lisbonchick

Daily life is pretty similar to anywhere. We get up, go to work, come home, shop, cook…. We are slowly meeting new people and starting to feel like we can think about other things beside settling in. There seems to be a period of excitement on arrival, so many new things, so much to put in place. New home, new country, new school, new job, new people. So much to learn and understand that there is no space for much else. Slowly, the excitement starts to wane and reality sets in. We miss what we left behind and don’t always like what we have as we mourn what we lost. This is lifting slowly and we are finding our feet and making new connections.

One fun thing about moving is that there is so much to explore anew. I guess that is what we like, this stimulation and adventure. In the midst of our daily life, we find time to explore close to home and further afield. One trip in November was somewhere between Malongane and Mamoli in the south of Mozambique, close to the South African border. We rented an airbnb on the beach and were the only people around during our stay. It is a beautiful beach, long, sweeping and deserted.

This is the village of Malongane. Should have tried the hairdresser’s…

I had my first school trip to Tofu in the north of Mozambique with Grade 8 students. It was a tiring trip but fun at the beach with diving, snorkeling and surfing. Kids had a good time and the place was beautiful! We stayed in tree houses with lovely views.

We visited a local project – Boa Gente: https://www.boagente.com/, where they use coconuts to make oil, dried coconut, soaps and many other products.

Grating coconuts

We spent half a day at a local pottery where women pass down this age old tradition and handbuild precise items with amazing speed! The women work by the floodplain of the Mutamba River in Inhambane Province, Mozambique. An area rich in deposits of high quality clay which has been used for up to 1,000 years by the local community to produce traditional handmade pottery products and clay bricks for construction. The clay is so fundamental to local livelihoods that women artisans who represent the vast majority of skilled potters, have a saying in Gitonga, the local language spoken only in Inhambane. Unga lili mwana, lila libumba – don’t cry for men, cry for clay. https://www.libumba.com/products

We walked down to the river to see where the clay comes from and to see how they make local bricks.

December arrived and Marianne came to visit! We were very excited to receive our first visitor and to get to spend time together. We travelled to Kruger for a safari where we saw many animals, see if you can name them!

After Kruger we went to Cape Town. A busy, cosmopolitan city surrounded by nature, centred around Table Mountain, one of the New 7 Wonders of the world. It was such a busy few days, we were exhausted but had a fun, enjoyable time. What is amazing, is the setting. Everywhere you look, you get beautiful views of table mountain and the water. There was far too much to do and we didn’t manage to visit all the places we wanted but we had a good go!

We had a wonderful picnic at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. This is an important botanical garden nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town and one of the seven most magnificent botanical gardens in the world. It contains over 7,000 species of plants from only southern Africa, set in 528-hectares.  It is a truly magnificent garden and you really need a whole day to wander around and truly enjoy its beauty,

We spent an afternoon exploring Muizenberg and taking a walk to Kalk Bay although we cheated and went back for the car halfway through! Muizenberg to Kalk Bay is a 6.5 km walk , with several beaches and tidal pools where you can swim although it was a little chilly for water frolics when we were there.

One of the main reasons for wanting to go to Kalk Bay was to see the seals. We had read that they hang around the harbour but we were not prepared for what we found! They are just wandering about and they are huge and rather scary so the photos are me running away from them and trying to get a shot. There were quite a few jumping in and out of the water and playing. Kalk Bay is very scenic and worth the visit although we found the actual town a little too twee for our taste.

We had a wonderful drive on Chapman’s Peak and stopped at Boulders Beach to see the penguins. It was ridiculously windy so after being fully sandblasted, we retreated. The penguins were not active and were just lazing on the beach.

Chapman’s Peak Drive was hacked out of the face of the mountain between 1915 and 1922, and at the time was regarded as a major feat of engineering. This is such a spectacular drive, certainly deserving its rating as one of the most beautiful scenic drives in the world. Gorgeous beaches, stunning panoramas around every turn and lots of turns and twists with 114 bends. This beautiful road overlooks the sea and feels like you’re traveling alongside a mountain’s edge. It is only 5.59 miles long but you could spend hours taking it all in.

I didn’t take the first 2 photos as no drone but they give you a sense of the scenery and the road.

And onto the penguins! In the early 1980’s, a pair of African penguins settled on Boulders Beach and since then, the penguin population has exploded to between 2,000 and 3,000. The beach and surrounding beaches are stunning with huge boulders and clear water. You can’t get to the actual beach where the penguins are, but you walk on a boardwalk and watch the penguins from above.

