11/1/2011

Jack's 23rd birthday.

Early rise before saying our thanks and goodbyes and leaving for Ilha de Mocambique (Island of Mozambique). Ian gave me my temporary diving card (and in the picture I look like a terrorist) and dropped us at the bus depot.

Then we were back to it.

Bloody Mozambicans. They lie! Ian asked the guy and he said 140 to Ilha and we ended up paying 150! I don't care about the 20p it's just the principal, and all the locals pay a cut less! Just because we're white - now who's being racist?! Haha

If that wasn't annoying enough, the hour-and-a-wait before we took off, was.

Crammed again and sweating cobs, I don't think this was the birthday party Jack had hoped for but I did try and make it better by buying us some nutty-flapjack things and some lemon biscuits (about 80p in total).

The bus got us to Monapo, where we had to get another pick-up to Ilha which we had no clue about until they kicked us off! That's twice we've been stitched by conductors that organise the transport and then don't get on it!

On these trips though, you do get a taste of the culture or more literally sometimes the food. On this trip, a big 'G' looking local gave me some of his food that he had bought off a roadside and I'd been eyeing up. It was a delicious potato-starchy like stick with a chilli powder-sauce on.

After a painful five hours of waiting and travelling we arrived at the road to the island. Bizarrely, locals were s***ting on the beach. Unable to believe my eyes, blokes were just whipping their kacks down and squatting on the sand a few hundred yards out.

Now to us, it was pretty rank, especially if you go swimming in that! But to these guys, it's great because they don't need a toilet and the sea will wash it away. I dread to think what they do without wiping though….

The tide goes out so far it's a really long beach so these dirty b*****s do go and do it a bit out there but still, come on boys?!

The island itself was odd. At the one end it's full of shacks and markets but down the one end it's more historical with run-down buildings and hotels and restaurants. However, up this way, it was more like a ghost town.

All the buildings were all falling apart (or already had) and some even had trees and vines growing out of or through the walls (but this did look cool).

We dropped our bags at Ruby's backpackers and went for a walk, trying to get into the fortress (castle-like defence area). The guard wanted a crazy amount of money so we turned around!

This is where it all started for Mozambique, with the Portuguese settlers coming over and that. I don't know a great deal about it but it was interesting to see. It was clear how this country had been ravaged by war. So many people had told us to come and check out the buildings and that but so far, quite frankly, this place had failed to impress me.

After a long walk searching for food and drink that 'Vasco' had told us to visit, we had found b***** all. Starting to get restless, we luckily stumbled into Marimba's where some people from our hostel were enjoying some food. Jack fell in love with the ignorant, pig-faced, miserable, fat, local waitress, but we just laughed about it and enjoyed the egg and chips, coke and fanta!

Had a Spar-letta raspberry earlier and the kid at the stool thought he could get away without giving me his change when I gave him a 100 when it cost 40! No chance mate!

The showers at the dorms were in the same cubicle as the toilet, and as bad as it sounds, it was alright. Apart from if you wanted to go to the toilet after because the floor and everything would still be a tad wet!

£8-a-night was a bit expensive for the dorms and considering the service was s*** and non-existent, we managed to have a few drinks and they didn't even chase us up for them. Mangoes off the street were delicious and even though the 10p price we paid was astronomical here, we thought, well, you'd pay about £1 at home!

I beat Jack at Boa and then took him on date to restaurant pretty much full of white people. Some little local kid had spoken to us on the way and came and sat with us for the whole meal, hardly even saying a word! God knows why he persisted, he didn't ask for money but he made our meal a bit awkward with people looking at us as if to say why the hell do you have a ten-year-old black kid sitting with you? If that wasn't weird enough, when Jack was on his phone to home, I just looked like a right dodgy geezer! The Dutch guy and his Portuguese lady from the backpackers were eating with their friends and I got chatting to him again. He spoke to the little kid who sold some lies about his friends bullying him (though they were shouting him outside and he was smiling and chatting to them), and that his Mom had died in the day! Asked how she died, all he could say was: "It was her time." Well, we didn't believe any of it. I chatted to him and was nice to him but he was having none of my hard-tesco-earned money.

So me and Jack enjoyed prawn balls in sweet and sour sauce, mango-lemon and brandy cocktails, big chicken pizzas and chocolate cake and tiramisu for dessert. Yep, we looked like proper pufters, but the food and drink was lekker! And surprisingly the damage didn't exceed £20!

We popped back to the backpackers before going for a drink at the internet-bar and sitting on the roof watching the stars. Before this gets a little bit queer, we were joined by the Portuguese guy and his bird. They made for a good conversation whilst we listened to some tunes on the open-roof bar and watching the fruit bats flying around. We did the same back at our backpackers and it was pretty cool as we haven't found any bars like that yet. Not going to be his best birthday ever, but at least he will remember it.