MOZAMBIQUE

Just as we were about to be crushed (literally!) by the intolerable weight of two (pass/fail) classes and seven hours (!) at school per week, the beautiful respite that is reading week hazily appeared on the horizon. Joyho! With 12 days of freedom to play with, we decided that the flawless beaches, the azure waters, the suicidal drivers (what?) and the abundant seafood/life of Mozambique would host us.

[To Come: South Africa Is A Country; In My Country There Is Problem, And That Problem Is Transport, We Must Make Travel Easy, Then We Have A Big Party; Life Is A Highway, I Wanna Ride It All Night Long; Long Bus Ride Masochism; Retired Hockey Superstar Al MacInnis; When It Comes To Babies, What Balconies Are To Michael Jackson, Bus Windows Are To Me; The Swift Is Courted On A Bus, Hilarity Ensues; Why Scuba Diving Rules; And, Most Importantly, WHALE SHARKS]

When you cross the border out of South Africa (Yes, Matthew Smith, I feel its my duty to inform you that South Africa is indeed a country, not a region) into Botswana or Zimbabwe or Mozambique, it is quickly apparent that you are in a very different world. This was clear a few years ago when I traveled into S.A. from the countries in East Africa, and it’s even more obvious now having spent a few months in Cape Town. In terms of basic infrastructure - reasonably non-ridiculous roads, the existence of tap water, whether that water is potable, indoor plumbing, etc. - South Africa is light years ahead of basically every country on the continent. In fact, there is such a disparity that the rest of the continent seriously gets its hate on when discussing South Africa. It’s the sort of venom typically spewed by the rest of the world in deriding the profligate consumption of fat Americans, whabam!

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But when you cross that border, the thing that immediately strikes you – actually, it repeatedly strikes you until you are unconscious - is the insanity of the roads, the driving and the drivers. Now, this is not at all an African phenomenon – the same things have shocked, appalled and terrified me all over Southeast Asia and South America. However, whereas Asians and South Americans usually require large cliffs/precipitous drops to really get the blood flowing, Africans manage to up the ridiculousness by doing this

or by just doing ridiculous shit on your typical, flat two-track road.

Take passing, for example. My first exposure to the African method of passing was in Uganda in 2006 at the hands of a suicidal driver of a white matatu (big white van cab) with shockingly bald tires. It kind of looked like this, but I don't recall a permutation of "Xenophobia" being imprinted on the windshield:

First, the driver will aggressively pull into the wrong lane without really looking to see what’s going on ahead. Then, because the car/van you are in is almost surely 75 years old, it will take a solid 4 minutes to pick up enough speed to actually pass the car (may Jebus help you if this is going on during an uphill stretch). Meanwhile, up ahead come approximately 12 consecutive games of chicken, with neither side apparently willing to give an inch. Then, at the last possible minute, as the white devils in the car busily open windows in order to hurl themselves onto the asphalt (or dirt, as the case may be), the two prospective crashers move ever so slightly to their respective sides, utilizing every iota of road and shoulder, and pass safely. A few minutes pass, then the process starts again. The white devil suffers silently in the back – often because he has blacked out.

Picture Unrelated To Content - But Check Out That Mutant Fish

Transport in developing countries is inefficient, uncomfortable and often terrifying, but it’s also hilarious. Didn’t Shawshank Red say something about human beings being able to become used to almost anything? Although it took about 700 of those passes, I guess traveling in foreign countries has beaten me into submission. In fact, I would even say I now have a slightly bizarre love of long bus rides in foreign countries; and, in my opinion, there is no better place to practice this masochism than in rural Africa.

The outskirts of cities go by first, featuring women doing this (which I will never stop finding incredible)

and seemingly infinite numbers of shanties comprised of any and all materials. As endless as the shanties are, there seem to be even more children. No matter where you go, every place seems to feature crowds and crowds of children (half of the people in Africa are under the age of fifteen, I'm told). Then, just as quickly as these settlements of unknown populations come, they are replaced by huge expanses of nothingness. Savannah and scrub brush extend as far as the eye can see, and for hours on end you are lulled into a dream-like state. Often, the only thing to see is an African trademarked lone tree in the distance

But then, once again, you are lulled into your thoughts as more nothingness passes by. Finally, just when you believe there actually is nothing to see, a town pops up and the hilarity begins: a young boy on the side of the road wearing a 1980s-era Calgary Flames jersey with Al MacInnis’s Number 2 on the back

your bus stops and someone on it yells to the roadside butcher, who lops off the hind quarter of a cow, including the leg, and then hands it to your neighbour, who nonchalantly places it on her lap; Or, what’s that? An irrationally and inexplicably large soccer stadium that appears to have been funded by China in the middle of nowhere? Why the hell not.

