So you mean I leave tomorrow?

Evidently tomorrow is July 31. What the hell happened to the last three weeks? I feel as though I haven't slept in my bed in London for longer than three nights in a row. And I probably haven't. Tomorrow I will be sleeping on an Air France A330, and the night after in Belgrade. Crazy, that. Itinerary:

1. Air France 373, Detroit (DTW) to Paris (CDG). Departs July 31 19:00, arrives August 1 8:50

2. Air France 2988, Paris (CDG) to Belgrade (BEG). Departs August 1 9:35, arrives 11:50

I don't have anywhere to stay in Belgrade right now. I should probably get on that.

I am extremely curious about what kind of shit is going down in Serbia after Karadzic's capture and extradition to the Hague.

Adieu!

And soon, Guča

I first became aware of Guča through a report on the BBC News. I can’t remember exactly what year it was, but it was either 2001, 2002 or 2003. This I know because I distinctly remember lying on the couch in my old house in Yellowknife, on Finlayson Drive North. The report was one of those hacky “look what these crazy people get up to in Serbia!” numbers. There were people dancing, drinking and, of course, playing brass instruments in this tiny village in Serbia. Of particular interest to me were the young Serbian men shown singing ultra-nationalist songs (“Kosovo is Serbia!” and similar ditties); evidently, Guča was some sort of stage for the expression of Serbian identity, or so said the BBC. It all looked very interesting. I filed the report away in my memory. If I ever found myself in Serbia in August… why the hell not?

I heard my first Boban Marković album in 2005 while I was living in Leicester. Marković is a trumpeter/bandleader who is widely recognized as the best in Serbia, perhaps the best to ever emerge from the Balkans. In 2001, his band received perfect scores from every single judge on the Guča panel during the battle of the bands competition, something which had never happened before (because he’s presumed to be so much better than everyone else, Marković has stopped competing at Guča, though he still performs). At this time, I had never even heard of Boban Marković and had no idea of his association with Guča, I only discovered this after reading the CD’s liner notes. I don’t remember what possessed me to buy the CD. I think I was killing time in the world music section at the HMV at Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road in Big London and decided to blow my money on random CDs by random artists I’d never heard or from random countries. But I did buy it and, to make a long story short, I can confirm that Marković is as good as advertised. His music absolutely blew me away and was the catalyst for a fixation with brass music that continues to this day and has introduced me to klezmer, Romanian fanfares, DJs such as Shantel that produce/spin brass-heavy tracks, and god knows how many other musical forms. This in turn led to me rediscovering Guča. Making the pilgrimage to the festival became a priority for me. I originally wanted to go in 2006, but problems with a Macedonian transit visa scuppered those plans. So I am going this year. I have a plane ticket to Belgrade, and I’ve organized accommodation in Guča with an old lady in what might be a barn. Barring a catastrophe, I’m going.

Even though music is among my favourite things, Guča will be my first big festival (Folk on the Rocks does NOT count). I chalk this up to my bizarre aversion to live music - I think I understand and enjoy music more alone, at home, in isolation – as well as my awkwardness in large crowds. And, the music aside, how different is one festival to another? I’ve always assumed that the experience at Burning Man is basically the same as it is at Glastonbury as it is at Exit as it is at I Love Techno: you go, listen to music, get drunk, probably do some drugs, see a few crazy people doing crazy things, etc. etc., all against the backdrop of this obnoxious, vacuous talk of peace and love and harmony and togetherness and community that means nothing except for too much weed and E and too many hours listening to late Bob Marley and John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Obviously I’m generalizing here, but I know a lot of people who have gone to a lot of different music festivals, and I honestly don’t see that much meaningful variance in their experiences. As you may have ascertained from my Mozambique/Malawi chronicles, I try and avoid genericism in my travels. I want my voyages to be, if possible, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

This is why I’m going to Guča: I’m hoping that it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Guča is often described as the “Serbian Woodstock”, but the most important word in that phrase isn’t “Woodstock”; it’s “Serbian”. Guča, as the BBC described it to me all those years ago, is allegedly a window into the Serbian soul, and though it has become more and more popular with tourists over the past five or so years, it remains a music festival run by Serbs, for Serbs and according to a distinctly Serbian sensibility. This is how Wikipedia claims former Serbian President Vojislav Koštunica describes Guča:

“Guča represents in a best way what Serbia is today, what does its openness, belief in oneself, hospitality, party and music. [The] trumpet festival is a confirmation on our courage and joy both in good and bad times. It represents people’s return to the roots, joy and meaning of life. It speaks about who we are, what we are, our urges. We express our joy and sadness with [the] trumpet, we are born with sounds of [the] trumpet, and also buried with sounds of [the] trumpet. Guča is [a] Serbian brand, it’s a value that can represent Serbia in the world. Those that can’t understand and love Guča, can’t understand Serbia. If we are going to go in [the] EU without our melodies and colours, then we wouldn’t know who we are.”

