Mozambique - untold stories and almost factual knowledge for those who want to try their luck

Let’s cut to the chase. There are stories that I haven’t been sharing as I was travelling through Mozambique. I had a feeling that I should tell them only once I am out, just in case, in order not to push my luck too far. Here’s a portion of almost factual knowledge, for those who might want to try their luck and travel to this magnificent land afar. 

Transportation 

This is by all means your most hazardous friend. It will make you forget about mosquitoes, parasites and insurance policy.

Chapas  - chicken buses

You’ll be told that in order to be safe you need to look at the chapa tires prior to entering the hazardous vehicle. Here’s why I find this advice completely useless.  You’ll see broken windows (including the front ones), seats that are not really attached to the floor (including the front ones), traces of many accidents literally everywhere and permanent overload of passengers and cargo (they should carry 9 people, whilst they wouldn’t leave, shan’t they have anything between 16 and 25 people plus cargo that comes along). Oh, drivers are usually underaged. If sober. It’s cheap and you’ll eventually get there. Nobody will guarantee you’ll be alive.

Big buses (machibombos)

Unless bribed, they rarely take extra human cargo. They have airco that doesn’t work, less space that you need - but more than in the chapa state of squeeze. They are slightly more expensive and they won’t stop every ten minutes unloading the cargo every time they do, hence, they’ll be where you need to be much earlier. The problem is - they only cover main roads and junctions.  Since they are in better technical condition they will be speeding like maniacs. They won’t, however, stop if you want to pee.

Planes

Ridiculously inadequate prices. Customer service doesn’t work. Reservation system doesn’t work. If you think you can scan code from your silver iphone you are very mistaken. Most of the population does not have a smartphone here, and therefore services would be, if at all, tailored to Nokia 9210. As if high prices were not enough (flight to Asia from Europe would cost you less that some inland flights in Mozambique), airline will search for further cost optimization by doing less maintenance of their own planes and randomly cancelling flights if they won’t get busy enough.

Distances

The distances are gargantuan. Travelling the 900km will take you as long as three to four days if you are travelling with public transport. For that matter, 120km could also take you exact same amount of time. When means of transportation merge with road condition and distances, you’ll  probably won’t end up saying: it wasn’t that bad.

 Roads

You have three types of roads: okeish asphalt roads, leftovers of once okeish roads (once built they might never be maintained), bumpy dirt roads and no roads. You’ll crawl mentally through every kilometer and every minute, as they will be turning into eternity and forming a zombie of dead hopes for your prompt arrival.

Police harassment

They will constantly ask you for your passport and will take every opportunity to search through the vehicle or the luggage. They will stop you every 30 km and make your journey even more unpleasant. Every village has money hungry lieutenants.  Oh, they really like to show their guns to you.  My tactic was to keep smiling, play dumb and give away my ID, so that in case there is a problem with me not paying for having it back, I will not suffer the loss of major documents.

Corruption

Here’s the reason why roads are not build or maintained. Here’s the reason why chapa drivers pay bribe every day to 5-10 officials (anyone who’d stop them on the road really), rather than having money to have their car properly fixed. They give away 50% of their daily profit to police, rest goes away for fuel and chapa boy (the guy who screams and packs people in). They are left with 3-4 dollars for 15 hours drive. You can imagine why people’s safety is not really a concern for anyone here.   

Crime

From small muggers, through chapa-machibombo vendors who’d grab any loose items you’ll display, to house brake-ins. It is there. 

Owner of one of the places I stayed in, has been robbed every single year in her house. After the second time, they found out who is responsible (obviously, it is not very difficult to do so). The husband, real vendetta style,  would capture the thief, tie him up to a mango tree, and let  the whole village beat him up to serve justice. Jail is not really scary for anyone, since they will let you out soon enough, as there is no money to keep people in anyhow. Next year, however, the same guy, in his ill driven profit cravings, would return and rob them while they were asleep. In their house. With kids present. Thieves would hung the house guard on the tree branch. They took everything. Now, The Lady believes that there was a spell involved. Surely. They managed to take the passport from underneath her pillow, they took almost all belongings and nobody woke up?

Her way of bringing back the safety was to clear the place out of the dark magic.  The husband, meanwhile,  decided to stop the guy from such a continuous crime bend and cut his hands off. He got the police paper with confirmation that the thief is his, and  as long as the villain is not dead he may do as he pleases.

You might be careful when you pick your sunset cruises, dolphin tours and paradise island boat trips. The cheaper ones might be used as a cover ups - their main source of income is smuggling drugs. Guess how I found out.

Political unrest

RENAMO is still active. Local conflicts would still be solved in armed way. The may­­­­­or of Nampula (one of the northern provinces) has been shot 3 weeks ago. He was the one who was trying to brake the corrupted chain. After that political unrest has been rising in Cabo Delgado province. Civilians would die.

Would I go back? I’m not sure. I’d certainly think twice before doing that.

What’s the best way of having it the other way?

Buy plane ticket. Fly everywhere. Have people carrying your stuff. Go to the concrete resort by the beach. Enjoy the paradise.