The trip to Mozambique began in rather a hurried fashion. We were running late leaving for Park Station. We made it by the skin of our teeth and collapsed into our seats at the back of the bus. We slept a little and chatted a little and read. Jonathan watched the terrible movies, the highlight (lowlight?) of which had to be ‘Why did I get married?”. We stopped in Nelspruit for lunch, but instead of stopping at a one-stop, we stopped at a garage with a random little cafe with very little stock. Rather annoying given that we hadn’t had time for breakfast but you make do, I suppose.

Eventually, in the rain, we reached the border-post. I haven’t travelled very much so I’m not good at borders. In fact, this is the first land border (as opposed to airport or seaport) that I can remember crossing. There must have been SA-Ciskei and -Transkei crossings once upon a time but I was too young to remember. Plus homelands don’t really count.

The bus stopped on the SA side and everyone climbed off. It being the 27th of December it isn’t too surprising that the place was a madhouse. We followed the crowds around until we eventually got through the process of our passports being checked on the SA side. At that point someone pointed us in the direction of Mozambique.

Off we went, striding out along the stretch of road that makes up no-man’s land. The border between South Africa and Mozambique is not particularly secure. We walked across, stopping only to flash our passports to a couple of disinterested guards. On the Mozambique side things were more chaotic and less organised than in SA. We found the correct queue, after a bit of looking lost, and waited. As we inched to the front we were lucky enough to be discovered by our benevolant bus stewardess who rushed us through.

Finally, armed with the R20-visas and passport stamps, we wandered out and went to find our bus. Crowds meandered backwards and forwards going, really, where they liked. Have I mentioned that our border with Mozambique is remarkably pourous? After waiting for what seemed like forever for the rest still in the queue to join us, we climbed back on the bus and began the last part of the busride to Maputo.

The vegetation had been changing for a while before the border. On the other side it continued to change from bushveld to jungle. But jungle not in the sense of the rain-forests of hollywood movies but like those ‘jungles’ through which we walked on Cozumel in Mexico – thin, tall trees, without the thick foliage that typifies our forests, not much groundcover and very few bushes and small trees.

As we traveled through the rural areas, there were ‘homesteads’ alongside the road. Something that would continue to fascinate me throughout the trip. The homesteads there are so different to what I am used to. All my life, I have taken for granted the idea of a homestead as a collection of round, thatched, wattle-and-daub huts, with at least a small patch of cultivated land where squashes and meilies are grown and the kraal – so typical, so central to the spiritual beliefs, culture and lives of the Xhosa people – surrounded by rich grassland and bushveld stretching to the horizon in all directions.

The homesteads we were passing in Mozambique were small rectangular plots. Very small. In the corner of each was a very small, rectangular hut. Sometimes even two little huts. Next to these was generally a palm tree. Banana plants or sometimes meilies filled the rest of the plot. Outside the hut were sometimes cleared areas with a fire-pit. Sometimes washed clothes or packets of what I assume was food were hung on the trunks of the palm trees. They looked desolate. So much more poor than at home. Tiny little squares carved out of the jungle, all scattered far apart, where poor people were eeking out a living. There are many discussions which we started to have on the trip which raised questions of urban versus rural poverty but I am still struck by the contrasting rural poverty; the far greater poverty that I perceived on those little squares of land, carved out of the jungle, than on the rich, grassland, hillside homesteads I have walked among at home.

The bus stopped once before reaching Maputo. We had entered an urban area. The little brick houses, set in dusty yards with only a few plants – sometimes a banana tree, sometimes a palm, sometimes some other sub-tropical flowering plant. It reminded me so much of Mawhelereng. I suppose these were the suburbs of Maputo. Growing up in South Africa has scewed my perceptions of urban development. The first thought was that this was the township area, a township like those found outside every South African city. The bus stopped outside a large shopping centre (of the type you see in places like Empangeni and Umtate). This was one of the only large shopping centres we saw in the whole country. The large anchor shop was a Shoprite. I suppose this is the beginning of the South African retail colonization of the country. So far it has not spread and most people in most places still shop at local markets and bakeries. But increasing urbanisation makes this untenable in the long run. For now, this is the only place we saw where the South African shopping centre has taken hold.

Eventually the bus reached Mozambique’s capital city. We stopped outside a travel agency in Karl Marx Avenue. Climbing off the bus into the heat, we reclaimed our bags (in between the chaos of the Cape Town surfer-types who were determined to be first). The taxi drivers were determinedly trying to pick us up but we resisted. Jonathan went off to try and draw some money at the Standard Bank across the road (welcome to the SA colonisation of Mozambique’s banking sector). We were in the process of trying to decide on a plan of action when someone from the backpacker’s found us. It turned out that the other bus (one of our number was on a different bus) stopped somewhere else, so we hopped in the car and headed off to Fatima’s.

About half way there, the driver hurridly pulled off the road and told one of us to get out. The look of horror on Jonathan’s face was quite impressive. It turned out that what had happened was that the driver had spotted a police-man and, given that we were overloaded, pulled off and momentarily chucked one of us out until the cops had passed by in order to avoid trouble. The cops safely passed, we squashed back in and eventually reached our destination.

Fatima’s was fine. A little manky but we were happy not to be on a bus. We checked in and put our stuff in the dorms and considered our next move. At this stage we were still missing two Stuparts. We were also quite hungry. Rather than run off and lose them more, we sat down and had some beer while we waited.

Rich and John soon arrived. That evening we headed off to find food. We headed for the restaurant quarter of Maputo. That concept is a bit odd but there are a few nice enough restaurants in one area so it was fine. Richard, thankfully, knew the way. By this stage the rest of us were pretty exhausted. The walk was an opportunity to see just how run-down Maputo is. It’s quite pretty but the streets are slowly going to pot-holes, the buildings are gently decaying and there is not much sense of civilization and buzz for a city Saturday night street. We walked past various interesting things like little supermarket-lets and loads of ice-cream parlours. We also walked past exactly the kind of stall you see on the side of the road selling cigarettes in Obs, Cape Town or in Braamfontein in Joburg, except that they were, on the side of the road, at 7 o’clock at night, selling a variety of local and imported liquour. Road-side bottle-stores would turn out to be quite common in Moz but I was intrigued the first time I saw this one. Such a different world.

After walking for what seemed like forever on that first day (and what would seem like a gentle stroll by the end of the holiday) we found the road we were looking for. We found a place called something about Dolce Vita and took a table on the veranda. Ah, civilization! The place could have been transplanted from Sandton square. It may sound odd to go off to another country and immediately seek out something so like home but after a long bus-trip and much exhaustion, that touch of civilization – and their yummy G&Ts – was necessary. The food was really great, too. I was happy.

We also decided that we now understood the colonial propensity for gin and tonics. In that heat, after a long day, in that chaos, there is little quite as refreshing and lovely as a large G&T.

Back at the backpackers, we annexed a group of comfy(-ish) chairs, settled down with our beers and chatted for hours. It was one of those meandering conversations typical of educated, idealistic young people sitting around over beer. The central theme to which we returned and to which we would return again and again during this trip, was happiness – the relative importance of happiness, the value and idea of seeking happiness and the relationship between happiness, ethics, altruism and duty.

Much later, the last two of us fell into hot, sticky dorm-room beds and drifted off to our first night’s sleep in Maputo. We had arrived and the holiday had begun.