So how could I resist? That sounds like the kind of cultural experience that I live for. We’ll see if it lives up to expectations. My guess is that it will… because really, how can you go wrong with slivovice-fuelled Serbs dancing to brass bands and singing ultra-nationalist Serbian folk songs? I can’t wait.

Post-travel doldrums

Culture shock has subsided and life is basically back to normal now. That is to say, I have become myself again. Plunging back into academia so quickly after my return probably did it. Nothing cleanses the soul of Africa like the pursuit of mahogany-framed fancy pieces of paper written in Latin!

I'm unsure whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing. Frankly, I'm trying not to care.

London, Ontario

So I made it back without incident. Well, almost. On the morning of my departure, in Maputo, I wasn't looking where I was going and I collided head-on with a big baobab tree. The tree won; I have a big bloody scab on my head now. I also met a Greek lady at breakfast in my hotel, which is remarkable because Greeks - how should I put this? - prefer not to travel in Africa. I didn't know she was Greek at first. She asked me for information about northern Mozambique and Malawi, where she was heading, specifically about the Nampula-Cuamba train. I asked if she could speak Portuguese, as basically nobody speaks English around Cuamba. She responded that she could not, she was from Greece. So we switched to Greek. Her name was Eleni, which is my sister's Greek name. Coincidentally, she has a brother named Vaios, which is my Greek name. She is a professor at the university in Thessaloniki, and was in Africa to research a book about the Greek diaspora on the continent. Evidently, Maputo has a Greek community of 50, though there were more when it was a Portuguese colony. In Blantyre, Malawi, there are about 100 or so. I told her about the Greek community in the Congo, which I know about because they were instrumental in setting up early Congolese record companies. Lesson to be learned from all of this: Greeks are like ants. We are everywhere.

And then it was time to fly on out of Africa. My flight to Lisbon was a final crazy slice of African life. Half of the plane had been claimed by Indian-Mozambicans heading to Lisbon to see a religious guru. They spoke loudly and excitedly and cheered lustily when we landed. The Lisbon airport at 6:00 AM is a lonely, lonely place, but by 7:00 people were beginning to come through security. There was a band heading to Madrid. They took out their accordions and guitars and began to play in their departure gate. Another guy tapped a beat on a plastic chair. This was accompanied by a dark-skinned man, presumably the lead singer, singing the most beautiful songs in Portuguese. I wished I spoke better Portuguese so I could understand what he was saying. I had to leave the band to board my Heathrow-bound flight. A rare cloudless day in London provided a spectacular view of Canary Wharf, the Tower of London, the Thames, Westminster, the London Eye etc., and I realized how much I missed that city. These thoughts were soon lost in familiar Heathrow aggravations - landing late, sprinting to catch my connection, then sitting on the tarmac for an hour waiting for an interminable lineup of planes to take off. Soon I was in Toronto, and three hours later in London.

I am not upset to be back. I'm not one of these travelers, displeased with their life, who hits the road searching for something, or running away from something. Though I often intimate otherwise, I am generally pleased with my life at the moment. I quite like Canada. I like my family and my friends. Being back here certainly is not a bad thing. That being said, I am having unbelievable culture shock. I did not expect this. Aren't you supposed to have culture shock when you arrive in Africa and not when you leave? I am stunned by how different Ontario is to the society I've been living in the past month+. And I'm not even talking about cosmetic differences like the lack of rubbish in London's streets, or how people all the people with black skin have been replaced by people with white skin, how I can pass a police officer without them demanding to see my papers, or how taking a taxi doesn't require ten minutes of bargaining. It's much, much deeper and more complicated than that, and I'm not sure if I can adequately explain it.

