THE LONG HAUL
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2010
1
20
21
Trip End
Ongoing
Nampula, Nampula, Mozambique
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday 27
What a day this is African traveling oh my goodness! At 3 am we get up to catch a shappa to Imhimbane, than a ferry to Maxixe(ma-sheesh) where we hit some confusion. I don't want to get into but I just feel we were lied to but whatever. In maxixe were should have been able to catch a bus to Biera our destination. Anyways instead a cobrador told us no buses go to Biera that we have to go to the town his bus was going to Vilankulo. So we sat in his but for 3 hours than had a 3 hour ride to Vilankulo where we find out that there will be no buses until the next day. So we get a ride to this cross roads area and try to hitch but there was a bus going to Biera and finally at 1030 pm we get into Biera and grab a taxi to our hotel. There are not hostels in Beira so we stayed at cheap called Hotel Infanti. The room was the same price as the private rooms in inhimbane. Got in checked in at crashed!
Sunday 28
We wanted to book a luxury bus to Nampula with a company TCO because it is a 16 hour drive and they offer roomy seats and tvs. Anyways we went to the office and everything was booked until Friday and Rebekah had to be back in her village by December 1st. So we thought we were goint to have to hitch and ride in 5 different shappas but we found this bus called Nampula express and it seemed it would be nice but not luxury good and we booked it for Monday. looks can be deceiving
Monday 29,
so Nampula Express was the most filthy and longest bus ride in the history. Rebekah said she had ridden long rides in the back of a truck and never gotten so dirty. By the time it was over we had dirt everywhere we looked scary. See in regular Shappa's the driver and cobradore want there bus to last as long as possible so they keep them clean and they slow down for bumps, not the case for this bus, the drive went over bumps and breakneck speed and everyone was being thrown around. The kids were loving it but 2 hours of that is to much. Anyways even though he was going so fast we got in 3 hours behind schedule, the last hour was torture because Rebekah and I were getting cabin fever plus the cobradore said we'd stop for food but we never did so all we had the whole day was soda pop sold by the side of the road. The people on the bus were very nice, this one lady who we played with her baby bought us frozen cool-aid in little bags. I didn't want to take it because its made with untreated water but I couldn't say no because it was so kind of her to do that. I have to say the bus was horrible but all the people on the bus were so nice and fun. So after the bus ride we got a taxi and went to a nice hotel with air conditioning called Hotel Lurio it was about the price of a motel in the US but it was much nicer. We checked in and looked at ourselves in the mirror. It was worse than expected my shirt had seriously turned brown so showers and ac it was heaven after our day.
