I rode into Mozambique, to the Cochemane border control post, where I paid US$12.00 for insurance, had my passport stamped in minutes, and then got customs clearance to enter the country… No sweat at all… I did not bother to change any money into the local currency (Meticais) as I hoped I would be able to use US$ to buy fuel in Tete… I decided to empty the contents of my two petrol canisters into the Big Fella’s tank here at the border, rather than in the middle of nowhere, and left the border at 10.00am, heading for Tete. I was sure that I would make it there without running out of fuel, and if I did, I would be able to “make a plan”…
With 135 km to go, I had to watch my fuel consumption carefully...
The ride there was uneventful, and I enjoyed the rural countryside, with its tiny settlements, small plots of cultivated crops, little or no traffic, and a decent road surface… I rode due east until I reached the first town of Changara, then turned north for the run to Tete, 100 km away… I crossed the Mazoe River bridge, the river below flowing strongly, people washing clothes on it’s banks, then the Mvuze River, a much shallower river, it’s bottom clearly visible through the clear water… There were many more Baobabs here than I had seen in Zimbabwe and in some places they literally grew in groves, standing only a few metres apart, some them giants, others just plain big !!
Traffic was still light as I approached Tete, but once on the outskirts of this town, the volume of cars and trucks increased, and inside Tete itself, it was the usual chaos of a typical African town, too many vehicles and too few roads… This is apparently one of the fastest growing towns in Mozambique… Apart from the natural gas which was discovered here a few years ago, and is being piped to Sasol 2 and 3 in Secunda, they have also discovered huge coal reserves and are in the process of starting up mining operations in the area…
The massive bridge over the Zambezi is being repaired and upgraded, which has resulted in huge delays on either side of the river.
The Zambezi River Bridge on the northern side of Tete...
Gulping fuel at the Galp service station in Tete...
The midday heat was like a hammer on my shoulders, despite the fact that it was cloudy in some of the areas I had ridden through… After finding the very same garage I filled up at in 2008, (purely by chance!) I refueled, drank a litre of water and headed out to do battle with the trucks, cars and hundreds of motorbikes and scooters, all desperately trying to cross over to the northern side of the bridge…
We took no prisoners, cutting in and pushing cars and smaller bikes out of the way, riding over pavements when we had to, and generally driving like a taxi from Soweto… I was over the bridge in less than five minutes, and passed a queue of cars and trucks almost four kilometers long on the northern side, all waiting their turn to cross over this magnificent bridge…
If you are driving a car and going through Tete and over the Zambezi, be prepared to spend an hour or two getting across… They are repairing the large expansion joints on the bridge, as well as erecting two enormous concrete arches on either end of it… The upgrade will not be complete for a month or more, I would think…
Baobab Seed Pods, displayed in bunches on the roadside in Mozambique...
I had noticed that a weird looking vegetable, or fruit, was being sold on the side of the road… I had a good idea of what they were, but I wanted to confirm my suspicions, as I had never seen one close up before… They were hung in bunches on large sticks to attract passing motorists, and I eventually stopped next to one the roadside displays to see what these hairy items were…
The seed pods up close...
Like most things in Africa that are sold at the side of the road, at first the owner is nowhere to be seen, but as soon as you have brought your vehicle to a stop alongside the items you are interested in, the owner will magically appear as if from nowhere… Today was no exception… I took my helmet off and before I could swing out of the saddle to inspect these “hairy testicles”… a face appeared in my side mirror, grinning from ear to ear… My Portuguese extends to half a dozen choice swear words and a few phrases that would class me as far from fluent, so explaining what these things were was a bit of a test for both of us… I eventually worked out that they were the seed pods of the mighty Baobab, and after breaking one open to show me the innards of this fruit, the seller popped a piece into his mouth and chewed it with relish… He offered me a piece, which I gingerly licked, and found it to be as tasteless as a piece of Nampak’s finest cartons… After further questioning, using a mixture of gestures and pidgin Portuguese, I established that the contents of the pods are most often boiled in water and eaten with a sauce of some kind… I declined his offer of a large bunch at a good price, gave him a handful of sweets in return for his explanations, and roared off towards Moatize…
Another one bites the dust... I have been utterly convinced that to own a truck in Africa, is not the most efficient way of making money...