At the conference I attended in New York before I left, I met an academic who has now begun to work at Western. He had just finished a four month stint in Uganda. We talked a little about Africa, and about what I could expect. Africa, to him, was "a different universe" than anywhere else he'd ever been, and the guy is very well traveled. I didn't really understand what he meant while I was traveling. I didn't really think that Mozambique and Malawi were that much different from Cuba or Nicaragua; nor were they that much different from Greece in the 1980s or early 1990s. It is only after I have arrived back in Canada that I understand and concur: indeed, Africa is truly a different universe. There was a late 1960s/early 1970s funk band from Kenya called Mombasa. I've heard a couple of their songs, my favourite being a James Brown-style number called "African Hustle". "You better learn the African hustle", the song urges, "you better learn it right now." Most of the tourists I met in Africa had no interest in learning the African hustle. This is why I think I met so many people who loved the African land, the animals, the coast, the rugged terrain, but could never come to grips with African people. I don't think you can understand or appreciate African people unless you learn how to think like an African (I realize that Mozambique and Malawi are hardly "Africa", but Mozambicans and Malawians, most of which had never been outside their own countries, frequently spoke of "Africa" and "Africans" with authority, they certainly believe that there are more shared characteristics than differences). Somewhere along the way, I think I learned how to do that, and I think that was the key to me having such a fulfilling adventure. But it has also made Canada seem completely foreign to me in the interim. I listened to people discuss their lives on the bus today, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around their conversations. There simply isn't any African parallel to the bourgeois North American consumer lifestyle, not even close. It's making my head spin.

I'm explaining this really poorly. I'm not sure there is a way to describe it well.

Maputo Redux Part 2 - The End

So I've decided that Maputo is my favourite place in Mozambique. There may be a Naples-like rubbish problem, and the chapa drivers may be homicidal, but these negatives are far outweighed by its cultural diversity (there are probably 10 to 15 languages spoken on a daily basis in Maputo), surprisingly good restaurant life, and laid-back attitude. Maputo bustles, but it seems like only 1% of the population does the bustling. The rest are sitting around in cafes doing nothing, or loitering under the shade of a jacaranda tree. Best of all, people leave you alone here (with the exception of the craft sellers on Av. Julius Nyerere). They could care less if I'm a tourist, they have better things to do than harass me.

I am very glad I came back to Maputo. Cities are always better when you've been there before and know what you're doing and where you're going. There are two things that I wanted to do in Maputo, which I didn't do the first time around because I was too yellow. The first is sample the nightlife, which is reportedly amazing. Specifically, I wanted to go to Chez Rangel, which is a club in the train station. I read about Chez Rangel in an issue of National Geographic a while back - it was one of those "Mozambique is on the move!" type of articles - and ever since then Chez Rangel has been a big symbol of Mozambique for me. That article got me interested in Mozambique and sowed the curiosity that possessed me to come here. But I didn't end up going to Chez Rangel, because it's closed. Clubs in Maputo are open only from Wednesday to Saturday, and I unfortunately am here on a Monday and Tuesday. Secondly, I wanted to go to a giant market, the Mercado de Xipamanine. I went this morning. The market is the size of about 5 or 6 football fields, if not bigger. I'd say 75% of the goods on sale there were stolen; Xipamanine is the domain of the Maputo underworld. Shifty eyed people sized me up as I looked over gold jewelry. I'm very glad that I left my valuables at my hotel.

And so I leave tomorrow. I have had a blast in Mozambique. I don't really feel the need to elaborate on this in a larger passage, so I will just leave it at that. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my adventures. I've enjoyed writing about them.

Here is my itinerary for people who are interested in such things:

1. TAP 278, departs Maputo 17:35 (July 9), arrives Lisbon 5:45 (July 10)
2. TAP 354, departs Lisbon 8:10 (July 10), arrives London Heathrow 10:50
3. Air Canada 857, departs London Heathrow 12:05, arrives Toronto 14:45
4. Air Canada 7717, departs Toronto 16:50, arrives London, ON 17:30

I don't know what possessed me to take a flight through Heathrow, I despise that airport and avoid it like the plague. I'm a little worried that my bags will only be checked as far as Heathrow because on my way down, my bags were checked only as far as Sao Paulo. If I have to get my bags at Heathrow, I'm completely screwed, I'll miss my flight. There is no way I'll be able to fetch my bags, go from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 and then check in again in 1 hour and 15 minutes. The people at the TAP office here told me that I'll be able to check my bags straight through to Canada from Maputo. I certainly hope so.

