from land rover to shining land rover
 
i’m zipping along a sandy road in anticipation of sun, surf, and some dolphins.  i decided to spend christmas down in ponta d’ouro, or simply “ponta” as the kidz call it these days, swimming with dolphins at a great little eco-tourism lodge, dolphin encounters.  ponta is on the southern coastal tip of mozambique, about 10 miles up from the border with south africa.  but, these pesky things like borders aside, it might as well be in south africa.  
 
there are basically two roads to ponta.  one comes from south africa and it is a nice paved road until you hit the border with mozambique and then you have a sand road for the last 10 miles or so.  the other road is from maputo and it is anywhere from 3 to 7 hours of sand roads, depending on your vehicle, the weather (sand, unfortunately, does have a tendency to turn to mud when it rains), and your driving constitution.
 
not surprisingly, a lot more south africans go to ponta than mozambiquans.  in fact, the first time i got the bill for something i thought, “woowee! things are cheap here!”  as i plopped down my 100 metacais note for a bill of 30.  the waiter just stared at me like i had dropped a used chewing gum wrapper in his little payment tray.  what was this ridiculous funny paper that i was trying to pawn off on him?  it was only after some confused discussion that we cleared up that in ponta, mozambique, the working currency is south african rands and i owed him 30 rand and i might as well remove these worthless metacais from his sight.
 
although i got to pay for things with south african money, i did not have the ease of the south africans in getting to ponta.  i had the sandy road that even the mozambiquans throw their hands
 
Thursday, December 28, 2006

what is the MTOD?  click here to find out.
 
to the right is a photo of the new mozambiquan ministry of foreign affairs building.  isn’t it pretty?  the chinese built the building for the mozambiquan government.  isn’t that nice?
 
hey, on a completely unrelated note, do you know that the mozambiquan government granted china some really sweet logging deals up north and the chinese are in there ripping out trees left right and center and clear cutting vast swaths of land in a rather unenvironmentally friendly manner and shipping those logs back to china?  the dragon is hungry!
 
but it is a pretty building, isn’t it?
 
* names changed to protect the innocent.
rover.  this rand rover was more of the 6 hour drive philosophy as we cruised at about 20 mph.  i guess 20 mph as all the gauges on the truck stayed at zero for the entire drive.
 
santos, a mozambiquan guy who makes this maputo-ponta trip twice a week to deliver wooden chatchkis to the ponta street vendors to sell, agreed to take three of us on the journey.  based on my extensive portuguese (comprising of useful phrases like “como estas” “si” and “bom dia”) santos declared that i sit in the cab with him while the rest rode in the flat back of the truck.  i was getting comfortable in the truck, elbow hanging out the window as i enjoyed the view when santos told me to not sit so close to the door as it couldn’t be securely closed.  so i enjoyed the view from a bit safer distance from the door, offering to share my bottle of water as we bounced across the mozambiquan countryside with no radio and no air-conditioning.  
 
our conversation was quite stilted as beyond “como estas” “si” and “bom dia” my portuguese tends to falter slightly.  but smiles and laughter can go a long way.  when he asked about something where the key word was “vino” my mind was trying to figure it out.  was he
just referencing the US’s foreign policy with mozambique and their status as a Highly Indebted Country?  why did i not pay more attention in my portuguese class!
 
only on third attempt did i realize he was asking me if i had wine instead of water.  vino.  wine.  mozambiquans take a bit of a lackadaisical approach to drinking and driving as about the only mozambiquan law on the subject is that if you are pulled over by a cop while drinking and driving, it is best to offer the cop a drink as well.  
up at before i could get to this little piece of paradise.  as i tossed my bag in the back seat of my ride, i knew i was in for a haul, but at least i would be traveling in style, in a brand new fully decked out land rover.
 
ralph* took me down to ponta.  he is a french guy who owns one of the local restaurants in ponta.  he makes the trip up to maputo once a week to buy fresh fish, which seems quite ironic as ponta is on the ocean, but i have given up questioning things such as this a while back.  i say ralph is french, but he might as well be auzzie as he has the spirit of an outback auzzie cowboy.  he made the trip in three speedy air-
the road to ponta
conditioned land rover shock-absorbing hours, barrelling down the road at 60 mph, honking impatiently for anything and everything to get out of his way. (i learned that when driving on a sand road, speed is your friend.  it smoothes out the bumps).  ralph is the type of guy that, when he sees one of his friends walking down the street, he accelerates his land rover and tries to run the person over, only swerving at the last minute.  then, they laugh, give each other the finger, and ralph drives on, smoking his cigarette, observing the world from behind his blue tinted sunglasses while singing along to the cheesy music that he blasts out of his car.  
 
on the upside, ralph’s restaurant overlooking the indian ocean does serve the most fabulous french crepes.
 
on the way back from ponta to maputo, i also road in a land rover....a 1974 fire engine red land
on a side note, we were pulled over by the cops in maputo. about 300 metacais ($12) accidentally left in the middle of santos’ driving papers and a bit of smooth talking on santos’ part seemed to take care of whatever infraction we apparently had committed by driving in a fully regulated vehicle calmly and carefully down our side of the road. usually the cops here stop anyone and everyone right before christmas as they need holiday money for presents, but this was the 27th! all this aside, i realized that i would rather ride with santos than ralph any day. i became a huge fan of his land rover’s ability to shift into some low low absolutely low gear that worked well when, for example, we were going uphill in a foot of sand and the car had stalled out. no problem! and santos’ low low gear worked well when he, in reverse, pulled a stuck truck that we had come across out of a sandy patch. then, much to the shock of all the western tourists who were perhaps a bit too familiar with the principle of heavy objects, when tied to you, tend to gather speed when going downhill, santos pulled the truck off the lip of the road and down a steep grassy embankment to a better side sandy road. but somehow that seems a bit nicer than trying to run people over on the road. i guess there are a lot of different types of land rovers out there in the world. what kind of land rover are you rolling in? just a couple of ponta photos and one video clip:
reed casita on the beach anyone?
did i mention on the beach?
the weaver bird alarm clock system
beaching the dolphin boat
saying something about if i came from somewhere as “vino” could be the past tense of “venir” which means to come.  was he coming from someplace?  or is “vino” the past tense of “ver” (to see).  was he asking me if i saw the little monkeys that scampered across the road every once in a while? or was he
the italian contingent riding in the back of the truck