Bittersweet Victory

Dec 27, 2008
It rained off and on for three days- we got about 20 minutes of sun this morning- so it’s time to move on. We got a lift back to town and decided to split up into 2 and rendezvous at Fatima’s Nest Tofo. We devided the food, gave them the sign, then Sarah and I moved up the road. Race, I think about it a lot here. Would it be good for me to be with a guy? Or was it better for the black girl to go with another girl? Cars continued to pass us, even though so many had room for two but once again South Africans. After about 20 minutes, or so 2 Mozambiquean brothers stopped to pick us up. They’d passed up the white couple, Amanda and Cedar, so maybe it was because I was black (wink). They were on their way to see their family in the north. The car was nice and the ride was smooth even though the roads weren’t great. They chatted with us, pointed out good places to go and only made a couple of stops along the way. There were villages with thatched huts, people selling fruit, and lots of flooding which was heartbreaking. They dropped us off in Maxixe at the ferry. After haggling over the price- they tried to charge us for our backpacks but come on we know you don’t charge locals- we got on the slow as a turtle ferry across to Inhambane. Just as we stepped foot on the dock the rain started again. We pulled the tarp for the tent over our heads and walked out into the town. Sarah and I stood there for 10 minutes looking pitiful in the pouring rain but no one stopped for us...you know where they were from don’t you? Finally a couple stopped for us, she was from Namibia, and took us to where we could get a taxi out to the beach. Just as we were getting ourselves together a bus pulled up and read ‘Tofo Beach’ so we hopped on. Local, that’s how we do it.
When we arrived at the hostel Amanda and Cedar hadn’t checked in yet so we got dorm beds for the 4 of us and then walked to the market. They were selling grilled chicken on a stick and you could get beer right there as well. Chicken and beer. Back to the beach. No sign of them. Chicken and beer. Back to the beach. No sign of them. Finally we sat down to have dinner and wait for them…we were worried so it sucked all the sweetness out of our victory. Cedar’s phone was off and we had no number for them to call us at so we waited. We finished our grilled prawns, chatted with the SA family next to us who confirmed that Mozam was crazy expensive and that people from SA especially with the GP license plate will not pick you up if you are hitch hiking. Finally Amanda was dragging herself up the steps and I ran to hug her. Whew. And I thought since we were flying it’d take some of the adventure out of our trip, not so.