coincidentally had been teaching in Tanzania (where they also speak Kiswahili as their official language); took over her role as our principal interpreter.

Why these details are relevant is because in northern Mozambique, due to the difficulty of travel and relatively underdeveloped infrastructure, we may have been the first white people many of these people have ever seen. Because of this, everyone was intrigued by our presence and shouts of "Whitey" and laughter abounded as we passed.


Stefan soon explained that the term Mzungu or "white man" in Swahili was what everyone was calling us and it quickly became our new moniker. I am still not quite sure of its exact connotation, whether solely qualitative or insulting in nature, but it was very interesting to be judged or addressed primarily in terms of race.

As a Caucasian, I rarely have to put up with, nor am bothered by any racially-related terms directed at me. While I know most of the children say it out of pure fascination, I am sure some of the adults only used it maliciously. However, I cannot blame the people because the effects of the European colonial dissection of the African continent is still very palpable today.

Racial discussions aside, we took a 4-hour dhow ride to the delightfully laid-back, fishing village of Pangane. Despite the lethargic nature of the village, Chris still managed to have his toothbrush, razor, flashlight, finished deodorant, bag for his sleeping bag and sunglasses stolen from our room, while we were sleeping in it! How that occurred, I have not the slightest idea.


From there, our most arduous journey would begin. Chris and I sat in the back of a flat-bed truck with close to 30 other people until the town of Macomia. From Macomia, we waited at the side of the road until a connecting vehicle picked us up.

This vehicle was yet another flat-bed truck, which we promptly loaded with an over-abundance of people and their luggage. This would not have been so bad except that it didn't end there. Around 30 minutes into the journey, the truck turns off the main road and ventures 30 minutes into the bush.


We arrive in a tiny village where I am positive that we are the first Mzungus that they have ever seen. A premature rest-stop? Unfortunately not.

We unload all the people and their personal effects and that's when they started loading the truck with large sacks of maize. After all 4-tonnes (not even kidding) of maize have been loaded onto the truck, the driver tries to make it back onto the main road. Due to the sandy composition of the road, the truck quickly sinks and becomes stuck.

All the men get off and attempt to push it, while the women remain on the back and yell how stupid of an idea it was to load all that maize in the first place. We do manage to move it, but the ground just continues to give way under the immense weight of the truck.

The driver, Hasim, is still not discouraged and orders half the bags of corn to be removed from the truck. Finally, some common sense! Well, almost.

With the reduced weight, we manage to push it back to the main road; it too being primarily made out of sand. Incredibly, Hasim then orders the 2-tonnes of unloaded bags back onto the truck! I plead with Hasim, telling him that this will never work, but he assures me that it will.

I realize my efforts are futile and I sit down, feeling defeated and watch as this craziness continues. They finally get the maize back on, as well as the people and all their luggage; and we set back on the road, which I estimated to last all of 5 feet due to the consistency of the road.

We make it over the first hurdle and actually make it back onto the main road, corn and all! Hasim was right and it is this never-give-up attitude and eternal patience that makes the African people so incredible. Westerners would surely have given up much earlier. I know I did.

So here we were, 5 hours after our first little detour, once again sitting on the back of a flat-bed truck. Actually, we were now sitting on top of 4 tonnes of corn on top of a flatbed truck in northern Mozambique.

You can just imagine the reaction of the locals as 4 mzungus rode atop the Maize Express, and rightfully so; it was pretty ridiculous.

We finally reached our destination, Mocimboa da Praia, after sundown and after having loaded another tonne of corn on top of the previous 4 tonnes. What makes this so unbelievable is the fact that our journey began at 4am that morning and we only travelled a mere 200km! Oh and the excessive amount of corn. It is no wonder why so few westerners venture to northern Mozambique.


Hasim had thankfully arranged a pick-up to take us to the border the following morning and we were just happy to get off that bloody corn!

We were awoken at 2:15am for our lift and we started our final trek on the route to Tanzania. As you may have guessed, shuttle services do not exist in this country, and apparently neither do road safety standards. We were picked up by a Toyota Land-Cruiser and were ordered into its pick-up. Obviously I got jamesed and had to sit on the solid steel wheel-well.

I don't believe that the driver knew how to drive below the sound barrier because he was literally killing it down the roads, totally oblivious to the other 12 passengers in the back of the pick-up.