As for Mozambique itself, due to an email from my buddy Rich, even I was slightly worried that we were upping the ante a bit:

The only shitty part about Moz (which turned into a great story) was that the bus we bought tickets for (to get there from Maputo) never showed up – I guess that happens frequently. So we ended up waiting for hours in the middle of nowhere in Maputo (from 3am to 8am). At 8:00, we decided we would just travel as locals do, so we went to the “bus stop” (read: large dusty field), got severely harassed, and finally found our way onto a bus whose driver guaranteed he would take us there “right away” (read: we had to wait for four hours in the blazing sun for the bus to fill-up (read: be packed so tightly with goats and chickens and smelly people and onions and everything you can imagine you wouldn’t want to spend eight hours with on a bus with no ventilation). The saying really is true – buses never leave until they are full in Africa – and they are never full. From there, the ride was terrifying – an overloaded bus, with bald tires, driving well over 160 on roads that were more accurately characterized as holes, with the occasional piece of concrete in them. We blew a tire and almost died, it was so hot that people were passing out and needed to be revived, it turned into a ten hour trip (estimated to be an easy eight), I had no room at all and was being crushed by a fat lady on one side and a smelly man on the other, I had to hold a chicken (live) whose body was wrapped in a plastic bag for several hours, and I was puked on (in the face). We only stopped once – and I didn’t have enough water to waste much of it on cleaning my face. Gross.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, our travels certainly didn’t measure up to that journey, although they weren’t without incident. We rocked the typical, ridiculous 8-hour bus rides on which every iota of space was taken up with people, personal belongings and poultry.

My leg-room usually taken up by massive bags of coconuts, I spent much of the rides dodging the discharges of the advancing babies that had me surrounded on all sides (it is totally uncool to be babyless in Mozambique). At one point, a couple of grandparents in the back row tried to disembark, during which the grandmother mindlessly handed me her exceptionally dirty grandson. She kept motioning towards the window and yelling and laughing at me. I kept saying “Lady, you’re scarin’ us!!!” but nobody laughed, I guess they haven't seen Billy Madison. Then, the grandparents got off the bus without taking the kid. Terrified that this was a Mozambiquan ritual that had left me the unsuspecting guardian, I Michael-Jackson-Over-The-Hotel-Balcony-In-Berlin held the kid out the bus for a solid 30 seconds while news stories making me out to be a Madonna-like African kidnapper flashed through my mind. I got really scared as the bus actually started to move and the crazy, crazy couple was nowhere to be seen. But finally, the grandmother appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the kid and left me with a nightmare-inducing “Blaaaahhhh!!!!!” in my face.

In the meantime, The Swift was avoiding the advances of a young man on the other side of the bus. In the throes of a blind fever, she accidentally gave him her real phone number, leading to a series of text messages over the next few days. After she politely asked him to leave her alone, he sent one final text: “But I just want to make love to you sweat lady” hahaha, ohhhh that is great. While admitting she was quite warm that day, she believes he was going for “sweet”. Me, I’m not so sure.

Anyways, it was all worth it to make it here:

Welcome to Tofo, renowned for its unspoiled stretch of beach, its seafood, its surfing and its marine life. We stayed at a place called Bamboozi’s

which had fairly hilarious accommodations

and a pretty amazing view from the restaurant

Our days sometimes started with catching the sunrise

While our nights were spent on that ridiculously amazing restaurant deck

During the days there was a whole lot of relaxin'

Being pensive

or scouring the local market. I've got to talk about African markets a bit... Walking around markets in the parts of Africa I have seen is both fun and frustrating, amazing and irritating. But, no matter what, it is always an experience.

The first thing you will notice are the smells, which hit you in oppressive waves – it is always the same mix of drying fish, B.O. (this suggestion may bring up issues of culture, of poverty and of Western insensitivity, but someone really needs to start an NGO that brings deodorant to Africa. There, I said it. Every person who hasn't been to Africa may be shaking their heads in disappointed disgust right now, but everyone who has been here is nodding vigorously), spoiling meat, roasting something (cassava? I’m told), burning garbage-like items and thousands of other unrecognizable scents. Each vendor is either your best friend or your worst enemy, and you know which they are immediately from the look you receive. The former makes you immediately suspicious; the latter makes you feel incredibly guilty about everything you’ve ever been given in life, ever (of course, this is pretty much a constant emotion for me when I travel). Hands are always on your arm, your lower back, leading you to where, apparently, you need to be. Introductions fly around, with unforgettable names uttered at every stall – this leads to frequent cursing of Mama and Papa Fin (and don’t think you get off scot-free in this, Uncle Dunc) for my semi-normal name (although try telling me that during the dark ‘Duncan Donuts’ years of 1990-1994). Nice to meet you, Mel Gibson. No thank you, Karl Marx. Oh, hello there… Banjo Patterson? Sorry, did you just say your name is McDonald’s? It’s unfortunate that I will never be able to let one Mozambiquan artisan know that I’ve named my first-born Big Tomato Finley after him.

