After the safari, we got back to the Maputo hotel and had about an hour or so to get ready for dinner. we staked out some restaurants and settled on one called Maputo Waterfront which was about a 1.5 km walk from our hotel. this would be the last night as a team. Sunday, most team members would be heading home, a couple ere heading in different directions (Cecile to go diving and Dan to head to Capetown) and the rest of us were headed toward Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
The dinner was nice, we invited the 3 Mozaic guides and had also invited Magaia from Habitat who lives in Maputo. We did our habitual walk through the very odd downtown of Maputo and arrived at the restaurant which had live music, a great menu and relatively fast service for African standards.
Dinner was great with lots of laughs,reliving memories from the last two weeks and having a really nice final night as a team. I was really impressed by this group. It is not easy to travel with a group of 20, to make sure everyone is ready on time, is open to the same things and is easygoing enough to handle all the things that can happen on this kind of build and trip: lack of materials on work sites, lack of food at times when meals are delayed or rescheduled, waiting for other team members of staff, waiting for buses and drives, and dinners to be ready and specific answers to be available.....you really have to be somewhat easy going and patient about a lot of things. we had an extremely busy schedule and had an awful large amount of early mornings including a few 5 am`s....I am pretty sure they will have to go home and sleep for a few days. Hats off to this group, they really adjusted, bonded well and was a fabulous group of people to experience Mozambique and South Africa with: some new friends and it looks like some already caught Habitatis. :)
Sunday, August 14th:
today we had planned a market visit in the morning. After a couple of wrong turns, we finally found the market. A market with crafts and other paraphernalia tucked into an older building behind an open air, fresh produce and fish market. Chelsea ran a bee-line past the somewhat smelly fish section as usual. The rest of us had a good looks at the red snappers, prawns and other interesting fish available. I had grilled calamari last night and it was delicious...seafood here is fabulous!
The market was not great...too bad. Many of us had planned to do a lot of shopping in Maputo but some of the stands weren`t open as it was Sunday and the choices were somewhat limited ...so don`t expect a ton of gifts :)
About half the team left by lunchtime or just after and we were left with our Kili group. we went to search for a laundromat but were unsuccessful...the town is pretty quiet on Sunday`s. So the rinsing in the sinks started. Things did not do well drying wise, so many of us were at it with hair dryers later in the evening. It was nice to have a slower day before catching a 7 am flight on Monday morning. Time for a nap for some, Internet visits for others, and just putting or getting caught up on journals.
We had dinner again at the Scorpion and said Good Bye to Andrea who was staying another night but was not coming to Kili with us. Bedtime at 10:30 pm in preparation for a 4:15 am hotel departure.
Maputo tidbits:
- About a million people live in this capital. Brand new large stadium built for the African games taking place in September.
- Better English than in Xai Xai but still some language issues. Hotel menu offering ``smashed potatoes`` and when Nan ordered a ``salad``, she got ``salt``
- We saw little of the city so I want to be careful offering opinions, but many streets were incredibly dirty, smelled like ``not so nice things...if you know what I mean...`` and had kids begging in the evenings, sink holes in the middle of the sidewalk which could swallow a whole person (without tape or a warning) and a very interesting mix of old and new
- Our walk to the Waterfront hotel took us along the waterfront and the Saturday night activity for locals seems to be to park the car facing the water, open all the doors and blare dance music. Funny thing is that the cars are sort of close together and play different music so it`s an interesting mix of songs and basses walking by them all. Quite the stereos, though!
Internet was broken again at hotel (hence the late blog writing). Since I was luckier early in the week for our one night at the hotel to steal someone`s wifi, we decided to give it a shot. Michelle, Nancy V and I walked all the way from the 12th floor to the floor of the hotel, holding the laptop in front of us and refreshing the network list to see if we could get a wifi connection from ANYBODY :) No such luck. Michelle and I also tried the same for a few blocks down the street, but again: not our day. Will have to wait until we get to Kili maybe.
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