For those having an inclination towards knowing new places the map alongside shows the various provinces of Mozambique and the arrows indicate the the journey from my first place of posting, Quelimane, to my present location – Pemba.
The drive from Quelimane in the province of Zambezia to Port Pemba in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado with a stopover at Nampula, the third largest city of Mozambique, in the province of Nampula was my longest road journey in Mozambique. This 1000 km drive through three provinces in northern Mozambique and the wild African outback gave me my first experience of rural Mozambique.
I left Quelimane at 6 am on the 2nd of October with a packed breakfast of bread, cheese & eggs (courtesy Mauricio) and not to forget, some roasted peanuts too. We filled the Pajero tank at the nearest fuel station, checked the tyre pressures and off we were.
Quelimane to Nampula was a 7 hour drive. For half the journey the roads were awesome. And I really mean awesome - Center divider with reflectors, yellow lines marking the sides of the roads lined with reflectors & railings on the sides of the road at certain intervals just like the ones on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. We touched a top speed of 160 on those stretches. For the other half of the journey I was wondering where the roads were!! Long stretches of the road were under repair and I am sure that a few years down the line this country will have wonderful roads. The landscape during the entire journey was dotted with scattered hamlets. The countryside seemed sparsely populated. The earth was black from the fire that it had endured.
We reached Nampula at 2 in the afternoon and went straight to the hotel rooms booked for us. Lunch was aloo parontha and roasted fish. (yummy… I just love the food here) In the evening I visited Shoprite along with my colleague who wanted some tea powder. It reminded me of the shoprites we have back in India. My stay in Nampula lasted 2 days more than I expected. The timber meet lasted one whole day (3rd October) and the next 2 days were spent servicing my Pajero. I spent these two days at a colleagues place (who also happens to be an alumnus of my institute) and was treated to some lovely idli, rasam and stuff.
It was finally on Monday, the 6th of October that I left for Pemba. It was 5 hours later that I reached the place where I would be taking charge of the branch office. I will definitely write about Pemba later preferably accompanied with snaps because this is the place that is considered to be the tourist destination of Mozambique and is especially for its beaches. (It’s been 2 weeks now but I am still to pay a visit to the beach)
