Maputo - Couchsurfing

So, we're in Maputo now. The capital of a formerly war-torn country. The town where crime is said to be even more likely to happen to you than in Johannesburg. The city where everything is crazily expensive, or so they say.

But I woke up in a friendly african city, had breakfast in the cosy garden behind the house. The children were playing with the dogs. It looked a bit like this

And then I looked up

to find the sky nice and blue.

As Eduarda and Christian, our hosts, had to do some grocery shopping, they dropped us off at the park near the natural history museum, where Silke learned how to play Ntchuva, the local Mancala variety, and I did a bit of chess on a big board. This Ntchuva is hard to win, I will say. It looks very simple but it certainly isn't. But we lost with a smile!

We then went to another park, where they had a handicraft market (nice statues but impossible to take home...) and a restaurant serving the local dishes. Silke had Shima which she disliked. But then again, what to expect of an eight year old?

The beans with prawns that came along were deemed edible though! Tijl had a Caril de Camarão which he liked with his Shima. I'm very curious what we'll have for lunch tomorrow. Anyway, they fooled around a bt after their lunch and managed to get up in a tree before bruising their knees and ruining their trouser (Kids, Aaargh)

You gotta love 'em, dont ya?

We had a quick drive around town, Christian showed us the lot actually, including the dutch embassy which we will probably not need. And downtown Maputo, Samora Machel, the Maputo Shopping Centre where Americans are not allowed to shop, the ferry to the other side of the bay, palm trees, road side vendors, the lot. Thanks Christian!

Only very few Mozambican customers can afford this....

We had dinner at home, spaghetti Bolognese. Nice one! The kids ate two servings, without me pushing them. That's probably the last time in a while, since I doubt the menu in small towns will have anything like that on it. But we'll see, and they will undoubtedly manage quite well!

So we'll be off tomorrow morning very early, to do 9 hours of solid driving towards Inhassorro, I'll keep you posted. Oh, I got a new sim card (actually it was given to me by Eduarda, kudos!), I can be reached at +258 84 340 4799 now.

Samora Machel