Maputo, Mozambique
Today we leave on a multi-day overland tour. The tour meets at 11:30 am. This gives us time to walk into Maputo.
It was after 8 am and we decided to head out to the Maputo Market. Similar to Eastern Market on a Saturday.
The port area of Maputo was not impressive. The buildings looked like they could have been nice at one time but are no more. This was obviously a very poor area. Lots of garbage and abandoned buildings.
The market was in a large building and people were already there selling all kinds of goods. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and also hand made carved items. There were lots of little shops that sold hair items. Wigs, extensions, and the like.
There was no lack of people trying to sell you things. A man would come up to you and show you something. He would tell you how nice it is and give you a price. My answer was the same for each man. “I don’t want it”. Good price. Good price. How much you pay? Terri was much more polite but if you use “No thank you” as your response they will follow you down the street. My sister. My sister. Look what I have for you. I told one man to talk to your brother. That ended that.
The whole experience lasted about an hour. We saw many people at the market that we knew from the ship and they couldn’t get back on fast enough. We stopped here in 2022 but went right to the airport. Probably a good thing.
China is here in Mozambique also. A bridge that China built.
I took a photo of the back of the ship as we came back aboard. I drew a line to our room. The top deck is deck 9. We are on deck 6.
Maputo is the largest city in Mozambique and does have nicer areas. The airport is 5 miles from the port and is very nice. I think the stop here is more of a gateway to the many lodges that do safari’s.
We went back on the ship and packed our things for the next 5 days. It is Fall in the southern hemisphere and it is noticeably cooler. Upper 40s at night and 70s during the day.
We went up to the Lido and had some lunch and then went to meet our group. We boarded our bus for the airport. Our group consists of one male couple, 2 sisters, one single male and an unmarried couple and the male guide. 10 strong.
The airport was a short drive away and we arrived 3 hours before our flight left. Lines to check in went quite fast. There was another HAL tour that was traveling on this flight. They were going to Victoria Falls and then to a different lodge in the Kruger National Park.
The flight was one hour and when we landed, the passport control had very long lines. Probably an hour here. We met our South African tour guide. Pat grew up in South Africa and gave us a nice audio tour of Johannesburg on our way to the hotel.
We arrived at the Sandton Hotel about 7pm. It reminded me of the Hyatt in Dearborn when it was in its’ prime. Beautiful, high end hotel. Johannesburg has a population of 10 million. The area is beautiful. It is known as the city of gold because of the gold mines still in operation today.
Dinner was at 7:30. Very late for us. We learned a little about the folks in the group. The two sisters sat across from us but did little talking. One wore a University of Michigan t-shirt. I asked if she was a grad back when we loaded the bus. “No my husband is but I used to live in Michigan”. She walked away. Conversation done. I said to Terri that the sisters looked like heavy drinkers. Sure enough they were in the duty free shop buying bottles of booze at the airport.
The male couple was interesting. One left his job at Amazon to go on this cruise. He looked to be in his early 40s and was a high school dropout. His partner was on “sabbatical”. The single male is from Australia and was in his 60s. The unmarried couple appeared to have a “cruise” relationship as she was from Australia and he from California. Chris, late 20s, our male HAL guide came to dinner with a pearl necklace. “Yes they are real”, he said. This is another instance where we felt we were in the twilight zone. Life has changed so much since retirement.
Pat came over to talk to us and we were the most comfortable talking with her. She asked where we were from and when we said Michigan. The sisters in front of us looked at each other but offered nothing. I don’t think we have felt this uncomfortable with a group of people before. It seems so abnormal here to be married and have kids and grandkids. I guess I thought this tour would have attracted more married couples but the lack of space (10 was the limit) and the mysterious workings of the internet booking process may have helped produce the results that we have.
Dinner was great but the waitress really struggled taking our orders. Maybe it was her first day. Dinner ended at 10 pm and we went to our room and went to bed.
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