I'm awoken at 05:30 by Steve as this is the day that we are off to Mozambique...
I pull on my jeans and a T-Shirt and head downstairs towards the coffee machine. Tamlyn walks into the kitchen as I'm sniffing a cup of the black stuff to kick my mind into gear. "Good morning." She says to me. "Can you call this morning? It's ungodly." I reply and take a drink from the freshly made coffee in the mug I have in my hand.
6:30
Everything is ready and we set off.
9:30 am. We arrive in Border Country.
The Mozambique border is ahead of us. The sun beats down onto the car and turns it into a mobile cooker. Fortunately the car is equipped with air conditioning and the cool air blows through the cabin and keeps us all cool.
We go into the border control centre and a South African official gives us the look over that border controllers all over the world have adopted to give you the impression that you are just another fuckwit off to somewhere that they are not in and are glad to see the back of you.
Our passports are stamped and we walk back outside and into the blast furnace air. I feel as though I'm breathing through a wet blanket. The humidity is opening my pores and I'm sweating heavily. Now I know what heat really is. It's a killer. Left out in the sunshine in mozambique for an hour I'd wither and die like a fly in a microwave.
11:00
We cross into Mozambique and head for the town of Maputo. Just over the border there is a shanty town built up over the years by people who either want to try to smuggle themselves over the border to get to South Africa to get a better chance in life or have realized that just over the border is a better place to try to sell things to tourists.
Maputo.
We pass through the outskirts of Maputo and head towards our overnight stop at Casa Lisa. Casa Lisa Is situated inbetween Maputo and Xai Xai and it's a gift from the gods of comedy.
The owner of the Casa Lisa is a guy named Bruce and he is without a doubt the most lifelike version of Basil Fawlty ever. I kid you not. This guy is so much like Basil Fawlty that I am struggling to look at him without laughing.
When I mention this to Steve and Steph while we sit in the bar at Casa Lisa they immediately see the resemblance. From then on in we have to make a conscious effort not to accidentaly call the very welcoming Bruce, Basil. We spend the rest of the short night in the bar drinking Captain Morgans rum and making jokes about Basil/Bruce.
Dinner is brought into the dining room and it's amazingly good. There is butternut soup followed by Peri-peri chicken with veg and lemon meringue pie for pudding.
On the table sits a small jar of chilli sauce and I give it a try. Holy shit is it hot. I take a little on a piece of buttered bread and try to kill my tastebuds. No luck. It just gets hotter. And hotter. I knock back the rest of my Capt Morgans to try to kill the heat in my mouth but it wasn't happening. I felt my lips go numb and gave up trying to fight the heat.
We go to bed early as we have a long drive the next day to get to Guinjata Bay where we'll be staying for the next eight days.
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