After accepting that we have unceremoniously lost our compatriots at Nampula, we kept going west at Nampula only to be immediately treated to a gravel road where we were expecting a tarred road. mmmm
The road was good in most parts, but intermittent huge potholes made the going tough and stressful.
The road was very beautiful though. 
(Hannes, you were right, it is simple.)
Driving on I decided that we should overnight at the only indicated camp site on the whole route, as it was getting late. The campsite came and went, nothing. We had to drive on to Cuamba. I was not pleased.
The road conditions caused me to have both the front wheels airborne at 3 separate occasions. Not good. (Adri, never before was I as happy about upgrading the front suspension).
Very tired and stressed out we arrived in Cuamba at around 1900 in the dark. We had covered 529 km in 10 hour 50 min, average 49km an hour. Not fun.
Hello Hotel Vision 2000 is indeed a vision of sorts (at an exorbitant US$75 for a room). You can tell this by the way it is described in the Lonely Planet. Not so much by what they say, but rather by what they do not say. ;-) Anyway, starved for choice this was home for the night.
We had dinner in the local restaurant where I thought my luck was about to change when I found a bottle of Nerderburg Cab 2003 for a decent price. You often hear about this sort of thing in small towns where it is assumed that people do not have a clue of what wine is worth. Very excited, I ordered the bottle in a storm of hand waving, as my Portuguese at this point was worse than when we started. Needless to say the wine was BAD, due to lots of oxygenation. I drank it anyway, together with a rather good grilled chicken.
Attempting to shower brought another challenge. The hotel does not have geysers, they use these curious point of use heating shower heads, which nerve rackingly requires power right in the shower with you. Our shower kept tripping. mmmm
The picture does not show it properly but:
The connections are bare and the earth is not connected!
That means we were tripping on over-current, never mind earth leakage. Scary sh#$%^&t!
I suppose I should be glad the switch tripped at all.
We showered in another room. Sleep was easy to come by.
View of our bus from the hotel room.
View of the “eastern wing” of Hotel Vision 2000 from our balcony.
We wasted little time leaving Cuamba, quite certain that we will not be back soon…Cuamba is a junction town.
Happily the road from Cuamba north (once we crossed the Niassa province border as it is a primary artery into the Province whilst being only a ‘minor’ road for the Nampula district) is much, much better. We stopped for coffee and a snack for breakfast.
We arrived back at the same border crossing we used to get into Mozambique. It was the easiest crossing to date and things were looking up.
My view of the crossing while waiting for Mari-Louise to get the papers sorted.
We arrived at Nkopola Lodge, on the lower west Malawi lake, to be welcomed to a fantastic camp and view.
Me, blogging away.
Mari-Louise, taking the chance to rinse out clothes (an effort which abruptly stopped once we found out about the laundry service)
Lake view from our spot.
Mozambique roundup:
I include this overview map to bring things together somewhat. We effectively started in the south of the lake and entered Mozambique going north. We then headed east to Pemba, south to Ilha de Mozambique and west again ending up where we started. One BIG loop, clockwise.
Overall my memories are positive. Negatives include a large communication barrier and really bad roads. Positives include some truly beautiful scenes and 2M (the local beer!).
ciao, Carl-Hein
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment