Another Moz Fly-by

Yep, I did it again—another 24-hour trip to Maputo, which has consequently consumed nearly 6 passport pages (they have an annoying habit of placing a sticker just so, taking up nearly another page each entrance). But I have a three-month visa, so why not go?

We left mid-morning, and arrived in Maputo in the early afternoon. Rather than hit the beach, which was very tempting, I decided to try to take in some culture and see a new part of the city, since it was my third time there after all. I joined the car that was heading to a cool art gallery, then to the central handicraft market, and finally to view the French cultural center downtown. After a couple of hours of more culture than I’d had in some time, it was time for a large group dinner at the fish market—still as good as back in August!

After some downtime at the large house in central Maputo where all dozen of us were staying (some very nice former Mbabanites and my hosts from several weeks earlier), we headed out to a special event, a jazz show that was taking place at the old train station. The venue was complete with two several bar serving drinks and jazz musicians (Americans in fact, sponsored by the US Embassy) performing on a train flatbed. After the show and just around midnight (yippee, late night!) we headed over to Rue d’Art, a unique outdoor bar and club, housed in an alley way of sorts, with a DJ spinning music in the middle of the street corridor, and an indoor bar off to one side.

We proceeded to dance for approximately 4 hours, although the last hour was admittedly more, “hey, let’s try to make it all night ‘til sunrise” because who wants sleep anyway? In fact, a few people’s early morning hunger pangs won out, and we went on a mad search for pizza—apparently not easy to come by in good ol’ Maputo. We finally did find it, but the location was less than ideal. Some street revelers pointed us towards what ended us being a gentleman’s club. Luckily the overt club activities of the evening had already ended as it was after 5am, so we managed to beg for a last-call order of pizza and then struggled to keep our eyes open until it arrived. When the pizza finally did arrive pizza, it was not half bad, and then we made way for home, as the lighted sky promised we had nearly succeeded in our goal.

The next morning included another trip to Café Sol of famed bagels and coffee (not really famous but it is to Swazi expats) and some Thai take-away—the perfect dinner to savor back safe and sound and early to bed in peaceful Mbabane.