12/1/2011

Up early and chuffed to discover I hadn't been bitten! Then fuming to learn that there was no bloody water!

We returned to the fortress but had to walk back to the island's museum to obtain a ticket and managed to get a decent price. Attempting the little Portuguese I've picked up, we paid £4 instead of over double that the guards wanted! It was a quick but surreal experience where the deserted buildings where the warriors/soldiers used to fight overlooking the Indian Ocean. We walked along the top see all the canons still intact, the slave pit, the church, huge areas probably used for sleep or dining etc. It was interesting and good to see and know that it is still standing after hundreds of years.

We'd had enough of the island so grabbed our bags, trekked to the other end of the island and jumped on a pick-up to Monapo junction and hit the jackpot hitching a lift on the back of some guy's pick-up to Nampula! He was rapid and charged us the same as a passenger pick-up! The trip was windy but that was nice as it was still hot! We witnessed more of the memorable countryside with its vast array of green, orange, yellow and brown colours, trees, fruits and mountains and communities along the way.

We decided to stay at Monte Carlo again in Nampula so dropped our bags and went on the hunt for coach tickets to get down the country quickly and comfortably. On the way, I nearly got done by the trick that others had warned us about.

A policeman shouted to me and I felt rude to ignore so acknowledged him. When I went over, he was asking to see mine and Jack's passports. Jack showed his photocopied version and I tried to explain that we left ours at the hotel. Other travellers had told us how they try and get you to pay a fine but if you ask to go to the station, they just give up. So because the guy was saying he needed to see our passports, I was saying take us to the hotel and we'll show you, or take us to the police station and he was saying no,no,no. Some Portuguese guy stepped in and helped out and basically at the end of it, the policeman was saying we should always have passports on us (not always the case obviously) and that we should "walk away wisely".We turned our backs and walked off, half-expecting to feel a bullet penetrate our backs but despite the cop shouting, it worked.

After averting one crisis, we seemed to have another. No tickets available for bus down south for a week or so. Off we went for some food and drink at our 'better-the-devil-you-know' Indian restaurant and then stocking up on goods at Shoprite. Nearly out-of-date Aero's tasted better than ever, garlic and meat paste sarnies were filling and Zizu's crisps (Zinedine Zidane cartoon) hit the spot.

We began to assess our situation and options for getting down south and it didn't look very promising. But popping back to the ticket office proved to be very wise. £16 to Quelimane, leaving at 4am.

I wanted to take a snap of the big church before heading back at 7pm to sort out all our bits and hit the hay. I was going to put my mozzy net up but there was nothing to hang it to. Several hours later, bitten to s***, I was fuming having spent £12 for the night and not having protection which I would get at somewhere a quarter of the price!