Mozambique, 24 October 2018

Today we had our first bad experience and that was at the border in Mozambique. The day started out well and nicely. We were up early and were well before 8 o’clock at the border. The South African part went fine and fast. Without much fuss we got exit stamps and we could drive to Mozambique. There we were stopped several times and at one point the car had to be parked on the side . A young guy led us to an office and then to the visa desk. That took a moment because the device was broken but after an hour or so we had our visa. Afterwards the hell broke loose just about. Papers were completed for the car (costed 4000 MTK, about 60 euros), someone went to the counter (again 3000 MTK), then there were 20 men around us and we were finally drove away.

At the real border we were detained and we were asked what we had paid. And then I had to get out of the car, all the way back with two soldiers, armed and ready, and then I understood it, they wanted to secure their part.

After checking all our money there was another 10000 Mtk disappeared and I have never seen how and when. All in all, the border crossing cost 19000 MTK of which 2000 MTK (third party insurance) was normal.

Now we are reasonably experienced travellers but we had never seen this before. Especially if you are stopped by someone on the border, you still expect it to have a function there, right? Well that 7000 Mtk I can still be OK with (they have worked for it) but that you are also just being robbed without noticing…. pffff

Mozambique started not well. Then the road was very boring until Maputo. What an incredible mess that is. Fortunately, there was a road signs of where to go, but it was very slow. Then we drove the EN1 towards Xai-Xai, about 200 km North. It seemed like the road never came out of the city limits. Everywhere there are houses and people are on the road. The maximum speed is often 60 km/h, sometimes 80. Every 10 km a police station but we were allowed to drive through.

In Xai-Xai we searched for a camp site but the one that Lisa wanted was still 5 km over the beach driving through very loose sand. Now that car could do that but his driver was pretty tired after 8 hours of driving and quite a bit of stress. So we are sitting now at a nasty town campground, but next to the sea.

Tomorrow we will first withdraw money and then I’ll check if I can pay the diesel here with credit card. O yes, we do have internet, our only success at the border.