Normally this wouldn't have been too much of a problem except that the roads were not paved, were not flat nor was there anything illuminating them. I therefore did what anyone else would in a similar situation: I put on my ipod, closed my eyes and held on for dear life!

We flew over those roads at 4am, going well over 100km and hour; wild branches whipping at my arms; my back and ass bruised from lifting off the wheel-well and being slammed down over and over again.

I grimaced, but I kept quiet, realizing full well that the Africans that were also in the pick-up felt the same pain as I did, but for them it was not a choice to be in that truck, it was their only option and they tolerated it with a calmness and quiet dignity that can only be described as remarkable.

With no other choice, I kept my eyes closed as the dust painted my face a dark-brown-colour and the wind flattened my hair. As the sun rose and the border approached, I listened to my music and thought to myself that the people who silently sat in the back of this truck had earned their dark complexion. They earned it through generations of hardship, unwavering determination and resilience.

I, on the other hand, was just a dirty Mzungu.

Mozambique Part 3: Ilha, Ibo and those Fucking Prawns!

July 20th-27th


We left Nampula for the fabled Ilha de Mocambique, a UNESCO world heritage site. It was the former capital of Portuguese East Africa and was an interesting mixture of African and European culture and architecture.


The crumbling buildings and abandonned ruins still allowed you to imagine how grand this island once was. Our days were spent wandering the narrow streets and admiring the colonial architecture. An eerily serene moment was spent in the old Portuguese fortress, completely alone; partnered only with my thoughts and the ghosts of a former empire.


We also did a day trip to a nearby Praia by dhow and witnessed Ilha the same way fishermen from centuries ago had: from the sea.


We were enjoying our last meal in Ilha when we were interrupted by the likes of Shayne and Sue, who waltzed into the same bistro we were lounging at. There were some fake smiles and forced small-talk and we promptly paid our bills and headed back to the lovely Casa de Luis.
We warned our gracious hosts about the unwanted South-Africans and left in the night towards our next destination, the sea-side town of Pemba.


Pemba was good for two reasons: they had electricity and a terribly slow internet connection. This was the first time in 2 weeks that we had some kind of access to the web thanks to the apparent collision between a submarine and the fiberoptic cable to the entire country. Only in Africa!

The snorkeling in Pemba was great but the concentration of prawns was overwhelming. The prawns I'm reffering to are not of the marine variety, but the term we use to label white South-Africans (Thanks District 9). Russell's Place, the inconviniently located backpackers was a prawn breeding ground and the atmosphere reflected it: everyone keeping to themselves or captivated by their laptops for hours on end.

It was unfortunately Chris O.'s last night with us and we decided to party it up big before he joined his significant other in Europe. We had previously met a DJ from Nampula on our way to Pemba and he was spinning at Kais Nightclub.

At the club, the music and lights were pumping, but there was literally no one in the entire club. We didn't care, we proceeded to dance anyways. For a good hour or so we were the only people on the dancefloor. We were finally joined by the most unlikely guest in the whole club: a geriatric gentleman with no teeth and literally no fat on his skeletal frame.

What he lacked in adipose, he more than made up for in stamina and dance moves. His favourite move was a right-leg shake. Each time he did it we were convinced that he would fall over and break a brittle hip, but thankfully, he proved us wrong.

So there we were, 4 white people (we had been travelling with a German named Stefan and a Swiss girl named Meret for quite some time now), a giant Asian and the oldest man in Mozambique, dancing to house music in an empty dance club. Priceless.

The following morning we said goodbye to China Grande (as Chris O. had been nicknamed in Portuguese). Luckily for him his flight left several hours before the arrival of thos prawns Shayne and Sue. We just couldn't seem to escape them! Nevertheless, we tried our best and fled to the island of Ibo, which is only accessable by boat.

Ibo was the second most important city to the Portuguese colonists, but its isolated location, lack of electricity and running water leave the island far less touristy than Ilha and therefore more "real".


Ibo resembled Ilha in historical significance alone. Its streets and buildings looked as if they had been abandoned centuries ago and had remained untouched and uninhabited since that time. What made Ibo even more impressive was its minimalism, its emptiness and the sparsity of population. At times it felt as though we were the only ones on the island. That we had been dropped into an apocalyptic film where an entire town had been wiped out.


