Mozambique - Quissico

We drove for two days out of capetown and made our way to Kruger park in the North East of South Africa. The last night before the park we stayed at a b&b run by a very nice woman who explained to us that diseases are caused by parasites in your body and can be cured by use of a little electric zapper. Which we both dutifully tried out. It tingles a little bit and I haven't been sick yet, so I guess it must be working. She also told us that she knew her water therapy was working because her urine was clear. Yes, it was really hard not to laugh hard at that.

Kruger park was great, two minutes into the park we had huge elephants walking down the road towards the car. Over the three days that we were there we saw impala, kudu, elephants, zebra, wart hogs, monkeys, baboons, rhino, hyena, hippo, crocodiles and even a lion. An amazing array of animals and birds (also the goliath heron lives up to its name.) The lion was great to see although, of course, the window on my side of the car had chosen that particular moment to get stuck in the down position. I enjoyed the close up look at the lion, but I could have done the glass separation.

Two nights we camped in the park, in our ground tent though, not the rooftop tent on the car. Took a while to figure the tent out, it is a real old school bush style tent made of very strong material. At night we could hear the wart hog in the camp, noisy beasts. The last night we stayed in a little house and bbq'd (bried for all the south africans.) We could see a hill on fire in the distance, a bright line of fire running across the hill for a good distance, very apocalyptic in the dark.

Crossing the border to mozambique was pretty straightforward. No hassle except from the 'fixers' that *inside* the official border crossing offered to help to smooth your way along. One guy actually helped us out a little at the end, he recommended what beers to try in Mozambique (2M, which is ok, not great.) Mozambique is a big change from south africa, more run down, more third world and very few white people. I liked Maputo, the capital, it has a run down seediness to it that reminds me of india, but a cleaner and less crowded version. The mercado central and the strangely empty train station are worth visiting.

Currently we are in a little pousada (hotel) in a town called Quissico. We were aiming for Barra on the coast, but the roads deteriorated and it got dark too fast. This is quality accommodation with a bucket for a shower.
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Conor