Blog 10

I forgot that I published the last blog, and modified the last paragraph! So please read the following as a continuation of Blog 9

....................It has been an interesting couple of days. Did I enjoy it? Yes and No, but on the whole No. You can’t close yours eyes as you are watched and regarded as a bank on two legs, a Fat Monkey.

The drive out went a lot quicker than the drive in. What a relief to reach the tarred road. The relief is short lived, a much more intransient obstacle lay ahead about 5 kms down the road. A fat, officious, corrupt, smirky, low-life, police woman operating a road block that is nothing more than a Christmas collection box for other low-life colleagues, stops us. First the drivers licence, then the car insurance letter she can not read, then the registration papers, the inspection of the SA tax disk, the vis. jackets, the triangles. All good, no Christmas Box here. Ah, what about a fire extinguisher? “Not required I reply, only for commercial vehicles”. Actually, I have had an extinguisher in the car for years, but I must have left it in the workshop after the latest re-fitment! We look anyway, out with everything, delay, delay, delay.

“I must fine you” she says. “I am telling you a Fire Extinguisher is not required, so why don’t you write out the fine and I will take it back to the Police Station in the appropriately named Monkey Bay and check the statute books and speak to the Top Monkey” I say, or rather wanted to say but managed to bite my tongue. We take the scrap of paper and return to meet the Top Brass Monkey.

I am correct, vehicles carrying hazardous materials require two fire extinguishers; public transport vehicles, one fire extinguisher; private vehicles, nothing. When I point out the law to the TBM, he says to Ewa “You are a passenger therefore it is a public vehicle.”

I tell the TBM that we will pay the fine and take the matter up with the Embassy when we return to SA, which we will do, not that it will make a scrap of difference. The TBM then says that they do not have a cashier at the Police Station, only at the road block. We return to the road-block, a swarm of recipients emerge and we pay the “cashier” who is some random lady sitting on a bench with a plastic packet. This matter is not closed!

We met similar TBM’s when we arrived in Moscow in 1975. I didn’t like them then and I like them less now as they are getting closer to home.

I need some light relief, but there is none! We check in to Palm Beach Lodge at the Southern end of Lake Malawi. It is stunning. We park under the Palm Trees on the lake shore. It is owned by another Daanie, an erstwhile South African fisherman, who started developing the place 36 years ago, when it was “one of the best fishing spots in the world”. Now? “I doubt if their will be any fish left in 5 years time” he says. An Aid Organization sponsored mosquito nets in an attempt to fight Malaria. The nets are used to catch fish, and are so fine that they have all but wiped out the breeding grounds!

What is going to happen in Africa? Right now before our eyes you can witness the land being turned to desert by charcoal and the Chinese, no fish in the Lake and very little agriculture. This is happening now. The impact on South Africa can only be devastating whatever our immigration policies may be.

Our next destination point is Ilha de Mozambique, it is about 650 km due East. We have two options, either we go South, East and North on the tar, almost doubling the distance or we go 450 kms due East on dirt to pick up the tar at Nampula. We decide to brave the dirt and pray that the rainy season will abate for the day.

Palm Beach to Mangochi, where the evidence of past wealth adds a quaintness to the town. Left at the defunct traffic lights, along a tree lined avenue to the round-a-bout with statuesque statue celebrating the entrance to the bridge over the river separating Lake Malawi and Lake Malombe. It is impressive. We cross the bridge and start the climb out of the rift valley. We climb up to 1400 m. The views are vast and spectacular. We reach the Mozambique border at Chiponde a depressing dustbowl of a town. We miss the border post, which is hardly surprising as it required a left turn between various informal traders, money changers and touts. We correct our mistake 10kms down the road. I wait in the car while Ewa negotiates officialdom. Can my wife act? She returns to the car in tears. More tears, and pleadings of ignorance and poverty see us through. That made both our Malawi border experiences  a trial.We had only been granted a 2 day visa into Malawi, why I don’t know as we had said we wanted to travel around a bit and had asked for a 2 week visa. So now we had overstayed our welcome by 8 days and needed to pay a fine.Luckily the young official on the other side of the counter was embarrassed by Ewa’s weeping and wailing and as we hadn’t yet signed the book and filled in our particulars he just tore up the visa document and sent us away. Much better experiences on the Mozambique border and we are on our way. Seven hours of dodgem cars, dodgem livestock, dodgem people, and dodgem potholes. One unsuspecting sunken bridge landing bottomed out the kombi, but we survived. The rain largely held off, the light vanished but we made it to Mantes Nairuco Camp site.

