Balama - The Start of the Bush Trip

It’s early in the morning, I’m outside looking around and enjoying the scenery, excited and cold.  The feeling is familiar, and all of a sudden I’m back in 2nd grade waiting on the corner for my bus to arrive.  My lunch box and supplies are packed away in my book bag, and as usual, I’m underdressed for the surprisingly cold weather.  No matter, I’m still happy to be young and carefree.  Flash forward 20 years, and I’m back in my body again.  Back to reality.  The reality is that although I'm still cold, my backpack now weighs close to 40 pounds, and I'm far from the smooth streets and yellow schools buses of Bethesda.  We’re just outside of Balama, where there isn’t a paved road for nearly 100 kilometers in any direction.  Only dirt.  I’m standing under a blossoming mango tree, who’s sweet but subtle fragrance whofts through my nose as again I wait for a ride.  My lunchbox is now a variety of plastic bags holding a small stock of fruits, some bread and some homemade peanut butter we made the night before. It’s all we’ve got, but it’s more than enough to keep our stomachs satisfied as we begin an adventure traversing what I’ve been told is one of the more matu (read: backwoods) roads in all of Mozambique.  Our goal is Marrupa, in the province of Niassa, and we’re praying that we’ll make it in one day. 

We set out early, uncertain of what we’ll encounter in terms of a ride, but still excited to see what we are getting ourselves into.  We start walking west, in the direction of Niassa, and then after a few kilometers, we rest.  After a peanut butter and banana sandwich, we start walking again.  The air is crisp and the scenery is breathtaking.  Cabo Delgado’s tallest mountain appears in the distance as we pass by fields of tall grass helplessly swaying in the wind.  We pass rivers, small ponds, and all sorts of colorful flora as we venture further and further into the bush.  Minutes pass like seconds, and it feels like no time at all has past when we finally catch a break after about an hour and a half of walking.

Our break came in the form of two large 18-Wheelers loaded up with bags of cement and headed into Niassa along the infamous dirt road.  Each truck was being driven by a Chinese man who spoke little to no Portuguese and looked like he was from an equally matu part of China.  Fortunately for us, their cabins were empty and they were feeling generous, so Anna and I hopped into the second truck.

After a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and nearly 6 hours of never going over 30 kilometers per hour, we got dropped off about 30km from Marrupa.  This was the end of the road for our new foreign friends.  We said our goodbyes (or tried to), and then started walking again.  After just a little while, we end up getting picked up by some more Chinese roads guys in a really nice range rover, but this time group was a bunch of engineers. They gladly moved some stuff around so that we could squeeze into the bench seat with them.  As we drove, they gave us a tour of their newly constructed road that was in the midst of being paved.  The progress they were making was outstanding.  Work crews out in full force, active machinery, supplies, direction and results.  It was quite the difference from what we encountered on the other side.  During the ride, I learned from the driver that his company had been contracted to build and pave the road between Marrupa and the border with Cabo Delgado. The government has long wanted to build and east-west road across the two provinces in order to connect Lichinga, the largest city in Niassa, to Pemba, the largest city and closet port.  The Chinese company was about a month away from completing their portion of the assignment, while the Italian Engineering firm that was hired to do the same thing on the other side between Montepuez and the border of Niassa hadn’t even started.  The Cabo Delgado portion of the road was still nothing more than dirt and sand flanked by tall grass. 

The engineers took us all the way to the Marrupa Airport where they lived about 7k outside of town. So again, we resorted to walking.  Along the way, we talked with a Mozambican laborer who worked with the Chinese Crew.  He told us about his job and how his day started at 5am and went until 5pm.  For his efforts he was paid a nominal fee between 3000-4000 Meticais per month ($100-$130). 

We walked a little more before catching a boleia in the back of a National Power Company Pick-Up Truck into town.  That’s when we caught our first glimpse of the city.  Marrupa is a gorgeous and mysterious oasis perched on top of a long hill with bairros (neighborhoods) crawling down the sides. The main street is paved and lined with street lamps.  The city’s clean and the buildings aren’t falling apart at the seams.  The first time you pass through, you almost forget that you’re in Mozambique. 

To conclude an exhausting day of traveling, we found a pensão, explored a little bit, satiated Anna's capulana craving, found a restaurant, ate, and then went to bed in preparation for a very early morning chapa ride to Cuamba.

Here are some picture of the first leg of the Journey.


Balama:

We started walking out of town one day to try and climb a mountain and slowly, over the course of the four hours we walked our group expanded exponentially until we have an army of like 25 criancas haning off of us.

The Sunset off of Raf's Veranda.

Making Peanut Butter Raf's way.  Roast the peanuts, peel the peanuts, smash the peanuts and add some sugar, salt and cinnamon.  The whole process is easier if you make kids do it for you. It's not child labor if you make a game out of it and pay them in Peanut Butter.

Leaving Balama:

The Road from Balama towards Niassa.

Walking out of Balama...

Catching our Boleia in the Chinese Guy's 18-Wheeler.  This is the view along the way.

Whomp, whomp.  Getting a flat Tire in the middle of no-where.

Back at it after a quick repair.  Still running through cabo.

Leaving the District of Balama, the last district in Cabo Delgado before the boarder with Niassa.  Next Year there is supposed to be a huge bridge here. Me?  I'm not so optimistic about that happening... An Italian Engineering Firm was contracted to do it.  And also they are supposed to pave the road up until Montepuez. But apparently, they aren't doing anything because nobody's paying them.

Our first glimpse of Niassa and we're slapped in the face with a huge infrastructure project.  The provincial government is building horizontal highway across the entire province of Niassa in an attempt to connect Lake Malawi with the Indian Ocean.  The section of road between Marrupa and the border with Cabo Delgado is being built by a Chinese Engineering Firm.  This road will be paved the following week and the road will be open before the rainy season comes in November.  This, I'm way more optimistic about.

New road off to the right.  Can't drive on it because they put big branches on it. Some nice scenery too.

Looking Victorian in the back of a pick-up truck on the way to Marrupa.

Next day on the Chapa ride from Marrupa to Cuamba.  We lucked out and managed to get the two seats inside the cabin of a 3am open-back chapa.  6 hours later, we were in Cuamba. We used Cuamba as a hub for the night, visiting some of our Colleagues who are stationed at a university for primary school teachers.  We left Cuamba early the next morning with Malawi in mind as our destination.  A private chapa took us to Mandimba, a sketchy border town and our entry port into Malawi.  We actually have a colleague who lives there too, so we stopped in to see her.  At her house we ran into Matt, who lives in northern Niassa.  Ten minutes later, we had a third member of our party heading into Malawi. Getting the 7km from Mandimba to the Border was a trip in itself.

Mandimba has an entire industry that's pretty unique to it's location: Bike Taxi's.  Ton's of men, young and old, earn their living putting people on the backs of their bikes and taking them to the border in style, sort of.  It's pretty awesome.

Matt told the taxi driver that he wanted to drive, so this guy got paid to take his own taxi.  Matt did a hell of a job, the last 4 km's are up a huge hill.

Malawi.............