St. Lucia, South Africa

Photo taken in Lobamba, Swaziland by Kate ( http://nomaddreaming.blogspot.com ). Thanks to her.



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So, here is the mini-map of the places I’ve seen so far. From Johannesburg to Maputo, up to Tofo and Inhambane, further north to Vilankulo and the Bazaruto Archipelago, back down to Maputo, then Swaziland and St. Lucia in South Africa.

Now, after just over 3 weeks, I’ve entered the typical travel mindset. The days in Warsaw, working or… playing, if you prefer (my job consists of playing video games and checking that the Italian text is correct), already feel so far away.
The thing is that before every long trip —or rather, before every long trip in recent years now that I’ve gotten a bit older— there’s always a moment of “laziness,” a small part of me that grumbles a bit. You get so used to comforts, a nice bed, a nice room, a certain routine, that it kind of whines about having to give all that up for the usual hardships of wandering around. But already now no “voice” is grumbling anymore. There’s such a huge gap between home life and travel life, there’s just no comparison. Every day is a new adventure, every day new people and places. If you like a place, you stay, if you don’t, you leave. If you want to be with others, you are, if you want to be alone, you are truly completely alone.

Here in St. Lucia, actually, it’s impossible to be alone because the white South Africans on vacation are extremely hospitable and invite me to everything: barbecues, ping-pong tournaments, pool, etc. There’s a summer atmosphere, apart from the climate I mean, everyone is here eager to have fun, drink, and party. The town is small, the typical holiday spot you find all over the world: a little street full of small restaurants, bars, pubs, and shops.

But all around it is Africa. A large lake (which at this point looks more like a wide river) meets the ocean and forms a dense forest in between. There are crocodiles and hippos: I’ve seen the former just sitting on a pier, they pop out of the water from time to time and then dive back in. The hippos, on the other hand, just don’t want to show themselves to me. By now, everyone has seen them except me, despite how huge they are! Then there are lots of light gray monkeys, incredibly agile and hyperactive, very fun to watch, with the only problem that early in the morning they jump on the roof of the room and wake me up.

From what I’ve understood, the entire South African coast starting from here and going west is made up of a myriad of small villages like this, each with its own specific features. There’s something for everyone: more or less touristy places, big or small beaches, lively or quiet. In short, there’s no shortage of options.

Remember that clicking on the photos will enlarge them.

Swaziland

Here we are in the Kingdom of Swaziland! The only absolute monarchy in Africa, it has reached the macabre and almost surreal AIDS rate of 40%. Practically almost one out of two people. Not that the rest of Southern Africa is doing much better, with a rate between 20% and 25%.
To combat its spread, the king —who has about twenty wives and almost always chooses girls aged 17–18— some years ago imposed a ban on sex for teenagers in his kingdom. The ban was however lifted the following year, also because the only result was that young people ended up having even more sex due to the appeal of the “forbidden,” while AIDS kept rising. Anyway, it’s a really catastrophic situation.

I'm in a wonderful hostel inside Milwane Park. Right around the fence of the complex, and sometimes even inside it, there are various types of antelope, zebras, ostriches, and many little wild boars walking around with their babies (I don’t know the exact name, they are like wild boars but a bit smaller). Not very pretty, but cute.

Then there are wildebeests. The first times I walked past the wildebeest herds I was a bit scared because when you get within about ten meters, the larger ones turn around and stare at you fixedly, completely still. They don’t get distracted for a second. So being stared at by those fairly large horned animals is a bit unsettling, but the truth is that they’re the ones who are afraid. That’s why they stare so intently. And often just the slightest movement is enough to send the whole herd fleeing! Hehe. Better not to mess with Dekaro!

Then we have: hippos, which I haven’t seen yet, only heard. Crocodiles, I’ve seen one. Birds everywhere, and some strange reptiles, something halfway between large lizards and chameleons.

Apart from that, nothing much happens. There’s a total sense of peace. The hostel is run by some chubby Black women, gentle and calm, like those who used to take care of white households in old, somewhat racist American films, always kind, helpful, and unflappable while all kinds of chaos unfolded around them.

In the evening they cook and we all eat around the campfire. The sky is full of stars. You can only hear crickets, cicadas, and night birds.

Hi Pierre!! I'm so glad of the news!! Great! We will have a lot of fun! :-))



Vilankulo, view from the hostel.




Green sail, Vilankulo.




Mother and child, Vilankulo.




Colors, Vilankulo.



Girls, Vilankulo.




Antelope, Swaziland.




Zebra.




Reptile.




Little wild boar.




Wild boar with babies.

Bazaruto Archipelago, mangoes, and more fish...

Hi everyone! I’m back in Maputo after a few hours, having left (a bit reluctantly, once again) Vilankulo and the sea of the Bazaruto Archipelago, which is truly stunning: turquoise, green, and bright blue.
At low tide the water is very shallow and strips of sand appear here and there. The islands themselves are not particularly special, quite bare actually, but they have some paradise-like white beaches. The water is warm.
I went snorkeling and it was full of different kinds of fish. The water wasn’t very clear because of algae, so their colors didn’t really shine.
The most fun part was running into huge schools of tiny silver fish. Tiny but countless, they formed a kind of wall that opened as I swam through it. They somehow managed to move away just in time, except for a few light contacts with my hands.
There were also some much larger fish, over half a meter long, kind of colorful groupers.
But enough talk about fish...

