We spent a hugely entertaining evening in Mocuba with a friend of Adelson's. We met a man called Shamir from Zaire who told us his life story (jail in angola, drug addict children, sex hungry black women, evil ex-wife, tears, the works) and about the conspiracy theory that the freemasons invented AIDS and hid it in polio and TB vaccinations to rid the world of 2 billion people in developing countries. Never a dull moment.
The hotel was slightly expensive, but we were thrilled to have running water and air-conditioning. We spent half the night looking for a mysterious beeping sound, and trying to get the a/c to a comfortable temperature. Despite this we arrived fresh faced at the chapa stop at 5 a.m. to continue our journey to Milange, the border town.
The first chapa was already full, so we waited for the second one to fill up. By 7.30 it was already ridiculously hot. We sat in the shade on a bit of cardboard and at 9a.m. 26 people were crammed into a minibus designed for 15, and 4 chickens were thrown in for good measure. Four hours later we arrived, sweaty and in desperate need of coca cola, in Milange. We jumped on taxi bicycles for the 3km to the border, still in desperate need for coca cola, stamped our passports at the Mozambique border post and walked to Malawi. The jolly, fat Malawian made a huge fuss about the fact we just wanted stamps and didn't want to go to the country, and asked for 'a little something to buy fanta'. I told him that I was not going to pay a bribe for his 'express service' but if he wanted a fanta i would buy one for him. 4 bottles of fanta later, our visas were valid for a further 30 days and we headed back to Milange.
No chapas were leaving that day for Mocuba so we checked in at Pensao Lili for the night. The room was filthy and there were a few dead cockroaches on the floor, and a few live ones. The owner thought our disgust completely irrational and caught the enormous cockroaches between her thumb and forefinger and crushed them, laughing hysterically at us. After killing about 10 we set off in the search for more coca cola.
Apart from fending off the usual barrage of admirers (this time we pretended i didn't speak english- cue stefania laughing at my attempts to communicate in icelandic for 20 minutes) and waiting hours for our chicken, only to discover it was being killed as we waited, we headed back to pensao lili, slightly nervously.
I can't describe how disgusting our room was on opening the door. There were cockroaches crawling all over the beds, inside our bags, in the sink - this time even the owner was freaked out and we demanded a new room. Stefania and I woke up periodically through the night to shine the torch around the room, and screamed everytime something (i.e. the sheet, a piece of hair) brushed against us.
Over a week later, we still have not come to terms with the cockroach hotel room.
Up at 3.50 for another 4 hour chapa back to Mocuba. Fewer people, but 10 crates of chicks, and a flat tire for 100km.
We spent another night in Mocuba and eventually on Sunday at 7a.m. we arrived back in Maganja da Costa. So, despite being reassured by Immigration in Quelimane that it would be a round trip of 4 hours, it actually took us 4 days.
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