Journals

A few hours up the coast from Vilankulous lies Sofala Province, which serves as a gateway both to Mozambique's western border district and its less-touristed north.  Because of the enduring political catastrophe in neighboring Zimbabwe, most visitors who progress this far do so while traveling to Zambia or Malawi, whose frontiers also converge in on the region.  Those without their own transportation are doomed to a long, dusty bus ride through the Tete Corridor, a narrow strip of Mozambiquan territory that juts out into her three land-locked neighbors.  I was going to Malawi, and thanks to a tip I received before leaving Tofu Beach, I knew of a better way.  My source, a vacationing South African who knew the area well, advised me to take the EN 1 north until it ended in a town called Inchope.  There, he said, I would find a crossroads pointing to a brand-new asphalt highway that traced a far more direct route out of the country.    I reached Inchope just before sunset of my second day, tired and hungry from eight hours on the road.  The next morning, I set out early and found that, true to my friend's word, the highway was both scenic and smooth.  A little before two o'clock though, I arrived at Caia, a tiny village near the banks of the Zambezi River where the asphalt ends, and, to my surprise, a 200 kilometer dirt road to the Vila Nova da Fronteira border crossing begins.  Pushing hard, I went as fast as the bumpy conditions allowed, yet as the sun dropped lower over the horizon, it became clear that my options were dwindling.  There was no electricity to light the treacherous road, and no hope of finding a guesthouse or campground ahead.  I had no food, and even if I did reach the border in time, crossing over would put me in essentially the same position, only with less daylight and no local currency.  There was no choice but to pull over and prepare for one last hungry night in Mozambique.    Soon after realizing this, I rode past a small farm and asked the woman standing there who it belonged to.  She disappeared and came back moments later with her husband, a wiry, toothless man in work clothes.  His name was Amerigo, and within moments of me asking to stay, he had already swept a place in the dirt for my tent and introduced me to his children.  That night, after my hosts finished eating their dinner--I was famished, but asked only for water, since it was clear they had no food to spare--we sat under Amerigo's mosquito net, listening to the radio.  I was up for hearing Mozambiquan music one last time, but he graciously insisted that, in my honor, we should find something in English.  And so, I dozed off to the sounds of an evangelical sermon broadcasting from Zimbabwe, before awaking alone in the darkness and returning to my tent.  Apparently, word about me had spread during the night, because when I emerged from my tent at sunrise, there was already a small crowd of neighbors sitting in the shade nearby, talking excitedly.  As I unchained the bike from its tree and prepared to load my gear back on, one of the neighbors walked over.  "Pneu furado," he said, pointing towards the rear.  Flat tire.