From there it was a fast run to the Malawi border, crossing the wide Rovubwe River and riding through the lush green landscape of northern Mozambique… A new road had been opened, the N304, making the run to Calomue a little quicker than I had anticipated… I recalled that this section had been under construction when I had ridden through the area on my way to Vilanculos in 2008. There had been many a tricky detour, dodging heavily laden trucks heading north, who did not care a jot for the lone rider coming towards them. I spent many a hairy moment, riding through clouds of dust and flying gravel, cursing the drivers for not slowing down when they saw me… All to no avail of course…!!
This new section wound through a small range of mountains, up a steep pass, at the bottom of which, a large truck lay overturned. I stopped to chat to the guys standing around it, clicking my tongue in sympathy at their predicament, all the while thinking that had they been working for me, they would probably be nowhere in sight, heading for parts unknown, where I could not get my hands around their necks… The driver and his two assistants informed me that the brakes had failed the evening before, and they could not negotiate the final turn… I established that they “might have been going just a little too fast” as well… This admitted with sheepish smiles and the bowing of heads…
The concerned look on my face speaks volumes about the dark clouds massing ahead of me...
...and with good reason too...!!!
A short while later, just after I took the final turn for the last run to the border, I pulled over the watch a large storm brewing to the north and west of me. The road seemed to skirt the very edge of it, and I noticed that the wind was in my favour, blowing the rain away to the west, the skies in the east, a magnificent blue…
I thought of the line from Bob Dylan’s “Mozambique”…
“I’d like to spend some time in Mozambique / The sunny sky is aqua blue…”
I hoped that the road would continue to skirt the edge of the storm raging to the west... The skies to the east were clear and an amazing shade of blue...
I once again decided not to bother with the rain gear, and after handing out a few sweets to a small group of kids that had silently gathered around the bike, I pushed the starter button and headed further north… I was certain that with the fuel I had, I would be able to make the run all the way to Lilongwe, in Malawi, so decided not to spare the horses, poured on the power, and rode at a steady 140 km/h until the turnoff to Villa Ulongue, the scene of my last little “petrol outage” incident in 2008… I called Peter Kemp in Lilongwe from there, and explained that I would be at his home a little after 5.00pm… He was already on his way to the lake, and advised that his son Paul would be waiting for me at their home…
Mind at rest, (the thought of pitching a tent in their garden after today’s long ride, did not exactly fill me with a wild surge of excitement!), I eased up on the throttle and cruised into the “Fronterico de Cal0mue”, the border post between Mozambique and Malawi….
The border post on the Mozambique / Malawi
The Big Fella looks north into Malawi, while the Mozambican flag flaps in the breeze beside him...
I had my passport stamped, my Temporary Import Permit for the bike scrutinized, and then I waved on my way… Before I left, I took a picture of the bike next to the flag outside the Customs office, and was immediately accosted by a policeman, who ordered me to stop taking pictures… How was I to know that this was a sensitive military institution, it’s exact whereabouts a carefully guarded secret, where troops were massing to invade their northern neighbour… I showed him the photo on my camera, telling him it was just a bike, a pole and a flag, but he was having none of it…
A long line of trucks stood before us, and I had to manoeuvre the bike between them for a few hundred metres before the Malawian border post came into view… A flimsy pole was all that separated the two countries… There was a crowd of people making the crossing to and from Mozambique, presumably to celebrate the Easter weekend with their friends and families on the opposite side from where they lived and worked…
Anything and everything is transported on either bicycles or in this case, a scooter... These goats are very much alive...but are getting a serious "rush of blood to the head"...
Despite spending less than half a day riding through it, I had enjoyed riding through Mozambique, and had managed to dodge the heavy rain that had threatened to engulf us at times… The people who I had managed to interact with, had been friendly and inquisitive as always… With the fast improving infrastructure, access to the more remote ares in the north are opening up to tourism, and this bodes well for both the people living here and those considering an extended tour of the country… While the south is a popular destination for fishermen and divers, the northern parts have been neglected to an extent…
But all that is changing… Get on your bikes…!!!
© GBWT 2010
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