“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

August 15-18,2023

You need to be prepared to go with the flow when you travel. I thought I had a direct flight from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, so was pleasantly surprised when the plane was almost empty and I had a row of seats to myself. But then we landed in Pemba. I have no idea where that is or why we were there. But I follow the crowd off the plane and get in the line of people waiting to enter the terminal. A woman with a yellow safety vest, looking very official, was walking down the line asking “Maputo’? I shook my head yes and she gave me a green boarding pass and beckoned me to follow her. At the door, a young immigration official, in a very smart looking uniform, looked at my passport, took me over to a desk and moved me to the front of the line. I apologized to those behind me. The woman behind the plexiglass took my passport, filled out a form, asked for my credit card, handed me a receipt and motioned me to another line. I think I bought a visa but I’m not sure, as it doesn’t indicate that on the paper she gave me. In the other line, a man stamped my passport and motioned me through. The first lady was there and took me into a room with a baggage carousal where I saw my luggage which I grabbed. She then gestured to the machine a lot of airports have that scan your luggage, usually when you leave. It went through on the conveyer belt and then she indicated I should put it back on the carousal.

I have no idea why I’m doing any of this or really where I am. I am then pointed to another door, where I now have to go through security, and my backpack is scanned again. There is only one way to go from here, which is into a room that looks like a waiting area, with a door out to the tarmac. There is crowd jammed around the desk by the door-no orderly line in sight. A poor man is trying to check boarding passes as they’re shoved in his face. He’s pretty calm about it actually, maybe it’s a regular occurrence. Is it for the flight to Maputo? I have no clue. I see two ladies, who were on the plane with me earlier, push their way to the front waving their green cards, so I follow them. The man takes my green card and I head out to the plane, taking my original seat. More and more people enter the aircraft until it is full. And I trust I am on the way to Maputo when we take off. Throughout this process, only a few words were spoken to me. People were talking around me, but since it was in Portuguese, I had no clue what was said.

I did arrive in Maputo, where I walked off the plane, got my bag, hailed a taxi and was on my way to my AirBnB in record time. My driver is a little hesitant dropping me off, it’s getting dark but the street is busy with stores and restaurants just as my host described. As I go up to the lattice work metal gate and the lockbox I need, a man is seated on a rolling desk chair in the doorway. Not sure exactly why he’s there, he looks homeless, but he opens the gate for me. The building and elevator are old and shabby and I’m wondering what I got myself into. There are two keys to the apartment, one for a metal outer door and one for the wooden inside door. Do I need this much security? It’s dark and I have to use the flashlight on my iPhone to see the locks. There is rattling across the hall as if someone is watching me from the other unit. Once inside the apartment is spacious and lovely.

My building and the street it’s on reflects Maputo, at least the area I get to see while I’m here for just a few days. How can you not stop in Mozambique if you’re in the neighborhood? My street has older apartment buildings on it but a coffee shop you’d find in any hip neighborhood in the US, a nice bright market where I buy a snack and some wine for my dinner, banks, a restaurant/club as well as street vendors with fruits, snack foods, hard boiled eggs, African print fabrics and an ever changing variety of hawkers roaming the street. New and old, modern and old world. That sense continues as I walk to the top tourist destinations and on a fruitless search for kombucha. Modern high-rises being built along side Art Deco and Victorian homes; new shiny buildings next to run down behemoths; glitzy shops and restaurants next to men shining shoes or selling used shoes and clothing; and women cracking cashews for sale, sitting on the street. And everywhere, gates and fences, even bars on balconies 5 stories up.  I can understand them to some extent around the embassies and government buildings I pass, but it’s rare to see a building without some security, many have guards as well. The area seems very safe to me and other than the vendors asking me to buy things, I am left alone.

I am bewildered in a country like all the other African countries I have visited, that places for pedestrians are so overlooked.  Cars definitely take precedence in a place where very few people have them.  Here cars park on the sidewalks, so pedestrians have to walk onto the road.  And the sidewalks are so rutted and broken up you have to watch your footing so not to turn an ankle. But then I remember we don’t have enough sidewalks in Nashville either, though we rely on cars a lot.

I am the anomaly in Maputo as you would expect, and as I am not taking any tours here, I don’t see many other tourists.  My time is mostly spent in the apartment booking the next parts of my trip- I’ve added two more countries on a recommend from a nice Italian gentleman I met at my camp on the Serengeti, and applying for visas.  A lot of time is spent resizing my picture and the image of my passport to comply with the various rules in the different countries.  It’s harder than you think.  I can see the ocean from my veranda, though I am pretty far away from the beautiful beaches Mozambique boasts.  I do enjoy the sea view at two yummy restaurants, Salt and Dhow.  My favorite part of the city was the large craft market called Feima.  It was fun to see the bright baskets and fabrics, the traditional wood carvings and more fun playful wooden statues, purses, clothing, paintings, and batik designs.  Somehow two batiks came home with me even though I can barely shut my suitcase as it is. I was tempted to buy more.

Next up – Madagascar