Mantes Nairuco is owned by Manuel Malves Ferrera. I have met some amazing people in my life, but not many like Manuel. I have GOT to make a movie or documentary about this man. Please film-makers, writers and promoters out there, help me. This man provides the centre point of an African story. He ran away from Madeira when he was 16, he was hungry. He arrived in Johannesburg in the 1960’s when “Verwoerd was in power”. After six years in Johannesburg he had overstayed his visa and was arrested. He could pay a fine or go to gaol for a month. He had no money so he chose gaol. Not speaking anything but Portuguese and no formal education he managed to get release into Mozambique. He started driving trucks. Leased some land 20 kms outside Nampula. Married Veronica, started farming, started dam building and carried on driving trucks. 18 years later he has 450 hectares of land, groves of orange trees, lemon trees, and leachy trees. Enough chickens that he can have 7000 stolen by his workers and still be in business. Enough Quails to produce 1400 eggs a day. A timber plantation, palm trees and a camp site highly recommended by Lonely Planet. The whole enterprise sustained by the water in the dam he started building 18 years ago. A dam that now spreads back 1 km through massive granite rocks.

On the 28^th of March 2010, the hidden city of termites in the dam wall caused a fist sized breach in the wall. Two hours later Manuel watched 18 years of life washed down the river, leaving “Baraccas” and Palm Trees arbitrarily standing on what was once the shore line.

We arrive somewhat shattered by our long and dusty drive, we are warmly welcomed by Manuel and Veronica. He says, “The rains must come now, I finish the dam wall today, everything has died, we need the water again”.  So he starts again and he will succeed against all odds. He is philosophical about life, nature, corruption and politics. He is truly an inspirational person.

Ewa decided that she would like to spend her birthday on Ilha de Mozambique a World Heritage Site accessed by a somewhat suspect 3km single file bridge. The idea was that we would stay in a camp site next to the start of the bridge and described in glowing terms in Ewa’s version of the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately, Ewa’s version is 6 years old! We arrive at what was once a camp site! We can stay there, but there is no water, what were the facilities would necessitate constipation. It is disgusting. I assure my wife that I think it would be OK to stretch the budget and stay in lodgings on the Island, after all it was her last evening at 59 years old!

Ewa vacillates and eventually agreed to splash out! The sun is about to disappear. We cross the bridge and circumnavigate the Island then head for the next Lonely Planet recommendation.

I really do think that out of date second hand guide books are not a good idea! The lodgings described do not exist. Muanangonh (Copa Cabana) presents itself. Sonje the owner is delightful but does not understand a word of English. Marcos Ogasawara is a Brazilian who has been teaching orphans in Chimoio and is sitting at table on the pavement. He speaks English perfectly and helps us out. We are shown various rooms and settle for the en-suite room No.8.

Room No.8 is a basement room with one small window, a double bed with mosquito net over, a TV, a fan that squeaks and very little room for anything else except mosquitoes. The en-suite bit consisted of a loo which had to be flush by water from a orange plastic ex cooking oil container. I took off the cistern top to see if I could remedy the situation, but it was used as a container for ex light bulbs and general rubbish and was not connected to the bottom half of the loo. There was a tap in the wall but no fitting above and anyway if you opened the tap there was no water in the system anyway, hence another bucket of water and milk jug to scoop it out! This was definitely not how I would have imagined spending Ewa’s 60^th birthday!

It was fun and coolish sitting on the pavement having a beer and chatting to Marcos and learning about Sao Paulo and his Japanese father. The potatoes and onion soup was great, the fish was terrible but the rice filled a gap!

We retired to bed, or rather to our room. I think I managed to kill all the resident mosquitoes after about half an hour and managed to fall through the loose slats in the bed in the process. Spike Milligan once said he could grab a handful of air and squeeze the sweat out of it! Such was the air. The only relief was the squeaky fan; we turned it on, climbed under the mosquitoes net and sweated it out until 4.30 in the morning!  At 4.30 the sun starts rising, the Mosque starts calling, the person on the other side of the window makes a fire for cooking and begins sweeping whatever was that side of the wall. I start choking, wish my wife Happy Birthday, pour a milk jug of tepid water over our sweating bodies and decide to walk to town before the general rise of the masses. This was definitely a memorable Birthday!

By 7.30 we had walked the Island. It is a photographic feast of dilapidated buildings and humanity. I am not sure what obligations a World Heritage Site places on UNESCO or Government, but whatever it is, it appears not to be working.Actually it really was awful…the accommodation that is…it was worse than any servants’ quarters in SA….I think it must have been where the Arabs “stored” the slaves before sending them off to the Americas…anyway at least we could laugh about it and  know more about what it feels like to live here!!

We are away from Ilha de Mozambique by  km 7.45 am. We have a 200km diversion to yet another Lonely Planet recommendation in Nacala, which does not exist and decide to head for our ultimate destination. Pemba.Well it did but under a different name!! and was a couple of kms up a sandy road and we felt sorry for the kombi and I didn’t want to push and dig on my bday!! He left out the part when we had to dig and push the Kombi out of the dreadful campsite near Ilha da Mozambique, the day before my bday!! After a tumultuous thunder burst 400 odd kms, we make it by nightfall to Russell’s Camp. A birthday dinner, champagne and sleep, ends my wife’s 60^th birthday celebration. A 

My wife as we know her after champagne. A memorable day for sure.

The GPS says we are 12º57.59 South 40º34.01East and have travelled 7215 kms

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