Carter & I had another great weekend with Mac & Nancy, tour-guides supreme (as Carter has dubbed them). Since Swaziland is a very Christian country, the clinic (like many other small businesses) was closed from Good Friday through Easter Monday. That means we had plenty of time to fill with new adventures....it also means that I would write a small book if I tried to tell our stories in just one post. So, instead, I'll start it off with just the first day or so.
Mac picked us up Thursday afternoon after he finished his afternoon's errands. We stopped for ice cream bars & then picked Nancy up from work before heading to their home. We had a very relaxed & enjoyable dinner on the back patio - grilled chicken, a dish that was essentially grits, tomato sauce, cream, & cheese, & a beautiful salad. It was fantastic to sit & enjoy the cool & quiet evening.....the biggest excitement came when the frogs started their calls. When the little frog (which had a huge call) finally showed up, the cameras came out....and then Mac set about searching his yard for other interesting critters we could photograph! I was a willing participant as I'm still playing with the new camera....we ended up with some great pics of a huge praying mantis on a Bird of Paradise blossom as well as the tiny frog.
Friday we got up early & hit the road for international excursion #1: Maputo, Mozambique. We got to the border easily, before too many crowds were there, so our transition was smooth. Even at the border, the difference between the two countries' infrastructures was starting to be obvious....but we got our visas for Mozambique, & we were on our way. We crossed at the Goba border point & started down a windy mountain road, which gave us great views of the Mozambican countryside as we headed toward the capital city of Maputo. The countryside we passed was sprinkled with very small homesteads but little farming. The country has only recently begun to recover from years of war, and so much of the land is yet to be put back to strong agricultural use. There are also still areas of the countryside that remain to be de-mined. As we wound our way into the Maputo area, we passed many guys selling slate tile on the side of the road - intermixed, of course, with the requisite country farm animals (goats, sheep, cows, pigs, etc).
Another thing of note that we passed on our way, near one site for the Mozambican military training/barracks, were the remnants of Russian warcraft - a few tanks and a helicopter that the Russians left behind. When they all left, however, they did not leave behind either the infrastructure or the support to make any of their tattered machines serviceable again (which might be okay as far as the tanks go) - so they've sat where they were left, grass growing around & rust slowly accumulating.
When we got to Maputo, we drove for a little while in the non-tourist zone as Mac wanted us to also have the chance to see how the average person there lives. It was much more in-line with the image of a developing country that most folks likely have - small houses/huts that are very near one another with families selling their goods alongside the main roads. As we turned around to head back towards downtown & the port, we were lucky enough to be selected as one of the vehicles to pull over for the traffic police checkpoint (it seems that having out-of-the-country license plates there is somewhat analagous to having out-of-state plates in small towns across the US). Although we were doing nothing wrong, the officer was looking for something to find.....so he peered his head in & decided that since Carter & I didn't have our seatbelts buckled at that moment in the backseat, he was going to issue a ticket (nevermind the vans & buses driving past us, overflowing with people - all unbuckled)......so when Mac told him that he didn't have the money for the ticket (which was supposed to be 1 million Mets - $1 US is something like 30 Mets), the traffic cop just asked "well, what do you have?" I don't know how much he ended up with, but it was a fraction of what we actually had, & we drove away without a ticket.
But, enough of that stuff....we made our way into downtown & Mac took us on a driving tour of the sites - the beautiful old train station, the market, a few restaurants & bakeries his family used to own &/or visit. We stopped at a small restaurant along the coast for brunch & snapped some photos as the tide came slowly in. We got a short walk on the beach, scaring away a number of ghost crabs, & then headed further into the city to go past the old cathedral, the parliament building, and a few other spots.
When it came time for lunch, we drove further along the coastline of the city to a restaurant called Costa do Sol - apparently one of the most famous & oldest restaurants in Maputo (if not all of Mozambique). It managed to stay opened & operating through all of the city's turmoil - and it's still owned by the same family from Greece years ago.
By the time we finished a delicious lunch, fended off a few more folks selling souvenirs, & got back in the car, I had developed a very mild pink sunburn on just one arm (I think since then it has evened out a little however). Our last stop was a hotel up on the cliff, overlooking the city & harbor. We snapped a few more pictures, stopped for a cold drink, & then loaded the car back up for our journey home. The border was again a quick & easy stop (though I did get an indirect proposal from one of the Swazi immigration officers - American green cards are still a hot ticket item apparently).
When we got back late Friday evening, we were lucky enough to find that there was no water at Mac & Nancy's house.....apparently the main pump had gone out. So we filled sinks & buckets from the tank outside & made tentative plans to all stop by our cottage for showers the next day on our way to South Africa. We had heard from a friend of Mac & Nancy's that the water pump needed a part from Jo-burg, which they didn't expect to get until Tuesday because of the weekend holiday...yikes! It turns out, that they were able to get the water running sooner than that (at least as far as we could tell) because we never had to resort to using our little cottage in Mbabane for showers.
Your shake down by the police sounds very similar to what happened to us (often)when we were in Venezuela about 20 years ago. The game became seeing how little you could give the guy. In Latin style, it took a long time there as haggling over $3-5 was a point of pride. You can hardly blame the cop; he is just trying to feed his family because the government pay is probably both pathetic in amount and sporadic as to timing.
ReplyDeleteBreck, Sr.