Maputo, Mozambique

Welcome to Maputo, Mozambique. This capital city on the banks of the Indian Ocean is Mozambique's largest and most important city. It is a city of well over 1.5 million people and serves as the political, economic, and cultural center of the country. It is a diverse city with a strong Portuguese and Bantu cultures as well as Arab, Indian and Chinese influences. From the sea, it looks fantastic and we couldn't wait to get ashore and into a different and new country.

The port is right in the city and as soon as you leave the ship you are thrown into it's hustle and bustle as the central train station, an important architectural and historic attraction, is right outside the port gates. As impressive as the outside looks, step inside and you are in a working train station, not just a historical landmark.  We also ran into one of the many friendly people we were to see in Mozambique.

Directly across the street from the station, in a place called "Workers Park", was an important monument affectionately called the "Snake Lady". Actually dedicated to the Mozambiquean soldiers who fought in World War One, it depicts a lady a with large snake that she has killed. You can try to guess what the symbolism means, but good luck in figuring it out, not many have.

We were then off to the Central Market. As usual, a colorful, boisterous place where locals flocked to fulfill their daily needs.

Not far from the market was the City Hall Building, the Catholic Cathedral, the country is over fifty percent Christian and only thirty  percent Muslim, and a building built out of iron in 1892 by Gustav Eiffel of the tower fame. The Ferro House, as it's called, was never lived in. Can you imagine an iron house in this heat?

We had two young energetic tour guides that were eager to show us around Maputo. They spoke perfect English and are really representative of the future of this country as two-thirds of the population is under twenty-four years old. Unfortunately, average life expectancy is only to fifty-two.

Next we were off to were the people of Maputo party: the beach. Every night all facets of society meet at the many beaches to eat, drink and party. They clean them up in the day time and begin again at night. Not nearly as manicured as South African beaches, but more real in many ways. 

Then it was off to lunch at the Serena Hotel, Maputo's best. It was quite a nice place.

As we broke for lunch, I asked the guide if we were going to see where the people lived. The monuments and city center were fine, but this is a country that is one of the poorest in the world with an average annual income of $250 per person. He said he would now take us to the other side of the city. The place were he lived.

The difference was immediately visible. Here the street economy thrived. The houses were made of corrugated sheets or cement block and were very close together. There were few satellite dishes, but the streets were clean and the people seemed vibrant and without the vacant look we saw in people all over Cuba. Yet we also saw children working, cleaning one of the canals that ran along side of the road.

One of the lecturer's onboard the ship said Mozambique was on the rise. The economy was one of the fastest growing in Africa albeit from a very small base. The country had gone from Colonialism to Independence to Communism then Socialism and for the last twenty years a fairly representative government without too much corruption. There was hope. Perhaps he was right, Time will tell. We certainly saw elements of all that in our brief visit to it's capital city. 

Perhaps two pictures sum up the past and present. From Colonial times and kept in the National Museum a complete  set of elephant fetuses taken from elephants slaughtered to protect sugar cane fields. From present times, these beautiful flowers planted with hope for the future.

The animals help

It's hard to believe that we are half way through our cruise and will soon be heading east towards the Seychelles after we leave Mombassa today. I've got a lot of catching up to do, but we have two days at sea before the Seychelles. We are now entering the leisure part of the trip after visiting nine ports in twelve days and then finishing it with five ports in eight days.

So we will start with South Africa and then Mozambique and Madagascar followed by Tanzania and Kenya.

After leaving Cape Town, we spent a day at sea before our first port, New London, South Africa, which was to be followed by Durban and Richard's Bay. As I mentioned we eschewed doing anything safari oriented. Well, in New London, the only tours offered were safari or nature oriented and the independent ones all had to do with safaris, the beach, birding, hiking or some other outdoor activity. Being intrepid travelers, we were undeterred and thought we'd just hire a cab and put together our own tour. Unfortunately no taxi's were to be found at the terminal and we were left to take the ship's free shuttle to the one major attraction in town: Hemingway's Casino and shopping mall. The shuttle did drive through the town, which was unremarkable, on it's way to Hemingway's, which was even more unremarkable. That night we got to overhear excited conversations about the animals or birds people saw. We just kept to ourselves secure in our knowledge that we had gone on a real safari. That being said, clearly our first attempt at Africa without the animals did not end well.

