Traveling Cat

another group email from Susie since she’s better about sending updates!

Hello everyone!

One week in Mozambique, and we have covered a small distance but have been able to see so much. Travel here is much more rugged in comparison to the other countries we’ve been in, but the efforts we’ve made to get from place to place has been completely worth it. I’ve updated photos up through where we are now, so check out the photo site and see what there is to see.

To give you a taste, during our last week of travel, Cat & I have taken the following exciting modes of transportation:

-Bike taxi (hanging on the back of a bike, heavy packs and all)
-Minibus (typical mob of people in a small converted van)
-Bigger minibus (exciting to have more head room)
-Pickup truck (a miraculous feat – 3/5 of the truck bed full of baggage, supplies, a bike or two, and at least one live chicken; 2/5 of the truck bed full of a huge stack of blankets to sell at a market, and at least 14 people and all of their little bags. 10 hours of fun on that one.)
-18 wheeler beer truck (my first, and our cushiest ride by far – we got to sit on the bed in the back and take an easy ride to Pemba)

To say the least, travel here is much different than other countries we’ve been in, and defines a bit more our experience in Mozambique!

From the beginning…We crossed through Malawi (we’ll be heading back there next) and then headed into Mozambique through the Milange border crossing. From there we headed to Nampula and then straight over to Ila de Mocambique, which was the former capital of the country until the late 1800s. An unbelievable place, full of crumbling buildings and a ton of people living amongst a mix of what are basically ruins and the occasional renovated building. So colorful, so relaxing, and very far off the typical tourist track, which was a great break from the norm. Photos tell more than I can. My photos show very few people, but the people were the best part of being there – tons of kids all willing to play in the street (the Monkey walk was a favorite), and adults who put up with our babbling to them in broken Spanish and parts of Portuguese we’d picked up. Just gorgeous. From there we headed up to Pemba, where we are now. It is more touristy here and defnitely more developed as more and more people make their way up to this northern oasis in the country. Beautiful beaches and we hope to get to the nearby Quirimbas islands, just north of us.

First we’ll be taking a break here to nurse Cat back to health, who is going through her second bout with malaria – poor thing! Luckily there are plenty of places we can crash here, so we’re going to get ourselves out of the tent and into some beds and hopefully a place with a fan to let Cat recover in a more peaceful setting. She’s doing pretty well at the moment, but will go through some tougher days as the medication courses through her body to make her better. Send some positive vibes over to Cat, and we’ll hope to be on the road again in a few days.

From here we’re heading back into Malawi to take a trip up the lake, and then up into Tanzania. After doing some dedicated planning (we actually pulled up a calendar and a map…the whole works!), it turns out we have less time and more ground to cover than we’d like. We are halfway through our journey, and we keep thinking of more places we want to see! Depending on what our pace is, we will definitely head to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and then to Zanzibar. There may be a trip out to Western Tanzania after that, and depending on time we could swing through Rwanda and Uganda as well. If not, we’ll head straight up to Kenya to begin our explorations from there.

That’s the plan for now – always subject to change. Know that we’re doing great and are staying safe, and will be getting healthy shortly. More to come soon…