from Mozambique to Memphis nights life is a highway
Last week started out extremely stressful...I actually stayed home from work on Tuesday just cause i couldn't and didn't want to deal with work, but the plan of going to Mozambique for the weekend totally kept me going, and it was actually so amazing and just what i needed.
Maputo is more of what i would expect of a African city, like joburg just seemed to westernized, but Maputo was....really dirty, nothing posted in English,people everywhere...it was extremely lovely.
After getting through the border a lot faster then we anticipated we headed to "Fatima's" backpackers hostel, which was absolutely the coolest place ever....I seriously could have spent the whole weekend just hanging out there, trying to get up the courage to talk to some of the other really cool looking guests.
Our First morning we got up, went and had some lovely fresh Portuguese rolls, exchanged our money and headed to the market.
I am sad to say that as far as the things the market had to offer for buying where a little disappointing.... mainly things i could have got here in south Africa and every stall seemed to have the same thing but the vibe was really cool and it was nice to walk around and watch people or watch our friend Darryl interacting with people (he's a very special guy :) ) after the market we headed across the street to a material (there is another word for what they are called but i can not recall it now) warehouse/shop and i bought far to many pretty materials and it seemed like a rather long process cause the sales guy was trying to teach me Portuguese and unfolding ever piece i expressed interest in, but i guess "while in Rome"
After shopping we went and had lunch and then we went off to the beach,at the beach it was kinda weird cause i separately felt like each of my parents, the first thing i did was walk around and collect shells and pieces of broken glass and stuff to make a mosaic/pretty thing, like my dad used to do when the tide would go out in BC. Then later i was the only one in the water (with my all my clothes on no less) and i felt like my mother....crazy. after hanging out at the beach we went for dinner and back to the hostal for a little while, after not really knowing what to do we drove around a bit and ended up at the beach.
Darryl had a good time running around looking at the tide pools and almost being kidnapped by the millions of chirping crabs, and the rest of us had a good time watching him.
The next day we went to a a place called "Katemba" (my african spelling is like my english spelling meaning not so good so thats def not spelled correctly), we had to cross from Maputo to katemba on the sketchiest looking ferry that i ever did see,and on the ferry ride back they packed like a whole country on to the boat....i would not have been surprized if we had sunk... there where so many people on the boat that we couldnt open the doors to out car.
anyway the beach at katemba was really chill, it was alot less busy that the one in maputo and yeah we just spent the day relaxing.
African police men are a little different then police you would find in north america... and i have a little story to illustrate
so we are driving along that road all peacful and happy, then suddenly and police officer with a huge AK47 walks out into the road and signals us to pull over, we where expecting this because apparently Moz police keep their eyes open for forign plates. So we are pulled over, there are three other cops with big guns standing there and the first cop circles are car looks at all of us and asks for Jon's license, he examines the license and then says "well,you" (points to darryl, who is sitting in the back seat) "have made a common mistake, you are not wearing a seatbelt" long moment of silence "thats a fine of 1000 metecals" another moment of silence and then Jon in a very angry voice is like "fine but i want a reciepe" the police man says "fine we will have to go to the police station" jon in his attitude voice says "fine lets go" then the cop suddent changes his mind and says "the fine is 1000 mets but you can apologies to me for 500" Jon barters it down to 300 and we are merrily along are way.execpt ever 5 minutes Jon remembers what happens and gets all mad...it was so funny.
except if you ask him about it now he will deny it every happened....just like he would deny how a group of them got lost up Mount Legogote for 5 hours in the dark last week.
when the internet is working better i will try and upload pictures from Mozimbique.
I just have to mention how happy I am, I have so many moments where im like "i can not believe this is my life...." Its really a unbelieavble cool feeling.
Maputo is more of what i would expect of a African city, like joburg just seemed to westernized, but Maputo was....really dirty, nothing posted in English,people everywhere...it was extremely lovely.
After getting through the border a lot faster then we anticipated we headed to "Fatima's" backpackers hostel, which was absolutely the coolest place ever....I seriously could have spent the whole weekend just hanging out there, trying to get up the courage to talk to some of the other really cool looking guests.
Our First morning we got up, went and had some lovely fresh Portuguese rolls, exchanged our money and headed to the market.
I am sad to say that as far as the things the market had to offer for buying where a little disappointing.... mainly things i could have got here in south Africa and every stall seemed to have the same thing but the vibe was really cool and it was nice to walk around and watch people or watch our friend Darryl interacting with people (he's a very special guy :) ) after the market we headed across the street to a material (there is another word for what they are called but i can not recall it now) warehouse/shop and i bought far to many pretty materials and it seemed like a rather long process cause the sales guy was trying to teach me Portuguese and unfolding ever piece i expressed interest in, but i guess "while in Rome"
After shopping we went and had lunch and then we went off to the beach,at the beach it was kinda weird cause i separately felt like each of my parents, the first thing i did was walk around and collect shells and pieces of broken glass and stuff to make a mosaic/pretty thing, like my dad used to do when the tide would go out in BC. Then later i was the only one in the water (with my all my clothes on no less) and i felt like my mother....crazy. after hanging out at the beach we went for dinner and back to the hostal for a little while, after not really knowing what to do we drove around a bit and ended up at the beach.
Darryl had a good time running around looking at the tide pools and almost being kidnapped by the millions of chirping crabs, and the rest of us had a good time watching him.
The next day we went to a a place called "Katemba" (my african spelling is like my english spelling meaning not so good so thats def not spelled correctly), we had to cross from Maputo to katemba on the sketchiest looking ferry that i ever did see,and on the ferry ride back they packed like a whole country on to the boat....i would not have been surprized if we had sunk... there where so many people on the boat that we couldnt open the doors to out car.
anyway the beach at katemba was really chill, it was alot less busy that the one in maputo and yeah we just spent the day relaxing.
African police men are a little different then police you would find in north america... and i have a little story to illustrate
so we are driving along that road all peacful and happy, then suddenly and police officer with a huge AK47 walks out into the road and signals us to pull over, we where expecting this because apparently Moz police keep their eyes open for forign plates. So we are pulled over, there are three other cops with big guns standing there and the first cop circles are car looks at all of us and asks for Jon's license, he examines the license and then says "well,you" (points to darryl, who is sitting in the back seat) "have made a common mistake, you are not wearing a seatbelt" long moment of silence "thats a fine of 1000 metecals" another moment of silence and then Jon in a very angry voice is like "fine but i want a reciepe" the police man says "fine we will have to go to the police station" jon in his attitude voice says "fine lets go" then the cop suddent changes his mind and says "the fine is 1000 mets but you can apologies to me for 500" Jon barters it down to 300 and we are merrily along are way.execpt ever 5 minutes Jon remembers what happens and gets all mad...it was so funny.
except if you ask him about it now he will deny it every happened....just like he would deny how a group of them got lost up Mount Legogote for 5 hours in the dark last week.
when the internet is working better i will try and upload pictures from Mozimbique.
I just have to mention how happy I am, I have so many moments where im like "i can not believe this is my life...." Its really a unbelieavble cool feeling.
posted by Lacey at
12:31 AM
1 Comments:
hahah that police story is hilarious!! how do you convert the money? like how much would it be in canadian do you think? i love your stories! :) i'm glad you're still loving it there!
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