We tried to go to the top of Table Mountain 3 times. The queues were massive, the wind was too strong but third time lucky and it was worth it. I think I spent the 6 days just going wow everywhere I looked in this place. Going to the top was the icing on the cake. Flanked by Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Head, Table Mountain makes up the northern end of the Cape Fold Mountain range. It’s hard to imagine, but the mountain’s distinctive flat top – a three-kilometre level plateau – was once the bottom of a valley! The mountain was given its name — Tabua do Cabo (Table of the Cape) — by Antonio de Saldanha after he climbed up Platteklip Gorge in 1503. The easiest way to get to the top is by cablecar which opened in 1929. The journey up the mountain takes about five minutes and the cars rotate through 360 degrees during the trip. We though about walking but it is a rather strenuous climb of around 5 hours.

They have giant cones in South Africa!

Break nearly over, Marianne flies out and we miss her once again… Looking forward to the summer where we can all be together again with Joshie and Sandra too. We took time to pop over to Nelspruit and Eswatini as we had work to do on the car. We explored north of Nelspruit and were pleasantly surprised. Beautiful scenery and so many waterfalls… We decided to visit the Lisbon and Berlin falls as they were the largest ones, so beautiful.

We visited God’s Window. Hovering 900 metres above the valley floor below, perched on the edge of a cliff, is the breath-taking view of God’s Window, a small section of a 250km long stretch of sheer cliffs and breathtaking South African scenery, nicknamed Garden of Eden. The viewpoint offers panoramic views of the Blyde River Canyon and the surrounds of Mpumalanga. The cliffs in the distance have thick emerald green forests of vegetation and many waterfalls. Sadly, a huge mountain of fog rolled in shortly after we arrived b ut I managed to get a couple of shots.

On the way back, we stopped at Graskop Gorge. Another stunning place with a lift that takes you 51 metres down into the gorge. There are wooden walkways and suspension bridges that take you around the indigenous forest below with views of the gorge and the waterfall.

We end our trip by driving through Eswatini back to Mozambique. Eswatini is a small mountainous country with spectacular views all around. It is an amalgamation of more than 70 clans with their own customs and although we weren’t there at the right time, there are many local festivals that look pretty impressive. It is a quiet place, it feels like being in a large village. People are very friendly and helpful and it is the perfect place to do nothing. At the end of May, a huge music festival takes place at House on Fire. From their website: named “Top African festival” by the BBC and hailed by CNN as one of the “7 African music festivals you really have to see,” MTN Bushfire is more than a festival, it’s a living, breathing ecosystem deeply rooted in African soil, yet inclusive and welcoming to guests from all over the world. This uniquely African yet globally infused family friendly festival experience welcomes thousands of people from over 60 countries in an atmosphere of tolerance and passionate commitment to music, the arts and the environment. We are looking forward to being a part of this! https://www.bush-fire.com/

On the way to Eswatini, we took the geo trail from Barbeton in South Africa to Eswatini. It is a spectacular 38km mountain pass between Barberton and the Josefsdal border post with Eswatini that has been developed as the Barberton Makhonjwa Geotrail. There is information about the area’s geology and it’s links to the plant diversity and history along the route. There twelve landscaped viewpoints with info panels and picnic stops where you can look at rock specimens, geological features, and view points to tell the story of how the early Earth evolved some 3.6 billion years ago. The tarred road cuts through some of the most spectacular scenery in the country.  

The border crossing was deserted and very small. I don’t think many people chose to cross there! In Eswatini, we stayed near Sibebe Rock. one of southern Africa’s most impressive geological features. This immense, three-billion-year-old volcanic slab, which rises to 1,488m and covers some 16,500ha, is the world’s largest granite dome. Only Australia’s Uluru beats it to the title of ‘world’s largest rock’. There is a decent art scene and we visited 2 good art galleries in the area.

I’ll leave you some South African patés, a beautiful horse and a chilled Pixie cat! Until next time.

We got offered the jobs back in December so it has seemed like a long wait to get here. We finally landed on the 2nd August and now it was time to start getting settled. It is funny how there is so much excitement and stress beforehand, so much to do, so much preparation and then there is the slump where you are finally here and reality hits… Mozambique was particularly challenging with the paperwork required. It took us 7 months to get it all done and to get the visas which we did a few days before we were due to get on the plane. We were warmly welcomed in Maputo and taken good care of, great start.

Our container leaving Phuket!

