Hotel Cardoso Maputo

... and was very helpful once we arrived in Maputo. He helped me get a cab, at the right price, so I could also get some cash out. Arriving in Maputo was quite an experience, I really got a feel of Africa this time, it is absolutely packed with stalls everywhere, it is pretty manic so it was good to have Nando with us because I would have struggle to find a taxi by myself as there were in such a random place and the minivan had dropped us in the middle of the street.


I arrived at ...

So, turns out most people think it is mad to travel around Africa with public transport - how strange we thought, things seemed to work like a clockwork with public transport for us so far! Well, that was until we attempted to go to Graskop, near the Blyde River Canyon, by taxi bus. Taxi buses are little Toyota minibuses that officially seat up to 15 people although that seems to be a minimum rather than maximum so getting a taxi bus does ...

... the chance, all the better to see ‘the real thing’ along the Swahili coast, not just the beach scene largely created by and for South Africans. Of course the real thing ain’t always pretty. Neither is the mock-up job. Dozens of people crowd into one small kitchen here, with almost nothing provided by the place, not even matches. That’s what smokers are for, I guess. There are plenty of them here. So I read A ...

... in Mozambique, smell before you buy. At Beira the minibus driver demands 100 mets (about 2 quid) for carrying my rucksack inside his minibus. I'm in no mood for another dose of corrupt drivers demanding extra cash and ask him if the locals have to pay the extra charge, he looks down and doesn't answer the question, I take this as a no and walk off. We find a ...

... ser estranho para os voluntarios que estao em projetos naquela regiao. Ter sempre pessoas entrando e saindo da "sua" casa. A quantidade de gente eh tao grande que meu grupo, que era de 12 pessoas, precisou ficar em barracas no patio entre as casas. Para mim isso nao causou maiores problemas. O mais importante tinhamos: onde dormir, onde comer onde tomar banho. Recebemos, pela primeira vez, nossa ajuda de custo. No tempo em que se fica no projeto os voluntarios recebem uma ajuda ...

... flight the following day would mean me missing my flight to Cape Town. So, Anna had mentioned I should "try crossing with the ferry...it-s quite an adventure". So...this sort of appealed. The weather at this early time was not yet what you'd call beach weather but I hadn't packed my faithful eastpak for nothing so I told Zara and Jesper (z and j from now on, tired fingers) I was hitting the ferry to check out Catembe on the other side of the water. They were happy to tag ...

... buddy of the next leg of the journey. Nelson couldn't be sure he was givin me the whole picture, but it pretty much means tour. Hmm, sweet, but if Air Kenya thinks that flight was anything approaching a tour, we should have words! Anyway, Nelson was my cubicle genoet (for the English among you, cubicle buddy) from Nairobi to Maputo. Now, I struggled at Nairobi a little when my gate read "Harare". Zimbabwe? Nee Nee...Ik wil graag naar Maputo. Ah...it appears I ...

... jars of peanut butter (which makes you want to puke when you watch it). Met an Aussie, Andy, who has offered to show us around Perth when we reach it. Very unlucky guy - got smashed and lost his wallet. Was waiting on a money transfer to reach him via Western Union but his mate entrusted with this task keeps forgetting so he's stuck for a while. Couldn't help thinking who would I pick....no not you Aldo.

... took the slow, government-run one. When we got there, we ate disgusting food. And it was rainy all day. We sat under a leaky roof and stayed (mostly) dry. Even though the day was pretty miserable, we had a good time laughing about it, even as the ridiculous events were unfolding. On our last night in Maputo, we stayed up all night in our hostel talking politics to some South Africans from Jo'burg. We'd ...

In 2006 whilst working in South Africa I was invited to go for a short holiday to Mozambique by a teacher at the school I was working at. We set off from Giyani and picked up our fellow travel companions 2 Americans and a South African. We drove down to Neilspruit where we stayed the night through some stunning mountain scenery. The next day we started our drive towards the Mozambique border and once there the queues were quite busy due to the fact that it ...