Day 2

DAY 2 Saturday Sabado (10^th May)

Because of the night before, the next day started rather late. But hey, that didn’t bother me too much, until the hotel started bothering me that is. Nevertheless, we only got started at 12. Oh the days of sleeping in and not feeling guilty about it are long gone. It’s hard to do that when pretty much this entire country is up by 5 AM in the summer or the winter. Only after try 3 was I able to get these two out of bed. I even went over the road to a really nice bakery and got them some coffees for breakfast. Nothing shook them until I said, hey, the maid is coming we’ve gotta go. That worked. After that though, we went down to the bluff overlooking the Indian. I thought it was really pretty and apparently many other people did too. I counted no less than 5 weddings taking place in the garden – well not the wedding but the after parties and photos. It is called Lover’s Garden, so I can’t be too mad. After another quick bite to eat, we all got in a chapa and traveled doooooooooooown into the Baixa or the downtown of Maputo. It’s a experience. I always feel like I’m coming out very dirty when I go down there. It’s a part of the city that is over 100 years old and looks it. It’s also where most of the movie BLOOD DIAMOND is filmed so you can have a look if Noel and Sam can’t convince you to come out and visit. J

Saturday is the best day to go down to the Baixa because that is when all the street venders from around Maputo congregate and try to sell their wares. You run the risk of buying too much if you go down there but I wanted Noel and Sam to see some history so I brought them down. I think they are cursing me now but they had a good time. Mozambicans are desperate to make a metical and Maputo is an expensive city (states prices) so if you don’t have a salary, it’s HARD!!! They see white people and think there would be some sort of easy deal. Make sure you ask Noel about the $12 turtle. But that is for another day’s post. J Anyway, I thought we had gotten up too late for the wood market in the Baixa. It normally closes at one. So we headed straight to the old municipal market that was built in 1901. At least that is what the sign says. We go around there and get a little bit of this and a little bit of that having some fun bargaining and with my commentary on how expensive all the prices are inside the shops. Sam saw this really nice looking statue, that everyone started at 2 500 Meticais for. That’s roughly $100. Sam said no. He dropped down and she still said no. It became obvious that he wasn’t going to budge, so we left. The weird thing is how quickly Sam’s interest in this one statue was spread throughout the market. Every stall owner we then talked to tried to undersell the previous one and we quickly saw the statue was not as unique as previously thought. Oh well. I did get a really nice, genuine leather, map of Africa pendant though for 100 MTn.

Off to the Continental to get some cokes was our next move because of the tired feet. The Continental is a grand old café situated in the heart of Old Maputo where you could almost feel the history coming out of the walls. You could see the Mozambican revolutionaries sitting there plotting how to actually overthrow the Lisbon regime and the henchmen of the Lisbon regime right next to them plotting how to kill them. All of this right in the dinning room that was only in bad need of a coat of paint. But, outside for us on the sidewalk it was anything but quiet and calm; just how an African capital should be. Almost as soon as we sat down, the street kids came up and sat the wares right down on our table. Sam went to go touch them but I said not to because once you do, it’s yours. We paid and left… and they followed. I felt like we were the pied piper of Hamlin. It was just too much. They continued to follow us and our shouting at them just continued to draw more people to latch themselves to our wake. I do admit though I let it happen a little bit because I wanted to see Noel and Sam’s reaction. It did finally get to be too much though when the people were just getting physical. I don’t ever like that but I yelled the magic word it seemed like and they all dropped off. SUCA!!! Ask your friendly neighborhood Mozambican for a translation. J Eff off basically. Its something you only say to dogs or street venders. I guess it works.

Next stop was the train station. We weren’t going anywhere but it figures in the BD movie and is actually a very impressive building. Eiffel designed and built it for the Portuguese. Just ask Noel for some pics. The coolest thing though is that the movie left a refurbished door for the CFM company that runs the place. It’s a pretty cool looking door until you look on the other side of it and see it is definitely a film set. They just left a door made out of wood, completely out of wood! Nice of them huh? I can’t remember exactly, but that movie only came here in 2006 and I lived in Maputo in 2005 and I remember a door there. Oh well, at least they left it. We hung around a little bit but the sun was getting low and the Baixa of Maputo is not somewhere you want to be after dark. So, we were off back to the hotel and for a shower. That night though I introduced Noel to the pleasures of a PAN GALACTIC GARBLE BLASTER and I don’t remember what happened…jk.