The first few days were spent shopping, eating (a lot! the food is pretty good here), sightseeing and getting to know the place. This is Dhow, a beautiful place with amazing sunsets and some furniture made of old ammunition left from the war.

The old train station built between 1908 and 1916 is truly beautiful and well worth a visit both inside and out. I can’t find any information on where the trains go so I guess we won’t be going anywhere by train soon…

When I first came to Mozambique in 1993, I went to a lovely stretch of beach just outside Maputo and I have fond memories of swimming in the sea there. Even though the weather wasn’t great, we decided to go to Macaneta beach, about 40 minutes away. It is a wild stretch of beach with large waves and no people although apparently it can get very busy once the summer arrives.

We also explored a local fisherman’s village near our house where you can buy fish and seafood on the street and have it cooked in very rustic shacks overlooking the sea. A lively place with great atmosphere and no electricity, got pretty dark and everyone was eating by the light of their phones!

This was the table, when I say rustic, I mean rustic!

We had a long weekend, so what better way to explore than to go down to Ponta do Ouro. The closest beach to Maputo that is decent and has scuba diving. Diving here is not like Thailand! The water is cold and we had to wear 5mm wetsuits which made us all look totally ridiculous. The best bit is that you get taken out on a speed boat, jumping over the waves and holding on for dear life. Coming back in is even more hairy, as you approach the beach, the boat’s engine is revved to the max and you go flying up the beach onto the sand. They do tell you to hold on tight…

There’s a peacock outside my window!! Apparently they come over from the Portuguese International School next door. This seems to be his favourite perch. And, an owl outside my room! And a monkey outside my house!

One of the benefits from living here is the close proximity to South Africa’s Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves in Africa, covering an area of 20,000 km². It is about 2.5 hours drive away although the border crossing can prove to be challenging. It took us 3 hours to make it across, not great, but apparently it is not always this bad. Kruger has a large number of animals and we were impressed with what we saw. However, we missed the wilderness that we encountered in the Tanzanian parks. Kruger is very organised. Paved roads, service stations, petrol, restaurants, souvenir shops, fenced campsites… Not my kind of thing but the animals were great. We saw pretty much everything apart from leopards and rhinos.

We had a mid term break in October and some time to explore Mozambique. We were recommended to go north to Tofu beach, next to the town of Inhambane. Tofu is a cute, small village with a few restaurants and places to stay. The beach is wild and empty – there’s a theme here! We didn’t know that this is where most of the teachers, parents and students go to during the October break so there were plenty of people to bump into.

Inhambane is a sleepy town of about 80,000 people and is described as one of the prettiest towns in Mozambique. It was indeed very nice with lots of old buildings and large tree lined avenues. It has a small museum and an old church and remnants of old colonialism. We heard there was a statue of Vasco da Gama in the main square so we set off to find this old relic. We finally found him in a scrap yard down a back street. Funniest thing ever!! Apparently nobody wants him but not quite sure what to do with him, he has been relegated to some back year where is regularly topples over! The town has a long pier where you get beautiful views of the city and the bay and a decent local market with much better prices that you get in Tofu beach.

The area around Tofu is very beautiful with long, wild, sweeping beaches. Less developed than Tofu and with a popular kite surfing area, this felt like a special place. Not much there, a few places to stay and a great restaurant – the Green Turtle. On the way there, we stopped at a raised, wooden mangrove walk which took us to some fishermen and some interesting shadows under the pier.

And so, we come to an end of our first 3 months here! Lots more to explore and learn in this beautiful place. It has its challenges and moving is not easy but we are finally settling in. We are lucky to be able to explore and to have such easy access to beautiful places in and around Mozambique. I like Maputo and it has much to offer. There is a vibrant art culture here and we have seen some great music such as Bongeziwe Mabandla, from South Africa. Highly recommend having a listen to his latest album reviewed here in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/28/bongeziwe-mabandla-amaxesha-review. See if you can spot Geoff!

Currently, there is a dance festival, Kikani, taking place. There are many interesting shows at affordable prices. The venues are simple and intimate and it is a good way to meet other people outside of school. Another great show that is currently on tour, opened the festival last night, very impressive performance. Here is a short video: https://fb.watch/om0rIVbWDV/ for those who like modern dance, Bantu de Victor Pontes from Portugal, a collaboration between Portugal and Mozambique.

To finish off, here is a dung beetle doing its thing, some beautiful waterfalls in Nelspruit in South Africa and a candelabra tree.