Inevitably, three things will come up while navigating the frenzy of an African market. First, assuming me to be American: “Barack… he is good, yes?” (There’s nothing quite as awesome as discussing politics with a self-named Mozambiquan named Big Tomato). Second, once they find out I am Canadian: “Bryan Adams… he is good! Yes!” (Despite B.A.’s demi-god status, few Africans have been impressed to hear that my favourite song for most of the early ‘90s was ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You’ – they prefer ‘Summer of ‘69’, like the mainstream suckas that they are). Finally, assuming me to be rich, “Sir!, My [Insert Whatever Semi-Useless Item They Are Selling – Salad tongs, candle holders, or, increasingly, mini-helicopters made of beer cans] is VERY good! YES! I make good price for you! Yes! YOU CAN LOOK FOR FREE!!!”

The best part about Tofo, however, was waiting in the ocean.

Scuba diving is truly amazing - swimming 100 feet below the surface with life you could never even dream up... it's incredible. But don’t take my word for it, listen to Georgie, a recovering drug addict (nineteen months clean, bra!) that I met in Thailand a few years ago: “Diving, man! Diving! You’re, like, sitting at the bottom of the ocean, looking up as your beautiful bubbles float towards the sunlight. Then, you turn your head, and Mambo Number Five! That’s a shark OR a turtle OR some beautiful goddamn fish you’ve never even heard of man! I tell you, it’s like the closest you can come to an acid trip without dropping acid, you know?” With glimmering reviews like that, how can you not get into diving?

I went on a few dives throughout the week in Tofo and saw all sorts of crazy crap. The greatest was when we were sitting at about 6 metres below the surface on a safety stop at the end of a dive, and three stingrays came swimming towards us from the depth of blue. Amazing.

But the greatest experience of the trip – and probably one of the greatest experiences of my life – occurred while swimming, not diving, when we went out on a boat in search of whale sharks one day. Whale sharks are filter feeding sharks that happen to be the largest living fish species in the world. They are the gentle giants of the sea, not at all dangerous, and reach sizes of over 12 metres long (although there are rumours of some that have reached 18 to 20 metres(!)).

I have desperately wanted to swim with a whale shark ever since I heard it was possible, and Tofo was supposed to be the place to do it in southern Africa. Unfortunately, nobody had seen any of the big guys around Tofo for the week before we went out on our trip. And for the first hour of our excursion, we had no luck. I was just resigning myself to disappointment, when the boat driver started squeaking in Portuguese and pointing into the water. I yelled my only Portuguese words back at him “Bom Dia! Bom Dia!” (Good morning! Good morning!) and then hurled myself in the water. After a minute of swimming, we came upon him/her: 6.5 - 7 metres long, white spots, slowly waving its massive tail back and forth (which I narrowly avoided getting destroyed by a number of times). It was pretty incredible, and although after a few minutes he swam down into the depths, I was very happy. But not overjoyed. That was for later.

We began to drive back towards shore, when again the driver started squeaking. This time I didn’t even wait to say good morning, and I was in the water and swimming as fast as I could. Out of nowhere, the biggest mouth I’ve ever seen was suddenly coming right at me

But before I could even spit an “Ohmyfuck” into the water, he/she ever so slightly changed course, and we avoided a collision I might have lost. I took off after it – this one about 8 or 9 metres. It was tiring work just keeping up with it, even though it looked like it was barely moving its tail. There were 15 of us on the boat, and for the first 5 to 7 minutes, everyone stayed in sight. But before long, I turned around, and realized I was all alone, just me and the big guy, swimming in the big blue. It was one of the most peaceful moments of my entire life – swimming silently an arm’s length away from a schoolbus-sized shark for 5 whole minutes. It's hard to describe how amazing it was...It’s moments like that that you travel for, that you live for

These aren’t my pictures, but you get the idea:

Whale Sharks Rule, Stay Cool.