By the way, you'll have to take our word that we really were there, we took no pictures.

On the other hand, we awoke to a beautiful sunrise as we entered into the harbor at Durban. South Africa's third largest city with a population of 3.5 million, it is the country's busiest port along with being a major tourist destination because of it's many miles of pristine beaches, warm water, great waves and extensive string of shark nets protecting swimmers and surfers alike. It also has all of the other outdoor activities that New London has, but this is a real city with a skyline and a major soccer stadium that looks like a shark's jaw from the water.

 

Durban is also a very diverse city and home to one of Africa's largest Indian populations. They were originally brought here to work in the sugar cane fields and stayed even though they were horribly exploited. It was here that Gandhi began his career as a lawyer and became an activist because of the exploitation and discrimination by the British.

Durban is also home to the Victoria Street Indian Market. It and the area surrounding it bustles with life, but with nary a white face to be seen except for the tourists in our group.

The street outside the market was home to the clothes vendors and people selling everything imaginable. Inside were the spice vendors, curio sellers, hair salons and restaurants. Pretty typical stuff and not unlike we've photographed in many other markets around the world. What they didn't do, was take us to,the meat market and when I had a few minutes to get away, I went in.

It was closing up, but there were a few still stalls open selling fish, chicken, beef and other assorted meats. While there was no discernible refrigeration, it was very clean and had no smell. I wandered around shooting until I turned a corner and saw something I had never seen before in a market: goat's head and burnt goat's head.

 

It seems these are quite the delicacy.

We then headed out for the Botanical Gardens which were established in 1849. They are an urban oasis surrounded by the city and provide a measure of relief from the concrete. One of the most interesting things we saw there was the bark of a eucalyptus tree. I thought the patterns would make an interesting print.

One other prominent thing stood out in Durban as it does in all the other cities we have visited in South Africa and that's the amount of electricfied barbed wire protecting the houses of higher income individuals. As the value of the neighborhood goes up, the layers of defense increases and it not just the typical "Armed Response" signs one sees in LA. The stuff here is pretty serious.

A good picture was hard to get from a moving vehicle, but some neighborhoods looked like armed camps. Our guide played down the need for such protection, but her words rang hollow in the face of what we were seeing here and in all the South African cuties we have visited.

After the Gardens, a drive-by of the soccer stadium, from which you can bungee jump and take a funicular type car to the top, we drove down the Golden Mile of beach front which was full of people and pretty spectacular. The outdoors and the water play a huge part in the life of South Africans who live along the Indian Ocean.

Durban proved more interesting than New London and gave us some cultural insight. Yet one saw very few white faces in town and when we asked our guide about it, she said except for business, most whites stayed in their suburbs. South Africa clearly has come a long way since apartheid fell, but it has a very long road to travel especially for the native black population.

Next it was off to Richard's Bay and our visit to Zululand. We were really pumped about going to the Shakaland Zulu Villlage given our great experience with the Maasai.

The drive to the village was about sixty miles and we went though one town that could have been anywhere in the USA complete with strip malls and McDonald's. The countryside was pretty, but nothing special and then we turned down a dirt road to the Village. Ah, authenticity at last. A chance to learn about the mighty Zulu and their legendary uniter King Shaka.

Well, the sign was the first indication that this might be all that we thought it would be. Then as we were lead through the entrance to the reception we knew it was not going to be the Masaai experience redux.

