Posing for the picture, Baixa District, Maputo
Back in 2012 Heidi thought this was the toughest country she had ever traveled. Transport is excruciatingly painful, busses and chapas are packed to the rim, with music blasting all through the night. And, Mozambique is an expensive country to travel! This shows with entering the country, when tourists have to dish out 80 Euros for a visa. Simple rooms go for minimum 40 Euro and food is not cheap either.
Another thing that really bothered us was the obvious corruption. Our bus from Maputo to Tofo was stopped six times, five times the driver passed his paper through the window with a folded banknote inside. Sitting behind the driver we watched up close and could not remember any other country on earth we traveled where this was going on so blatantly!
This is why we cut our trip short and headed straight for Malawi. On our final leg, the trip from Tete to the Malawian border Mozambique did not disappoint us… Stuffed like sardines in a completely overloaded chapa (25 people were in this 15 seater), we endured thumping music, repeated longish stop at police check-points and other pains. A big iron bolt sticking out from Heidi’s seat (she was sharing it with a lady) number her hips after a while… To finish off, the immigration officer sent Heidi back to the end of the line because she had used two different colored pens filling out the tiny form. With this we walked out of the country without any regrets for having to leave.
Mozambique is certainly a great destination if you fly into a place like Tofo or Archaepelo Bazarate, settle in a nice guesthouse, go scuba diving for two weeks and return home with sweet memories of white sandy beaches. It is a rough backpacking destination, at least that is what we concluded after two trips.
Praia de Tofo, Tofo
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