Also, that first flight almost definitely stops somewhere, because it does not take 13+ hours to fly from Maputo to Lisbon direct on an A340. I'm guessing it will stop in Johannesburg, but I'm hoping for some place more interesting, like Luanda (possible, but probably not), Bissau (unlikely), or Cape Verde (no chance).

Maputo Redux

I am back among the communist streets and bourgeois comforts of Maputo. I am sick and tired of hostels, so I've sprung for a $40 a night hotel that's above a wonderful smelling Goan restaurant. Of course, this place is the best deal in Maputo. I'm right in the centre of town, in the safest and most happening part of the city. My hotel has hot water and water pressure. There are tiny little shitboxes in Maputo, in less-than-salubrious parts of town, that cost $60 a night.

I have an amazing story from Pemba. Remember the guy Charles, who led me to my awesome inland hotel? Well, he began following me around town during the remainder of my stay in Pemba. Not so much following me around as placing himself in strategic locations that he'd know I pass. He would walk with me down the beach, telling me his life story, with emphasis on how poor he was, how tragic his home situation was etc. When he began calling me "my friend" all the time, I knew he was laying the groundwork for a soft sell.

I of course because familiar with soft sell thanks to my "brothers" in Malawi. To recap: a hard sell basically consists of someone asking me for money up front. Sometimes they went to sell me something, sometimes they just ask for cash, but it's made explicit from the getgo that the person wants money from me. A soft sell occurs when the seller tries to cultivate a personal connection with you, so that in the end you feel a moral obligation to give them money. The soft sell drives me up a well, for two reasons:

1. It's basically a straight con. Even worse, the con rest on the assumption that I am easily duped. In that respect, the con artist insults my intelligence. I really, really, REALLY dislike having my intelligence insulted.

2. I am infinitely more susceptible to a soft sell. I'm not a bad guy. I have a heart. I generally care about Mozambique and the welfare of Mozambicans and genuinely want to help, even if I'm not always sure what is the best way. I know that Charles isn't any different than any other Mozambican trying to make ends meet. If he lived in the countryside, he'd be growing a little bit of cassava and aggressively peddling it to city dwellers on passing chapas. It just so happens that he lives in a tourist area. Conning tourists is just what he has to do to feed his family. I understand all this, and I sympathize; or, perhaps more accurately, I'm torn between sympathy and my selfish desire to be left alone. Mozambicans aren't stupid, they figure this out within about three minutes of speaking to me. They know that I'm bound to yield more cash than a fat South African tourist, even though the fat Saffer has 5000 times more money than me to spend.

And so Charles began trying to con me. Either he is a terrible con artist, or he thought I was really stupid, because he did a very bad job masking his intentions. He tried to get me to go into craft stores, even after I made it clear that I didn't want any crafts. The rub is of course that he gets commission from the store he steers me into if I buy something. He did the same thing with restaurants too, he tried steering me into some restaurants as opposed to others. One night, I wanted to eat at a place called Pemba Dolphin. Charles wanted me to eat at another place called Mar e Sol, where I had already eaten twice. Charles was adamant that Mar e Sol was the cheapest place for seafood in town. Of course it wasn't, Pemba Dolphin was cheaper, I knew this because I'd had a cup of tea at Pemba Dolphin earlier in the day. I ate at Mar e Sol anyway. Charles sat next to me. I bought him a coke. He had the gall to tell me that the waiter has asked him why he wasn't eating - this was supposed to show me that he wasn't after my money. The waiter had asked no such thing; Charles had no idea that I could understand Portuguese. I ate my meal, seething. I made a mental note of this for when Charles made his big, final sales pitch. I was going to tell him off.

The big sell came the next day. I was eating an early dinner at Pemba Dolphin. Charles saw me and waited outside, on the beach. He told me that he had been to the doctor, and he was very sick. He needed about $10 US so he could go to some random village for treatment. He showed me some sort of note in doctor's scrawl. He said that I was his friend and that friends help each other out. That's when I turned on him. I informed that we were not friends. I knew he was conning me, and I knew that he had been conning me since I arrived. He of course denied this and repeated over and over again that he was sick. I didn't disbelieve this; my argument was simply that I had no obligation to do anything about it. He repeated more rubbish about us being friends blah blah blah. That's when I pulled out my ace. "OK Charles. If we're friends, how many brothers and sister do I have? What's my job? What country are my parents from?" These are fair questions; I usually start blathering on about these things within three minutes of meeting someone. Of course Charles didn't know; he had never asked because he didn't care. I thought I had won the argument.