Even though the town had few residents, no electricity nor potable water; we still managed to find ice-cold 2M beers at the generator-powered haven known as Cincu Portache.

Like most entries I write, any literary eloquence can be cancelled out by my own stupidity. After having several ice cold 2M beers and going to bed at a modest hour, I had a Lariam-induced dream, the exact details of which I don't quite remember. At a certain point in this dream I was urinating and unfortunately in reality I was also urinating; off the side of my bed and onto my right shoe.

Since Chris and I were sleeping in the same bed, he was obviously awoken when this happened. Due to our longstanding friendship and his immunity to my ridiculousness, he just assured that I wasn't messing up his side of the bed, rolled over and went back to sleep. If that isn't friendship, I don't know what is!

Mozambique Part 2: Scuba Diving While the Plot Thickens

July 13-19


We left Tofo after assembling an impressive posse, all ready to head north to Vilankulo. This was another resort town but was far more laid-back than Tofo.

We had enough people to form a party-chapas, therefore avoiding the excessive crowding and frequent stopping that a normal chapas typically does.

This would have gone smoothly except for the fact that the local police chief told Chris O. that his stolen items had been recovered.

Fairytale endings notwithstanding, it turned out to be bullshit and the police chief ended up getting 2 free congratulatory beers for his lie. What did end up happening is that we missed the party-chapas because of the turtle-pace police-report-writing in Inhambane. We also missed the last normal chapas to Vilankulo and had to spend the night in Maxixe.

We did eventually arrive in Vilankulo and our posse had already checked into Baobab (the local party hostel). Our crew consisted of two Swiss guys, Matt and Alain; Jeff, the token American; Teko, the chilled-out Chilean; Ana, the lone Dutch girl and Morgan, the quintessential beer-swigging Aussie.

Upon our arrival, we had managed to arrange our entire hostel, around 25 people or so, to take a dhow excursion to the nearby Bazaruto Archipelago National Park.

To elaborate a bit, a dhow is a traditional Arab fishing-boat made to hold 5-10 people. We had managed to cram 25 people and 5 crew members onto said boat, with no life-jackets but plenty of beer.


The Bazaruto Archipelago is an island paradise among island paradises, with white sand dunes, lush green forests and turquoise waters.



We spent the day drinking, snorkeling and just going buck-wild. Due to the fact that we started drinking at 7:00am, it was not a late night.


The following day I had signed up to go scuba diving in the world famous 2-mile reef. I consider my capacity at scuba to be a representation of the control I have over my inherent anxiety: the calmer you are, the less oxygen you consume and therefore the more bottom time and the longer the dive.

The dives in 2-mile reef were spectacular. I saw 7 giant tortoises, a white-tipped shark, a school of rays, thousands of fish and the most beautiful corals I have ever seen. We even saw a lobster that was literally 3-feet long!

Of course these two dives were not flawless: on entry for the first dive, I somehow managed to hit my head on the oxygen tank of another diver, cutting my head open (not too bad though). On the second dive, my weight belt unknowingly fell off and the dive master and I struggled to get it back on as a giant turtle was chilling right next to me.

The positive thing to both these incidents is that I managed to stay calm and still had an amazing time, even though my head kind-of stung.

The night we had all gone to bed early was also the same time that our old friends Shayne and Sue decided to show up at our hostel, to Chris O.'s delight. For some reason Shayne punched Sue in the face and kicked her while on the ground and was thankfully asked to leave our hostel (not making this stuff up) by the local police.

Over the next few nights we made escaped north. Some of the "highlights" include staying up to 3:30am to catch a chapas to Beira, which ended up being delayed for 2 hours. Another was watching another travel companion, Stefan, have 1000 dollars American stolen from his bag in our hotel in Beira while we were eating dinner.

Sleeping on a bus in Quelimane, while being ravaged by mosquitoes and then having to take my first safari-toilet shit behind our bus, armed only with a flashlight and toilet paper is also high on my list.

My "favourite" chapas ride was where I was forced to sit on an uneven bench and backrest, sandwiched between 3 Mozambican pastors for 7 hours while I could literally sleep on my knees because they were lifted so high due to my lack of leg-room. To make more room, a pastor put his arm around my shoulder but then proceeded to fall asleep so he was actually pulling my head further towards my already-flexed hips. So I was literally sitting in a forced-fetal position with a Mozambican pastor pulling on my head. Oh Mozambican public-transport, how I loathe thee!

