We all went to Macaneta this weekend. It’s about 1 ½ hours north of Maputo in a chappa and the nicest beach close to the city. (1 ½ hours must be a Mozambican estimate as it took us 6 hours.) It was hot all of last week so no-one was that worried about the weather. 8am on Saturday…grey skies, black clouds and frequent downpours! It proceeded to rain on and off pretty much solidly all weekend. Mozambique in the rain reminds me a lot of parts of England. It’s like a completely different country minus the blue skies. At least I felt fairly at home, it reminded me of North Devon on a bad day.
The transport from the ferry to the beach was a pick up truck. You had to be careful where you stepped as there was the odd chicken in a carrier bag on the floor.
The beach was nice and would be beautiful in the sun. Despite the rain, I was the first one in the sea and once you went numb, it was lovely.
As Nick wasn’t staying with the car, everyone bought food for the next day…bread. I think I ate my own body weight in slightly damp, stale bread this weekend. Having sworn off it for a while, I got home and had rice…and bread. Although Nick was a let down on the car front, he did make everyone sandwiches. I, being picky about sandwiches, had requested mine specially, cheese and cucumber, no butter and most definitely, no mayonnaise. Nick conveniently forgot to mention all the other tasty ingredients he had and so whilst everyone had very grown up sandwiches, I had my special “child’s sandwich”. It was good though.
That evening, everyone was treated to a beautiful rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Matt and I, around the fire. It’s hard to say how much they enjoyed it and conveniently, no-one seemed to have “Don’t Stop Believing”.
I don’t think the tents were designed for downpours and the puddles inside the tent were pretty sizeable by about 9pm.
By the next morning everyone’s sense of humour had disappeared a little bit and it was a fairly quiet journey home. I found it all rather comical…if you don’t laugh you might cry I suppose.
In the last chappa, about 5 minutes from home, I had my phone stolen L I had a bit of a sense of humour failure as I always always keep my phone and wallet in my bra to avoid this but as I had my iPod and my camera, there had been no room for my phone and I had my hands full of with sleeping bags! I must have taken my hand off my bag for about 2 minutes! On the plus side, it would have been much worse had it been anything else. Phones are replaceable but I’m sad I lost all my messages. It’s just a pain as now I have to try and find another one and go to Vodacom to register another sim. Oh well, as is life.
I’ll definitely go back to Macaneta when the weather gets better. Although, typically, today is warm and sunny! Tofu, which is a lot further north, about 8 hours, is next on my list I think.
The African Games start next weekend which should be interesting. At the moment, no-one knows how to get hold of tickets as nothing has been announced, in typical Mozambique fashion. I think I'll try and go see as much as possible.
Not too much other news from last week I don't think. I should be starting my original project at some point this week which will be good. I spent some time with the physio on Friday at the Infantario and so now know how to do most of the exercises with the children so will start some more of that tomorrow.
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