Mozambique: Guns, Hoes, and Books

First things first let's set the scene for my fall break here in Africa:
The Legend of Sean
When we first arrived here in Cape Town in January, there were several people constantly in and out of our house who seemed to be working for the landlord, but one guy in particular caught our attention. this guy sean seemed to have absolutely no responsibilities, we really only saw him at social events (i.e. the bar), then one day we went with the landlords company to go hiking, perhaps you remember, the caves. Well we were all introducing ourselves, most people were going to UCT, but then one girl was just like "oh hi I'm kate, I'm sean's intern" This guy has an intern??? So then we begin to wonder even more about sean, eventually it comes out that he owns the houses we rent. fair enough, he's 28 a college dropout and owns 6 houses, good for him, then we later find out that he owns a scuba diving school and a company that provides Americans internships in cape town. fantastic, really cool guy, successful, good for him, but then one day we find out the real kicker: he lives with his parents!!! Perfect. so needless to say when we find out that he is running a trip to mozambique and swaziland in a big bus (and not one of those ridiculous overland oversized SUV's) with 50 american, german, norweigan, south african and french students and interns it was love at first sight tom and I were bound to go.
The Trip:
the first thing i can say about this trip was I should have looked more closely at the tickets that tom bought us for johannesburg, 1-Time Airlines is not something I would have gone for looking back on it. We get to the airport in Capetown, and we are supposed to be in jo'burg by 11 at night which means our flight needs to leave at 8:30 latest, luckily we booked one at 745, no biggie. well one thing that no one tells you about the cape town airport until you get there is that it works on a rotational basis, now i have absolutely no idea what that means but I rather imagine that all the pilots are in the back room somewhere playing cards and whoever wins each round gets to go and takeoff. well let me just say that the 1-time pilot doesn't have much of a poker face because we were a solid 2 and a half hours late taking off, watching other flights to jo'burg leave only slightly late because there pilots got better hands. we finally arrive and meet up with the group, let the vacation begin.
should have known from the start what kind of crazy ride this was going to be, an all night bus ride to maputo the capitol of mozambique?? we get on the bus and the first thing i notice is there is one thing definitely missing, a bathroom. "Okay everybody welcome to the moz trip 2008, now we don't have a bathroom on this bus, so everyone has one emergency piss stop for the trip, and other than that you must have a group of five guys or 3 girls to stop the bus." "the sean" has spoken and the rules are in place. we soon learn from the first stop what is meant by a pee stop, a pull over on the side of an african highway, peeing into the tall grass. it was about 4 in the morning when we came upon our first incident, ever seen one of those awnings for cars to pull under to keep cool??? well we accidentally backed into one of those (mind you we did have 2 professional drivers just to clarify) but that wasn't really a big deal, however when we drove forward it actually ripped the entire back window out. an interesting turn of events to say the least. we went with the quick fix option of putting about 4 surfboards against the hole to block most of the air coming in, but for the rest of the trip we had to fully unload the bus each stop as we had real trouble locking the doors after that.
That morning we arrived at the mozambique border, where we had been warned of having to wait for several hours at the border. what was not really described for us was what the mozambique border would be like, in fact i don't know if it is possible to describe it, I think one of the more interesting aspects about it was that whereas we had been on paved roads the entire time and indeed would be as soon as we got a bit past the border, the crossing itself was totally dirt, I had never seen so many interesting things crossing a border either, a man walking a cow across (actually there was quite a few of those), people pushing cars across, trucks chock full of fresh spices and herbs, what else. it was about this time that we were told we physically had to leave the bus and leave south Africa (i.e. paperwork) and walk to mozambique (i.e. paperwork) and that then we could reboard the bus. well after making our way through a maze of abandoned cars, alleyways between shacks and numerous trash heaps (funny enough there were no signs of any kind here) we arrived at a rather large shed, or perhaps garage is more appropriate, where we waited for about 2 hours for the visas to be filed (in a filing cabinet, don't think for a second about computers). finally we get back on pavement, pass the no-mans land between the official border between the two countries (I now being a connoisseur of razor wire and security must say they really do a fine job there, and the landmines are really a nice addition, they really tie the border together) AND WE ARE IN MOZAMBIQUE!!!!! just another short 6 hours on the bus and we're ... oh wait i nearly forgot there was another incident, someone i won't name names because it is rather embarrassingly dumb really had to pee, and boy when the next pee break come, he just hopped out of the bus and ran to relieve himself, he thought he felt some thing strange but his mind was rather on other pressing matters, when he finally looked to see why his foot rather hurt he realized he had cut it on a broken bottle grass. boy am i glad i'm not that guy, not only did he have to deal with the cut, but everyone kept coming up to him and saying "boy ell you'd better keep that cut clean, last year i had one on the trip and my foot swelled up to the size of a football." or "I think i'm gonna call you a doctor for that cut when we get to maputo, don't want to take any risks" just what i wanted to hear. so foot elevated (it really in the end was a very minor cut) we arrived in the capitol city, Maputo. The first thing I noticed about Maputo besides how sketchy and interesting it was, was that literally every single street was named after a communist socialist or at least far left ruler, president, revolutionary or dictator. Mao road intersected engels ave, frelimo (the leftist ruling party in Mozambique) drive with lenin lane etc. that night we went to a brazilian bar for dinner and drinks, the most interesting thing about this bar was that they were soccer freaks "ellery, there is nothing strange about a brazilian bar being really into soccer, it's there national pastime, if they weren't it would be weird" true, you are right about that, but what was weird was that they were huge ITALIAN soccer fans, everywhere were flags of Serie A and the national team. The next day we went around the city in our windowless bus, stopping in the market, where i was talked into buying many silly things i don't need by a lot of "friends" who gave me a "special price". then we went to the very famous Maputo fish market where you go through the market and buy a fish of your liking and then go to the restaurant where they cook it for you, it was amazing, so fresh and delicious, maybe the best fish i've ever eaten, but i was going to be saying that quite a bit on this trip.one thing that was new to me at these hostels we stayed at was the mosquito netting, i don't know if you've ever slept in mosquito netting but it is one of the most frustrating things, it's always caught somewhere, or a limb of yours has found it's way out and is eaten alive by morning, i think i'll be getting malaria anyday now. It was decided at some point that it would be much better to once again drive a midnight bus trip to get one more day in tofo (amusingly pronounced tofu) it was grueling but worth it we drove all night, where tom and i discovered the art of sleeping in the aisles of the bus, for maximum comfort, which tom very rightly described as "similar to when george costanza sleeps under his desk at work." when we got to tofo we checked into our thatched huts and headed to the bathwater that is the indian ocean, nothing quite as refreshing after an all day bus ride than a sunset dip.
About our hostel at tofo:
there were several amusing points about it, the saltwater was clearer than the rest of the water which was a rather gross brown color, the bar called bamboozi had literally no money the entire time we were there, even with 50 students giving them money all day and night they seemed to never have any change, so they created their own currency, bamboozi bucks, which was just a scrap of paper that had a number written on it, as in the amount owed to you and a signature, i think this is how currency actually started out isn't it? As I said they had disgusting brown water here, probably with cholera already mixed in (there had been a typhoon a few weeks ago which had flooded the place creating a bit of an outbreak) but the bar, the only food supply within 15 minute walk down the beach, had no water, the first day they had about 25 bottles, then 2 days later they got about 40 more, but these were both gone within a matter of hours. besides that small inconvenience it was heaven, a small town within walking distance on the beach where you could go to get amazing street food, like fresh fish, barracuda samosas, or to barter your shorts for some wood carvings. one of seans employees took me and a couple others to go get our hair braided outside of town, away from the common scene, into the real thatched huts, and we spent the day with these wonderful people who braided our hair for about 2 dollars apiece (they made custom pants for 6). by the fourth morning it had become apparent that I was either the worlds greatest mosquito attractor or I had bed bugs, genetically mutated unstoppable bedbugs, and judging from the mattress i was sleeping on it seemed the latter was the most logical. I'd never had bed bugs, so it was kind of a new and exciting if not disgusting experience.
After 5 days well spent on the beaches and village of tofo, we left again at 1am for Swaziland, which luckily was only a cool 12 hours away, did i mention that for all of these bus rides, there were no food stops, we might hit a convenience store if you were lucky but for the most part it was just pee stops on the side of the highway. now i did say it was just a cool 12 hours, but our bus was quickly dying, to get to tofo we had had to off road for about a half hour, which is not easy in a greyhound. in swazi we were simply crawling up hills slower than cyclists, and then when we finally got to the town 17 hours later we had to take the bus down a road which can only be described as not a road. but we made it to paradise number two. We were only in swaziland for a day and a half but it was possibly even more amazing than tofo, we went on a safari, we went off roading in something other than a bus, there were bonfires, and nick (sean's friend who had taken me for the braids) and myself snuck off and found a genuine swazi village, not like the one they offer you as a tour, and we hung out there with the people for quite a while, the food here was also some of the best of the trip, amazing beef stew, wonderful chicken, and traditional swazi gruel, which is the wrong word but the right one escapes me, for breakfast. finally it all came to an end as we cruised back to jo'burg in our windowless, squeaking, bathroomless bus and flew 1-time back to Cape Town. perfect. el
oh and the title??? the mozambique flag's crest is a cross of a hoe and a ak-47 with a book behind it. what could be more appropriate.