mulanje to pemba: a variety of transportation - Guest blog by Max

Hello! Inasmuch as I've fallen far behind on all my electronic responsibilities, and I started traveling with my roommate Max two weeks ago in Malawi, the following blog entry is brough to you by Max. I'm still working on the entry about Ethiopia (the prior few weeks), so forgive the out-of-chronological orderness. Anyway, the trip has been Ethiopia, meet Max in Malawi, overland northern Mozambique, and now in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. My old stomping grounds. More soon... Now, from Max:

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ben and i arrived at mulanje, a border town on the malawi/mozambique border on tuesday morning, april 7th following an overnight trip from blantyre. the date is easy to remember because it's our new favorite holiday- women's day in mozambique. at the border we were welcomed by rowdy, boisterous, and saucy women drunk at 11:30AM. they implored us to come back to one of their homes to have lunch and we accepted. it turns out that that woman runs a restaurant out of her home- whoops. sumptuous lunch and and too many beers in, i cut myself off from the barley hops at 3; dancing all afternoon was the complementary remedy. dinner was served, and we were fast asleep on a mattress by 8.

430am out the door to walk into town and head to mocuba by public transport (this was a small lorrie, but we were offered the cab). bumpy road, one short break down and 6 hours later we arrived. at the bus station we inquired about transport to nampula- this was the long leg on the journey to the indian ocean. in the manner of minutes we found a group of guys, in a huge lorrie, who could take us. after using our spanish as broke-ass portugese to understand destination and price, we agreed- this time in the bed of the truck. after filling the bed will other passangers on the way out of town, we were on our way.

and then it started raining. hard. and the roads were horrific. about, i'd say, 10 minutes into the trip, we were soaked to the bone and our packs were water-logged seat cushions. the conditions were pretty nasty. rotten fish was the dominant scent whenever we slowed down. sometimes the group haphazardly pulled a grimey tarp over us, creating a hot, wet, fetid atmosphere underneath. about 4 hours later we stopped at a town to fill the bed with bags of corn- human and agriculture transport now. 2 hours, 2 beers, and a fiasco trying to dislodge the truck from the mud, we were back on the road. now it was dark. the rain had diminished, but the threat loomed and a chill sunk in. one silver lining was a beautiful tropical savvanah countryside illuminated by a full moon.4 more hours and then we arrived at another town. we quickly filled our stomaches and heard that there was now one spot in the cab. we looked at each other- rock paper scissors? the loser was gonna be PISSED. so, we inately implemented the sad puppy dog guilt-trip technique. layed it on real thick. next think we knew ben was on my lap in the cab. PA-REESH. 4 hours later we pulled into nampula at 3AM. good lord. 14 frickin hours. 14 hours. we were in a state of hazy distortion- fatigue, lack of shelter, damp nastiness. thank god the hotel we found was nice.

after head to ilha de mozambique the next day, we had transportation paradise from there to pemba. ridiculous. by complete dumb luck, an opportunity for a pricey (by our standards) by not unreasonable private van fell upon us. after some back and forth with the driver and hastily assembling our packs we were on the road. feet up on seats that faced each other, the only two in the entire back seat of the van with and ipod to dj with. hehe, this was a beautiful, beautiful thing. gorgeous, expansive country side, our music, a book, lounging in padded seats. oh yea, there was a sunroof! paradise really, especially after the nastiness that had proceeded it.

k, off to the beach.

word.

max