Polana Hotel Maputo

... to do in Maputo and various other things and then as Joel came to the bar he invited me to go and sit with them which I did a bit later.

Now these guys have been on the road for 5 months, they bought a motorbike, started in England, took a ferry to Spain and then rode all the way to Maputo though France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Mozambique .. I have certainly missed a few but what a trip!!!! They said they have not had many problems, the only thing really ...

... us in the bus for the first 2 hours, by the time we left it was totally full. Just as we thought that we were truly full, the driver managed to squeeze in another person AND her two sons! To make matters worse, there wasn't enough room for my size 11's to fit under the seat, so I had to sit in some contorted position, with my pack on top of me, unable to move a muscle for the entire journey - haven't they heard of DVT here? Unfolding ...

Monsoon winds have been blowing traders from India to Ilha de
Moçambique (Island of Mozambique) since the 10th century. In the early
1500s Vasco de Gama arrived in Ilha and built a Portuguese fort out of
blocks of the coral reef surrounding the island, claiming the territory
for his nation.

After nearly 500 years of Portuguese rule,
Mozambique gained its independence in 1975. The fort was used as a
military barracks during Mozambique ...

... conhecer um pouco mais da regiao. Muito proximo ao local que estavamos, que era a cerca de 30 minutos de carro do centro, ja era facil encontrar vilas muito simples, com suas casas de barro e tetos de palha. Algo que me pareceu muito interessante foi a utilizacao da terra. Eh bastante comum nesta regiao, tao logo se afasta dos predios do centro, se aproveitar a maior parte dos terrenos livres para plantacoes. Algo que pode ser visto por alguns como sinal de ...

... my memory because at the time I didn't find it weird or funny, I was just filled with sheer gratitude as no matter how many times I told myself "must always carry kleenex" I just wasn't doing it. This toilet paper supply issue also marks the border between Mozambique and South Africa by the way. One side> geen! the other> you're sorted. So we hit the ferry and it was a great thing to do as it was quite cool to see the city from afar like that and it reminded me, Nick ...

... At which point I get very interested and we chit chat blah blah. Then she asks me what I do. I sheepishly say, err, finance lawyer. She then went to sleep. Jammer...! So Nelson was the next travel buddy: hugely intelligent guy, spoke fluent Portuguese having pretty much lived everywhere in Africa, and maily Angola and Moza... and, like Rose, he's one of these people the starry-eyed idealists waiting to be "converted" in Africa would hope to meet on their flight ...

... impact, we have also heard doubt that the supply chain and human resource pool could support decentralization to that level. This week we are hoping to dig a little deeper into how far we can really push this out towards the point of care. To that end, we are meeting with two additional NGOs and several government officials, and hope to get in a few more healthcare center visits. More to come soon...

... Mozambique. -All the street names in Maputo are named after Communist leaders (or dates of revolutions): Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Julius Nyerere, Mao Tse Tung, and so many more... -Maputo made me feel pretty lucky and happy to be an American. -I forgot to mention that I was extorted again on our way out of Maputo. I peed at the bus stop before heading to Tofo and had to give another cop 100 mets (~$5 or $6?)...so corrupt.

... nice and modern, a sign of things to come maybe? Mozambique had recently had a civil war and was a country on the mend but still very poor and rubbish in the city was very common to see. We were staying in Fatima's backpackers in the city itself on the top floor which was not the best thing to do because Maputo is very hot and heat rises and we got the brunt of it so the room was like an oven so our nights sleep were not the best. Whilst in Maputo we ...