Then Charles pulled out his trump card. Literally. It was his penis. He had severe syphilis or some such disease. I almost vomited into the sand; it may have been the most disgusting sight I've ever seen in my life. Everything made sense now. That's why he was going to a village and not the big, well-equipped hospital in Pemba. He was infected so bad that antibiotics couldn't do a damn thing for him anymore, not that he could afford antibiotics anyway. He was going to a witch doctor, which probably wouldn't help a bit. I had been shown visual evidence that Charles was probably going to die of syphilis, and pretty quickly at that. "I'm very sick my friend", he repeated. He showed me his penis again, and I nearly vomited again. So of course I gave him the money. What, did you think I was going to deny $10 to a dying syphilitic? I thrust the money at him, told him not to speak to me for the rest of the time I was in Pemba, and trudged away.

A day later, Charles was calling me "my friend" again and trying to sow the seeds of another con. Can't really blame him, I had proven a relatively easy sell. He asked what time I was leaving for Maputo, so that he could come and say goodbye (i.e. ask for more money). I said I was leaving at 5:00 PM, had to be at the airport by 3:00, and he should come by at 2. My flight left at 11:30. Two can play at games of deception.

Pemba

So my big plan was to go kto Montepuez from Pemba. Montepuez is a an uninteresting mountain town inland, but there is a lodge there called Aurora. It costs 50 dollars a night to stay at Aurora in a dorm, which would be an outrageous price except that part of the deal is that Aurora organizes cultural activites for their guests. And not bullshit cultural activities, either. For example, they can arrange to send you out into the bush for a day with a traditional medicine practitioner. Or with a local woman to harvest and prepare cassava flour. That all sounded lovely to me. I've always wanted to learn to be a bush doctor.

Getting there from Nampula was a little complicated. I had to take a bus to a village called Metoro - a bus, not a chapa - then find onward transport to Montepuez. The bus was unbelievably overstuffed with people and luggage, and it was an uncomfortable experience. By the time I got off at Metoro, it was too late to catch and westward public transport. I had to hitchhike. Hitching is really common and easy in Mozambique. Sometimes it's the only way to get around, so everyone does it. A truck, driven by an Arab-Mozambican, stopped and gave me a lift. He was hauling beer to Montepuez. He drove like a maniac and talked non-stop the entire way there in Portuguese that was much too fast for me to understand. We were stopped by the police on the way. They wanted a bribe and to see my papers. Cops want to see my papers basically every day. The bribe came up to 50 meticais ($2) - it was paid on the ground that the truck couldn't transport civilians because it didn't have a chapa license. What rubbish.


To make a long story short, Aurora was closed. The priests who run the place were on vacation. I was extremely disappointed, not just because I missed out on a chance to become a bush doctor's apprentice, but because I was sick and tired of constantly traveling. I've basically been constantly on the move since I left Malawi. I hadn't stayed anymore for two consecutive nights other thanh Ihla de Moçambique. Pretty much I would wake up really early, sit on a hot, crowded chapa for long periods of the day, then sleep in shitty hotels, most of which didn't have running water or electricity, before repeating the exercise the next day. I desperately wanted to stay somewhere for longer than a day, if for no other reason then because I'd caught a cold along the way and needed to relax and recuperate.

I would not relax or recuperate in Montepuez. There is literally nothing in that town. There was one hotel, with shabby rooms without running water for $16 per night, and one restaurant, which only served chicken with fries. Plus, Montepuez is in the mountains and gets chilly at night. Screw Montepuez. I would stay the night - it was much too late to head elsewhere - and then head elsewhere in the morning. I decided to go to Pemba. My flight back to Maputo leaves from here, it's hot, and lying on the beach under the hot sun would be good for my cold. I ordinarily don't like spending as much as 5 days in one particular place, but I was REALLY worn out that night in Montepuez. I wanted to go somewhere and do nothing for five days. Pemba was the most convenient place to do that.