 

Shaka Zululand was actually a movie set for the 1986 mini-series, Shaka Zulu. It was about as dispirited an explanation of a proud culture as one could imagine. We learned little and everything was clearly staged and the people were just going through the motions. After a pretty good lunch, we got on the bus for the ride back with a few good shots and little else. Well we did buy four Zulu Shields that we hope will clear Customs.

The South African Indian Ocean Coast is long, diverse and beautiful. It's a place for the warm waters, beach and outdoors. We went against the grain and it didn't work as well as we would have liked. Even if you've been here before, Africa is really about the animals. There have been few experiences in our travels that have compared to being face to face with one in the wild. Anyone on this ship would tell you that as they have been doing to any and all who will listen.

 

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A Different Side of Africa

Would the pace, history, culture and diversity of African cities be sufficient enough to grab our attention, hold it and thrill us like seeing animals in the wild did? That was the question we pondered as we made our way to Cape Town. We had purposely eschewed any of the numerous options to go on game preserve tours, visit natural habitat parks or venture out of any city except for a visit to Zululand at our last port in South Africa.

We arrived in Cape Town pretty fresh considering the length of the trip. We think the two overnight flights made a big difference. I also have to plug the new Bose ear bud noise cancelling headphones. They are incredibly comfortable, have better sound canceling ability and music actually sounds better than the over the ear ones. Plus you can sleep with them in your ears. We think they are a must for anyone who spends time in an airplane

Sometimes when emerging from an airplane, often tired, blurry eyed and disoriented, you see advertising that gives you a distinct sense of place and a wake-up call that your adventure is about to begin. Other times, like in Dubai, the advertising says you could be anywhere in the world and you now have to endure the long lines at Customs and Immigration. In Cape Town, we were greeted by this elephant with Amarula written on its’ ears. Amarula is a distinctly South Africa after dinner liquor, which I love, and clearly gave us a real sense of place plus a great photo opp. Let the trip begin!

On the way into Cape Town we were quickly reminded of the income disparity in South Africa and the fact that most black South Africans still live in abject poverty as we passed mile after mile of shantytowns. These would be called favelas in Brazil, slums almost everywhere and here they are called informal settlements. They are everywhere in the country and while we saw many new homes being built to replace the settlements, it is a daunting challenge for the government and a stark reminder of how life has changed dramatically, but also stayed the same for most Blacks since the fall of Apartheid.

We were warmly welcomed at the Cape Grace Hotel and shown to our room that promised a magnificent view of Table Mountain. Unfortunately, as they say here, the table was covered and we did not see it the three days we were there. We did have a beautiful view of the boat basin as a consolation.

Our hotel was a short walk to the magnificent Victoria and Albert Waterfront, which is Cape Town’s version of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf or Baltimore’s Waterfront. It’s a lively place anchored by a large shopping center surrounded by small shops, restaurants, bars, craft markets and historical sites. We had lunch at a restaurant specializing in African food, the bobojtie was excellent, and as we left our ship was pulling into its’ berth. It was a surprise and fun to watch.

Next we boarded a Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour to get a broad overview of the City. Our last trip to Cape Town included some, but not all of the places it stopped. The tour would help fill in some gaps.

Cape Town is the second largest city in South Africa and the largest in land area. Much like Los Angeles it is very spread out. Home to 5.7 million people, it is a diverse, vibrant place, but not very photogenic unless you are shooting Table Mountain, the Bay or Beaches. The downtown is very compact and frankly, except for a few art deco and colonial structures pretty bland.

There is a ridge that you travel over to get to the beach communities and enter into a different world. The beaches are pristine, the water blue and life is very good twenty minutes from the heart of Cape Town. Like the Bay Area, you also pretty much pick the climate you want.

We had a great time in Cape Town punctuated with a fabulous dinner at Signal Restaurant which was in our hotel. Armed with some South African wines I bought at a small shop on the Waterfront we were ready to board the ship, experience a new cruise line and some hopefully exciting new ports.

 

 

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