4 M's - Michelle and Martin in Maputo, Mozambique

To see our Mozambique Photos, Click Here

Sean, Jennie, Michelle at Helena's Place

Monday, it was finally time to leave the comfort and spoilings of Paula and Sergio at Swaziland Backpackers and get traveling again. A 6 hour local minibus ride got us effortlessly through the Mozambique border and on to Maputo. We were happily distracted for most of it chatting away to an English/Australian couple in the van; we had lots of travel stories in common and the time flew by.
For a couple of days we explored with Jennie and Sean, Mozambique's capital city Maputo. I had to put on my language head and shift from the recent French we had to use in Madagascar to Portuguese. We found local markets and drank a few beers outside "mama's" place, went to the infamous train station (ranked in Time magazine as one of the 10 nicest train stations in the world), and enjoyed local art at the art gallery (the sculptures and paintings were a little dark at times). Mozambique's most famous painter died this year, and some of his art was on display.  We also had some nice encounters with locals whilst getting things sewn up at a row of men with sewing machines!

Michelle and the Tailors of Maputo

Michelle also had the nerve to ask a church attendant whether it was possible to climb up the church tower.  She went to get the key, and the 4 of us tackled the circular stairways all the way up to the scary walkway around the tower.  I love being up high and seeing cities from above - gives you a whole new perspective.  Since the railings were pretty sparse, we made our way down relatively quickly,  put our donation in the box, and were happy that Michelle asked!!

We crammed in to Maputo's small minivan buses where they squash about 4 (sometimes large) people across the seats (instead of 3) and even had people hunched over as standing room in what was not even considered an aisle. At the sea front we aimed for the fish market and we were disappointed by the inflated tourist prices for the (delicious-looking) squid and snapper and prawns. We had been told you can buy the fish and find a local to cook it up for you.  Since it is now in the travel books, and has received an influx of tourists, the prices were actually more expensive than at home, so we gave it a miss!  A shame, as we were all looking forward to the promise of lovely seafood, but our tastebuds would have to wait.

Jennie, Sean and Michelle on the Church Tower above Maputo

We were happy to find that Jennie and Sean tend to travel in the same manner/budget we like to.  So, the struggle of finding decent priced food was difficult, but we were rewarded eventually with a delicious meal at a VERY local little stand that served up tasty chicken and a huge pile of rice or pap (local mashed potato type thing), with sauce.  All for about $1.50!!  YUM, but too bad this was our last day!!
We were surprised to find American Alan at our hostel one night.  We had met him in Swaziland, and weren't expecting to see him again, but we enjoyed his company and spent the evening teaching all three of them our game Carcassonne, which they all got addicted to!!  *  Mush/Stub