Mozzie Mozambique

After what seems like an eternity, I am back online and promise to blog what has happened in the past months.

This past weekend was spent in Mozambique with a friend. We arrived on a balmy afternoon in Maputo, the capital, after a shock at the border, when the South African official was not able to find my visa in his computer. All was resolved amicably though and we spent a funky afternoon in Maputo trying random foods off the street and witnessing the damage caused by the January floods (all sewers were open and pavements had gaping holes in them).

After spending the night in Fatima's Backpacker and sharing my bed with quite a number of ants, we drove up to Inhambane, a quiet but beautiful fishing town on the coast. We were welcomed there by the torrential rains and a cyclone warning and had to spend the majority of our stay without electricity. Since we were yearning for a bit of sunshine (not that South Africa doesn't get any) and beach we moved on to Tofo (no tofu sold there), the backpacker destination and comparable to Goa. It was low season, however, so we were almost alone in the backpackers.
Our hut had no functioning toilet, no light in the bathroom and a shower that almost electrocuted my friend. Who needs those creature comforts anyway. So it was shared bathroom and cold shower for us. The hut did have a lovely mosquito net which would have been most effective if I had not rolled into it and those sneaky buggers had not gotten to me through the fabric. 
Tofo beach was absolutely amazing, a sandy paradise with blue waters. We enjoyed two amazing days with lots of bathing, swatting mozzies (Malaria is a constant threat) and chatting to charming people.
Obviously we encountered some trouble on the way back. A local police chief stopped us for speeding and gave us a GBP60 fine. We tried all the tricks: telling him we were doctors on the way to see a child, flirting, not having any cash money on us, playing the dumb foreigner. He was not impressed. He took my driver's licence off me and demanded that the car should be parked at the police station while we should take a public bus to the closest village (40km) to draw money. Clearly that wasn't quite legal but difficult to convey with no knowledge of Portugese.
After he let us stew for 2 hours we finally "found" the requested amount in the car and returned home. Luckily there were no further speeding incidents on the way back.