Wednesday, March 8. Docked at Maputo, Mozambique. Blue sky, 31 C. Day 64 of this cruise, 64 more to go.
Never believe what you read or hear! The Big Deal on immigration that the Captain told us would happen this morning did not happen. We were just a little late getting away and we never saw anybody from Mozambique Immigration, other than up in the Lido Buffet having lunch: many of them!!!
Also this city is far more than we were led to believe it was . The country has a population of about 30,000,00. 50% unemployment rate, corruption is a big factor so figure it out for yourself where the country is going. Nowhere I figure.
We took the $89.00 ship’s city tour in a very nice 18 passenger Air Conditioned bus. Best cheap tour ever. We saw all that we needed to see, plus some. in the three hours we had. I will not list the sights. To me the highlights were the Museum of Natural History where we had 20 minutes; a fabulous Craft Market rivalling Mombassa, Kenya’s Carving Cooperative except no onsite carving; [20 minutes]; The Train Station, [15 minutes] was also worth seeing. You can tell it was a rush but there was no alternative. We did not have to be reminded that we are indeed in Africa. The tour listing indicated that there were no toilet facilities on the trip. I can see why they said that, but there was a toilet, a Typical African Toilet: with the very barest of necessities.
The one negative side of the day was the craft and trinket sellers who were at every stop we made, and we made many. Welcome to our first poor country this trip.
We were back on the ship in time to grab something to eat, download my 70 pictures and get a start on the blog before the day started to wind down. Fellette fell asleep reading her book after lunch and I am in bare feet, as my toes need some relaxing and and room to spread out!
A Good Day...
Commuter Loco.
Coffee bar in the station. Clean as a whistle, and so are the workers we encountered.
Market for a 20 minute visit. People did not appear to be happy as many markets are bubbling, this one was rather quiet I thought. They also did not like having their photo taken, so I didn’t!
A over view shot is the best I could do.
There are some interesting buildings here. I was pleasantly surprised by this city that I had never heard of before the cruise.
Doug’s Big Gun pose at the Old Fort: old, old, old Fort.
Some of the Batiks were amazing. We are no longer collecting unfortunately.
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