Where Are We?

Everyone we meet is usually in awe of our extended holiday. But in reality we often just cycle 40-60km on a nice road with little traffic to a pretty campsite with delicious food. At worst a cold Coca Cola cannot be obtained and we throw a hissy fit. So far we’ve shied away from camping at a village because it involves having to interact with people and this makes us very uncomfortable.

But without ever asking to camp at a school we would be returning to Europe in shame. It’s sort of a right of passage. So, today we have a choice: Camping in the bush where people may or may not steal our drying underwear in the night, or the discomfort of a hundred kids staring at us as we put up our tent next to their classroom. After a lot of bellyaching we boldly go for the latter option.

It takes an hour to communicate our intention to various teachers, the headmaster, the regional education representative and the village chief. Then we finally get out the tent. At this point the kids have lost their fear of the strangers and they crowd around, inching closer little by little until they are about 30cm away. We try our best to ignore them as we go about the usual chores and cheer on the sun to set and everyone to go home.

But even funny looking white people get boring after some time when they are just writing in their journals or looking at their phones. So, eventually the kids return to their football game which lasts way past bedtime. Later at night everyone gathers to watch the big bushfire that is burning next to the road. Finally, at 3am the people stop their drunken singing and we can get some sleep.

The thought “Where are we?” keeps popping up over the next few days as we wind our way southwest. It’s present as we sweatily push the bikes up a loose dirt hill in the blazing sun or evicting a scorpion from our room. It keeps recurring the night we camp in someone’s driveway and on the morning we see a man calmly carrying a length of sugarcane, seemingly unaware that he is butt-naked.

One evening, after indulging in the questionable luxury of a cold bucket shower in a dirty bathroom, Lina spots a suspicious-looking tower next to the guesthouse. And sure enough half an hour later the call to prayer is shaking the brittle foundations of our room. Sadly, the muezzin only partially drowns out the sounds of the kitchen and bar party next door.

Another day we are touched by the enlightened thoughtfulness of the guesthouse staff who have placed a couple of condoms on the wall outside our door. We then proceed to watch the gas station employee struggle with three customers at once as the paper cup he wanted to heat up ignites a fire in the microwave. Later on we pay 21 cents for 2 oranges, 4 mandarins and 4 bananas. Where the hell are we?

On our days off at a community-run forest camp we have plenty of time to reflect on all these experiences. In the space of our little clearing (which Lina keeps immaculately swept) we get to watch nature’s great spectacle: Big and beautiful butterflies being devoured by gruesome spiders, tiny ants carrying away the corpses of big ants and a black-and-bluish wasp burying a struggling caterpillar alive. A whole lot of death.

As we take our bucket shower one night, a spider Lina thankfully didn’t notice flits across her foot into a corner. It’s not quite as big as the tarantula she used to live with in Peru but still palm-sized. Smaller spiders also constantly try and invade our tent, even though it has a protective sheen of (most likely) cat pee. Nature can be pretty gross sometimes.

People tell us that the most beautiful parts of Mozambique are in the South along the coast. But that is very far and on sandy roads. Since sand is our nemesis we have decided against this course. So, after only two weeks in Mozambique we are already approaching the end of our time here. The terrain is getting hillier as we skirt around the Chimanimani mountains on the Eastern side.

We’ve been in Mozambique too short a time to really make up our mind about the country. The people are generally friendly and usually don’t try to rip us off (always a plus). Their musical taste seems to have evolved separately from the rest of the continent. In Europe it would be described as avant-garde. To us it sounds like an AI-generated fever dream and the weird beats are still ringing in our ears as we cross the border into Zimbabwe.