Headed up to the viewing point where last evening we though we had spotted a fresh zebra carcass. Instead it turned out to be an old one and what we made out to be the striped pelt was in fact the ribs of the dead animal. In our defense it was a long way off, and down a ravine. The spot itself was incredible I thought. Across the gorge we spotted a honey badger! Despite looking cute and cuddly these little guys are extremely vicious. Climbed aboard the minivan and continued on our wildlife quest. Came upon rhinos, giraffe, kudus and a group of mongoose. All in all not a bad morning's viewing.
We prepared to leave the bungalows at 8:30. The monkeys sensing our departure started swarming about looking for any tidbits of food that they could find. One cheeky little beggar jumped into the minivan and snatched two apples that Karen had set aside for the journey - she was so lucky that they didn't take a fancy to her point-n-shoot which was beside them.
Our journey outta Kruger presented us with one final hurrah of pretty much all that Kruger could offer - no cats though. We had incredible close-up encounters with giraffe (who were everywhere!), elephants with calves (and a very protective mother who considered charging us), a large herd of zebra crossing the road ('literally a zebra crossing' - that never gets old), warthogs and wildebeest. Poor Tony continued to suffer in the back of the 4x4, curled up on the back seat wishing for the corrugated dirt roads to give way to smooth tarmac.
One thing I've learned when traveling is that if you are going to have a big night, make sure to do it when you are staying in the same location more than one night. Do not under any circumstance do it when you have a lot of driving to do the next day. I'm definitely going to miss Kruger, but a new country is a-calling, plus maybe it's time for a change of scenery. Let's head to Mozambique and the beach!!!
Rocked up to the Mozambican border and locked horns with the most difficult immigration officer to date. Seriously I could not get over the audacity of this guy. It took well over three hours for him to inefficiently process 11 visas. He was extremely surly and on a bit of a power trip. I think he was going for the world-record of tuts in an hour. Still, there was no point getting agitated, we were completely at his mercy and all we could do was remain frustratingly upbeat around him. (This isn't our first border buddy, if we can survive the incompetency of Ecuador then we can survive anything, isn't that right Karen...)
The visa for Mozambique required a photo and fingerprints to be taken. The photo bit was easy, however the fingerprint machine was having huge difficulties registering our prints. The official was blaming moisture and oils on our fingers, we were blaming the dodgy equipment. His solution to solve the problem was quite comical. He rubbed his index fingers straight down his shirt from nipple height. He then indicated to Karen to do the same. She rubbed her fingers on her trousers and tried the machine. Still no prints registered.
The official repeated the strange drying procedure, rubbing both index fingers down this shirt, and again asked Karen to do likewise. The second time she rubbed her fingers on the hem of her t-shirt however this simply irked the official to the point where he shook his head and repeated the now exceedingly unusual action. We're definitely going to have a standoff as Karen has no intention on entertaining his weird titillation request. Sue saves the day by producing some wet wipes and that seems to do the trick, fingerprint finally registers.
Despite the introduction of the wet wipes we still struggle to register a lot of fingerprints and the official must have demonstrated the perfect drying procedure to at least half of us. Mercifully he also seems to be encouraging this bizarre technique to the guys as well - so he's not a total creep then, just oblivious to the complete inappropriateness of it.
My turn! I hand over my passport and preempting the need to have my photo taken I sit down on the seat in front of the camera. Oh no, no, no. I should not have done that, not without being told to. The official tut tuts me and walks off to the back office. Ten minutes later he returns, no doubt having deemed that I have learned my lesson (sadly I hadn't!).
This time I waited for him to signal to me to sit down; we take the photo and I get up and approach the counter. I make a big show of wiping my finger and place it on the fingerprint machine. Oh no! I've done it again, presumed without being instructed. Another tut tut and he disappears off again. What the...!! He returns five minutes later only to head off to another counter and deal with some locals for a while. Obviously us foreigners were testing his patience.
