Richard Stupart

I am a stats junkie when it comes to all things Internet.  Looking through the incoming links for this blog, it seems that a good few people came to the site looking up the various articles to do with backpacking through Mozambique – something that I have only spoken about from a personal point of view, or through talking about specific backpackers (if you don’t read the post, stay away form Fatima’s in Tofo – it is a dank hole).  It seems useful then, with the dust now having settled and hindsight being a bit clearer, to put together a list of useful things that I think you should bear in mind if you intend to go exploring Mozambique.

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Followers of this blog will know of my plans to go and explore Ethiopia at the end of this year. Being the exciteable sort I am and having ready access to internet and the Lonely Planet guide to the country, I have started doing research into the people, landscapes and history of the country. It was, however, an unrelated book that I have been reading which mentioned the Danakil Depression. Oh my god.

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I wrote this in July last year, about our dictator-for-life in the country next door. I really do think that someone should consider hiring me as a political analyst. Or at least as a minion in the Office-Of-The-Sadly-Obvious in the department of home affairs. I wish I couldn’t say  I told you so, but… well… I told you so.

The certainty of life is death, but the passage of time between birth and death is ours and ours alone.

http://rustzeb.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-regrets.html

There are some strange winds blowing through the world these days. The post above was written by a blogger called Mad Asthmatic, whose blog I had just stumbled across via Left Coast Cowboys. Mad Asthmatic passed  away last week. That post was the last she wrote.

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It comes as part of being a South African, particularly a white one, that when travelling abroad and meeting people who are remotely educated about world history, that the fat elephant of my country’s racist past comes stomping into the room and taking residence. I never really understood what the fuss was about, and visitng the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg yesterday was an fascinating re-education on exactly from where (and how far) my country has come.

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Not quite a backpackers, so much as two sets of four-bed dorms behind the actual Pensao Pachina hostel – seemingly run as a sideline by the barman. Nevertheless, this spot makes for an acceptable (depending on your tolerance for accommodation standards) stop for a night when waiting to go onward north or south on the EN1, as you can crash here, walk to the ferry the next morning and get across to Maxixe in time to catch a bus or chapa onwards to your next destination. Read the rest of this entry »

Fatima’s Nest is a backpackers and camping spot situated right on Tofo’s main beach, and was a hive of activity during the period that we stayed there (over new years 2009). Unlike Fatima’s in Maputo (from which there is a shuttle for 600MTN), Fatima’s in Tofo is much larger, making for far less of an intimate, relaxed atmosphere.

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If you are a regular follower of this blog, you will know that I live in South Africa. If you are a regular follower of South Africa (perhaps a shakier presumption – many South Africans aren’t), then you will appreciate what a bizarre, smile-inducing place this can be. This point was never clearer than at the traffic lights over the last three days where, on three separate occasions I received pamphlets like this. And this. And this.

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…is always an excellent idea. After having decided where I would like to go and explore at the end of this year for another three to four week backpacking adventure, I promptly fell sick. It appears that after Mozambique my body was somewhat exhausted and was letting me know that I should stop pushing my luck. So one bout of throat infection and a minor fever later, I am back on my feet and able to share the news.

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If your plans for exploring Mozambique feature thatch huts and bars made of cane and palm leaves, then Baobab is an essential stop if you will be spending time in Vilanculo. Situated in the cane town (the area of Vilanculo made of sand streets and thatch huts with no lights at night), Baobab feels protected from the legions of South Africans in 4x4s which plough up and down the main road of the town during any available holiday

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“In fact, I believe that we should think of freedom of the mind as a conscious and constant attempt to unthink order and authority. To think against hegemony of any variety…”

Breyten Breytenbach

We know that gravity exists because when I drop a ball, it falls down. It has done so since I was a small child, and people far older than me have been dropping things for a good deal longer and assure me that when they do so, the items have always fallen downwards, towards the earth. In all of recorded history – at least that which I know about – there have been no verified incidents of a ball (or anything else) ever falling naturally upwards towards the sky.

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