Ibis Maputo

... 8217;s place and there was a strange/sad looking dog at the entrance which kept on coughing J weird!!! The place seemed very quiet and there was a couple (Joel and Hannah) sat in a settee, we said hello and had a joke about the dog but then I had to check in. I had a feeling then that I would get on well with these guys.


Nelson, who was the young guy working at the reception, showed me my room, I got myself ready and then went to the bar. I had a chat with Nelson about what there ...

... a degree of waiting around until they are full to the brim. The other problem was that we wanted to go to Graskop on a public holiday. Turns out the locals prefer not to travel much that day but instead to stay put (preferably propping up a bar), so we found ourselves waiting for 3 HOURS at Nelspruit taxi bus station waiting for enough people to make up their mind to travel with us to Sabie, half way to Graskop. Although it was only the two ...

... Splendid Suns and I persist in my explorations, even walking all the way to Costa do Sol on Sunday. That’s a good time to see religion on the beach. Comparisons to Brazil once again occur. The weather is surprisingly cool after the sun goes down, Maputo still a bit outside the tropics and August not even springtime yet. When the day to leave finally comes, I’m ready. Next stop is Nelspruit, and the plot thickens.

... custo de cerca de 150 dolares (nao lembro do valor preciso), convertido em moeda local. Parece um valor pequeno, mas para a realidade local somos "ricos". Recebemos, se nao estou enganado, cerca de 3 vezes o salario minimo local. Somando isso ao fato de que temos onde morar e nao pagamos contas de agua ou luz, da para se acreditar que nao vamos precisar de mais do que essa "ajuda de custos". Enquanto esperavamos para saber quando iriamos sair rumo aos projetos, aproveitamos para ...

... Jan Anders, j's dad, piled us into his tiny car. I mentioned how Maputo is like Beijing in that toilet paper is an unknown concept and suddenly I had a brand spanking new roll of scottex (with cute baby blue imprints of a retriever) on my lap which Jan Anders had whipped out (kinda like the warner bros cartoon characters hammers that come out of previously non existent pockets) and flung back onto the back seat for me with a chuckle. Inane comment, perhaps...but it'll stick ...

... to land in another African country before I get to Maputo (Air Kenya pilots don't believe in smooth descent. You cruise at 33,000ft then 15 minutes before the runway they sort of plummet from the sky...so, yeah, I wasn't a fan of the landings!). More on Nelson to come. From Amsterdam Rose was sitting next to me. From Uganda, on her way back from a conference in Stockholm (we talked about crayfish and what a shame she missed out on that party)... ecological ...

... HIV diagnostic system that seems to be working fairly well, Mozambique is...well...for lack of a better work, Mozambique is kind of a mess. Test results often take up to 6 months and, with the Ministry of Health running a $50 million deficit, the responsibility for improving the system has fallen mostly to foreign NGOs. While many of the healthcare workers feel that a point of care test would have a ...

... met some cool Afrikaners from Pretoria and it was great to have had these interactions with some non-Americans for once. That morning at 5am, we left on a minibus for Tofo (pronounced Tofu), a beach town north of Maputo. Some other highlights/comments on Maputo: -Already, we realized how developed South Africa really is. In comparison to the U.S., S. Africa seems fairly undeveloped, but S. Africa looks awesome compared ...

... a holiday period. The border crossing was the worst I have ever had so far in Africa it was very people and the South Africans/Mozambique's crossing into Mozambique did not understand how to queue so there was a lot of pushing in and fighting breaking out and it was all in a very crowded room which didn't help. Eventually when we got through the border crossing we were on our way to Maputo the capital of Mozambique. The road into Maputo from the border was ...