Another ten minutes pass and the official makes his way back to the counter. I try to appear suitably contrite and we go through the entire rigmarole again. Check my passport, (wait!), impatiently indicate for me to sit down, (wait!), impatiently signal for me to get up and come to fingerprint machine, (wait!), impatiently signal me to wipe my hand and scan right index finger. He nods and I foolishly presume that he means it's good. (Will I ever learn!!). I remove my finger and oh god you'd think I'd deliberately set out to ruin his day for the amount of tuts I receive. Seriously!!!
Right finger back on machine, no no, wipe it first, now try. At this stage I am biting back a giggling fit as the situation is just sooo preposterous. I'm nearly looking around to see if there are hidden cameras in the place, because this guy cannot be for real. Thankfully I successfully mask the giggles as a cough because heaven knows how long he'd feck off for if he thought I was laughing at him.
Finally, success, we have a reading! Next up is the left hand. Again with the theatrics of drying it. This time I wait to be told to place the finger on the machine. When no instruction was given, I looked at him quizzically, pointing my finger towards the machine questioningly. "Yes yes" he says impatiently - okay then, left finger on and wait! Three passes later and I'm done. Sheeeesh!!
Three hours later we were all through and just waiting on getting cumulative change ($58) from the cost of the visas. System was, you had to receive change in whatever currency you paid in. It was not possible to get Mozambique currency as change for US Dollars - ridiculous. The sourcing of individual change in dollars was proving problematic for the official so he amalgamated all our change into one transaction. That would have been fine only the cheeky sod gave us too much ($60) and we could not be let off with short-changing the border $2, so instead we had to take the hit, pocketing $50 and letting the official keep $8 for himself. Hmmm, you my friend have done this before. Lu was raging and while she had $1 on her, none of the rest of us could make up the $1 difference - balls! Kirsten at this stage had had enough, grabbed the stamped passports, gave the official the bothersome $10 and we left the building. So welcome to Mozambique!!!
Having come from the fairly peaceful Kruger, it takes a bit of getting used to seeing people milling about everywhere, busy with the daily bustle of city life. (I nearly said 'hustle and bustle', but no-one in Africa hustles, everything is done slowly, slowly. You're on Africa time, chillax, no haste, it'll get done...eventually). Driving to the capital Maputo was an experience; the city was in total gridlock. Bumper to bumper traffic, junctions had cars strewn at every conceivable angle.
African driving is something else. Definitely not for the meek and timid. You just gotta pick your route and drive, praying others will stop. And there is a kind of unwritten order, first come first serve...to a certain point of course. Today seems to be some kind of market day, there are shoe sellers about as far as the eye can see. Solitary left shoes were perfectly laid out on sheets on the ground. Dozens of them. I can only presume that the matching pairs were located somewhere close by, as obviously it would be foolhardy for a seller to display a pair.
We are staying in the gorgeous four-star hotel Cardoso. Oooh this is a bit posh! We were greeted on entry to the hotel with flutes of fruit juice and uniformed porters vying to take our bags - this gesture was extremely well received by me as my injured hand was very tender and I couldn't haul my bag too far. (By the way, injuring your palm is incredibly frustrating - you use it for everything!!! I'm continuously knocking and bumping it off stuff. The wound is still oozing as no sooner does it attempt to set, then I only go and mindlessly pick something up and re-open it again.).
Anyway, back to the opulence! Hotel room is mahussive!! I've a giant king-size bed and a criminal amount of wardrobes that are tantalizingly teasing me as while this is an epic room for a bag explosion we are only staying one night, so I need to restrain myself.
Dinner was a delicious buffet where I managed starters, a main course and multiple mini desserts. Myself and Lu polished off a nice bottle of red as while Tony was feeling better, he was giving alcohol a wide berth for the evening. He had perked up a nice bit since this afternoon and we spent the evening trying to come up with a new career path for me. Outcome of which is still pending...
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