So at 6 AM morning I walked to the head of the Pemba highway and waited for a chapa to pass. None did. So I walked back to town to see if I could hitch a ride with someone. Eventually, a truck passed. As luck would have it, the truck was driven was driven by the same guy who drove me yesterday! I think it was a different truck, though; in any case, the beer was gone and there was no load in the back. There was a case of bottled water in the cab. He was going to Mecufi, so I'd have to hitch a ride for the remaining 12 km into Pemba. He actually invited me to his house in Mecufi. There is a beach there, and he said his wife was the best cook in Cabo Delgado. I seriously thought about going. I was curious about how Arab-Mozambicans, who are definitely wealthier than the average person here, lived. But I decided to go to Pemba. It was an awesome ride, once again. He was listening to cheesy Portuguese power ballads. Once again a cop wanted to pull us over. Instead of stopping, this time the guy took out a 100 metical note, crumpled it up, and threw it out the window at the cop! At the end of the trip, the guy asked me if I wanted a bottle of water. He told me to open the box and pull one out. I looked into the box. There was no water there, it was filled with cash. The driver cackled at me. I'm assuming the money was somehow obtained illegally, which is why he didn't want to stop for the cop. At least that's what I want to believe. It's much more interesting to think that I got a ride to Pemba with a Mozambican gangster of some sort.

A South African tourist ended up driving me into Pemba. He was staying at the same place I had earmarked: Russell's Place. They had the only dorm beds at Praia de Wimbi, the beach section of Pemba. Everything else was expensive. Turns out Russell's Place had done away with their dorms. The cheapest option is camping, but I don't have a tent. They also had their own tents on site, with electricity. They charged $32 a night for them. $32 per night for a tent, at a campsite with no running water, is absolutely insane. Their beach chalets cost even more. So I told them no thanks, and left in search of other accommodation. Everything was ridiculously expensive - 100% or even 200% more than the prices as of two years ago (when my Lonely Planet was published). If there was a Mozambican Riviera, Wimbi would be it - the steady stream of rich South Africans seeking palms, prawns and prostitutes who are willing to pay exorbitant prices for accommodation keeps the price high. I began to despair - there was no way I could afford anything here, and I sure as hell wasn't sleeping in a frigging tent at Russell's Place - and I considered hitching back out of town to Mecufi to find my Arab-Mozambican gangster. I ran into a guy named Charles who said he knew of a place about a 10 minute walk inland where I could stay for 1000 meticais a night ($40). I pictured an unventilated room in a guy's house. I said $40 was a ridiculous price and if that's how much it cost I would go to Mecufi. Charles said there may be rooms for 750 meticais ($30). I had no intention of staying in a tiny room with no running water for $30 a night, but I went to look anyway.

Turns out Charles got his prices all wrong, and I had my assumptions about the place all wrong. It was a hotel, run by a Mozambican named Joao. Their cheapest rooms cost 600 meticais a night ($24), which is surely the cheapest room in town and which I could afford. And the room was magnificent - it was actually a two room suite, with private bathroom, electricity, hot water, a mini fridge, and satellite TV. I thought I understood the price wrong, but 600 meticais was what they were charging. I'm pretty sure I backed into the best deal in Pemba. The only problem with the place is that the doors don't go all the way to the ground, so mosquitos get into the suite pretty easily. But I put up my mosquito net - something that proved rather difficult, picture me putting it up to the tune of the Benny Hill theme - and the mosquitos ceased being an issue.

I am so happy in my little suite. I will stay in Pemba until my flight back to Maputo on July 7. I'm overjoyed that I can finally rest. I sleep at least 10 hours a day. I have no ambition other than to go to the beach and eat seafood at night. Fixers around town offer to find me a motorcycle for rent or to set me up with a boat cruise, but I can't be bothered to do anything like that. I could barely be bothered to come into town to use the internet today, but I figured I should let my mother know I'm alive. After netty potting my nose out in the Indian Ocean multiple times, my cold is roughly 500% better. It helps that Pemba is the hottest place I've been in Mozambique so far. There are some bars and a casino on the beach, but I'm too lazy to go to them. I'd much rather drowsily sit in my room and watch Brazilian soap operas. They are a riot. There is one called Os Mutantes (also the name of an unbelievable 60s/70s/80s Brazilian band) that is half X-Men and half Days of Our Lives.

I am rather enjoying my stay here.