In Nampula, our last stop before settling down for a few days, was where we were introduced to the glorious bucket showers: the alternative to showers where running water no longer exists. After riding in cramped buses for endless hours, there is nothing sweeter than to douse yourself with cold, not-so-transparent water and end up feeling dirtier than you did before.

If this does not build character, I do not know what does. But wait, it does get worse...

Mozambique Part 1: Never Trust White South-Africans

July 6-12

We had taken a night-bus from Joburg to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. We arrived in the morning so we would have time to see the city even though we were only using it as a transport hub.

The city as a whole was rather rundown and poorly kept; garbage covering every available space. Despite this, there still was a certain charm to this Portuguese-speaking country's capital-city.


We eventually ventured to the outskirts of the city and enjoyed some one-dollar frango (chicken) and strolled the shallow waters on the shores of the Indian Ocean as school children shouted bye-bye at us and the dhows returned from their daily fishing routes.


We went to bed early because we had to catch a 5:00am shuttle to Tofo. Upon our arrival at the bus terminal, we immediately understood the reality of Mozambican travel: Take an Asian-made bus, made to fit 4 slender Asians per row, fitting between 16 and 20 people depending on the number of rows. Now take those buses, cram them with 30 or 40 grown adults and then add a few dozen children on their laps.

This concept can be applied to a bus of any size. A chapas, or hell-on-wheels as I would like to believe the translation to be, is the most common and terrible form. Of course I would always be the recipient of the bus' worst seat, to a point where we would just say " you just got Jamesed" if you looked really uncomfortable.

We arrived in Tofo after 10 hours on the road, even though the distance is only around 500km. The roads here make Quebec roads seem like those of Ontario!

Tofo is a beach resort town that usually caters to white South-Africans during their holidays. The principal activities here are surfing, scuba-diving, sun worship and partying. The perfect place to relax and let our guard down.


We had accepted a lift down the road on our way to Fatimas (the most popular hostel in the area). In the SUV, we met a Mozambican named Adolf (never a good start) who invited us to sleep in an available room where he was crashing. We checked out the room and were drawn in by the fact that it was less than half the price as the hostel we had stayed at the night before.

The "owners" of the house were Shayne and Sue, a white South-African couple who had been living in Tofo for quite awhile and had a reputation to prove it. We moved our stuff in, paid the couple, and then went to Tofu Tofu, a cheap local eatery run by Ness, a Serbian expat and his Mozambican wife Sonya.

While talking to some other expats, the lovely Anita and Rachel, we soon discovered Adolf's history of drugs and the white South-African couple's kleptomaniac tendencies. Chris O. immediately felt uncomfortable and wanted to move his things. Chris M. and I assured him that the couple would not even be there (they went camping) and Adolf was passed out on the couch, probably following a bender, so we had nothing to worry about.

Our night was rather lo-key and we went to bed early, returning while Adolf was still passed out on the couch.

I was sleeping quite nicely when Chris O. woke us up and said that his money and cell phone had been stolen. This was quite remarkable considering I had even said how impressed I was by his clever hiding spot the night before.

Here is a point form version of what happened:

• Shayne and Sue returned in the night while we were out (confirmation was unknowingly given by one of their friends).
• They took Chris' money and cell phone and immediately left while Adolf was still passed out on the couch.
• Shayne was seen by Rachel the morning Chris' things went missing, several hours before they claimed to return from camping.

Obviously Adolf was made the scapegoat because he was black and had a history around town.

Chris O. was obviously pissed and wanted to press charges but unfortunately we had no proof against the South-Africans. Since Adolf was the only one in the house, he was deemed responsible and Chris could give the word to have him arrested. However, we saw Adolf's innocence and decided it would serve no purpose to arrest an innocent man.

We promptly left their place and got a private room at Fatimas and tried to console Chris. Instead he decided to dig a hole to China (hahaha).


Chris did eventually get over it, although every time Shayne and Sue showed up around town (which happened quite often since Tofo is quite small), his mood would sour, understandably so, and we would change our venue.

We did resume all the normal activities soon after and I got to do my first real scuba dive, which was quite awesome.


We eventually grew tired of Tofo and its clique-ish antics and decided to make our move north.