Let’s talk about mangoes instead, which are my favorite fruit.
The first mango I bought in Tofo cost 10 meticais (or whatever they’re called, the Mozambican currency), about 30 euro cents. Then at the same stall I got two for the same price. And little by little, bargaining away, I realized the price drop has no limits: in Vilankulo I was buying 10 mangoes for 10 meticais, basically 3 cents each!!

I spent the last few days in Vilankulo mostly with a German man I met at the hostel in Tofo, in the previously mentioned circular shared room, which in the following days became empty, so it basically turned into a private room, with the added bonus of electricity (which the small bungalows didn’t have). Then this guy showed up.
In the evening he didn’t say a word, but the next morning I ran into him just as I woke up (very early for me, around 10), and he was coming back very energetic from the sea. He started throwing out every possible cliché about Italians, in English but with a strong German accent: “Ah ah Italians always sleeping... ah ah Italians very lazy... and now what do you do? Day is already over!”. And similar things, but in the end he was actually a very nice person.
For the record, around 9:30 pm he switched off and went to bed, only to be back in action in the morning when I woke up.
So, before leaving Tofo, I followed his advice and went to a place in Vilankulo called “Complexo Alemão”, where he was supposed to arrive the next day. It was run by another German guy who also liked throwing the usual nonsense about Italians (“ah ah Italians eat spaghetti... ah ah Italians very cunning...”). He wasn’t as friendly though.

Brief sports interlude: Germany – Italy 0–2

Another surreal thing about this “Complexo Alemão” was the night guard. One night the electricity went out, as often happens in Mozambique, and I saw this strange guy with a bow and arrows. At first I thought maybe he was a seller or something, but no… he was actually the night guard. Armed with bow and arrows! We were in safe hands.

One day I had a small cut on my nose because I was standing in the back of a van I had hitched a lift in, and meanwhile enjoying the view — BAM! — an overhanging branch hit me in the face. I bled quite a bit and now I have a small scar, but it should disappear soon.

And finally, a word about Mozambicans. They are very welcoming and friendly people. Sometimes they get annoyed when you take photos, and sometimes they ask for money afterward, but more as a joke. It’s worth noting that, despite the poverty, nobody really begs on the streets.
In general, they are great people, facing more or less the same problems we have: unemployment or low wages, corruption in power, etc.
I really can’t believe the level of alarmism and hysteria I’ve read about traveling in Mozambique on some websites. Some of them talk about armed gangs roaming the streets, robberies everywhere, and the impossibility of traveling without a tour operator: an obvious exaggeration.

Anyway, I’ve written way too much, enough now. Next stop: Swaziland! You might say: what the hell is that? I had never heard of it either… but let’s go and see.

P.S. Hi Ania!! How is going there? I miss all you also! Filippo just wrote me the story of the police!! Incredible, FUCK THE POLICE, always!

About the photos: unfortunately this internet-cafe' monitor has completely messed-up colors, so I chose them a bit randomly… next time I’ll add better ones.

Vilankulo...

Hi everyone! I’m in a place called Vilankulo (in Italian it sounds something like “mansion in the ass”! 😄), and like my name, it’s sometimes spelled with a K and sometimes with a C.
From here I’ll be able to visit the Bazaruto Archipelago, maybe tomorrow.

With some effort, I managed to leave Tofo yesterday, even though I would have happily stayed longer, spending my days lazily doing very little. The only special thing I did there was a marine safari, basically going out on a rubber boat to try to see rare fish.
Unfortunately, we didn’t spot the highlight: the whale shark, which is about ten meters long and with which you can actually swim! It’s a vegetarian shark, of course.
Instead, we saw two manta rays, flat fish about three meters wide, diamond-shaped, gliding elegantly almost at the surface. And many dolphins. It wasn’t the first time I had seen them, but never so close and for so long. They almost seemed to move in slow motion, going up and down in the water. We followed them several times, just a few meters from the boat. But every time we tried to get closer, they disappeared into the deep blue.
And finally a hammerhead shark, very curious, swimming alone. We annoyed it for quite a while by circling around it.


Girl.


Tofo beach.


Skewer seller.


Girls.


On the boat.

Finally, the sea...

Helloooo everyooneee!! I’m in Inhambane, Mozambique, and I’ve just found an internet café. For the past three days I’ve been at the beach in a beautiful place called Tofo (where, of course, the only internet café doesn’t work).
My luggage (that petty-bourgeois relic, as Danilo rightly pointed out in a comment) finally arrived, and the next day I was able to leave Johannesburg. They really didn’t want to let me leave that ugly city and they tried to stop me from getting on the bus because I didn’t have a visa for Mozambique.
I knew you could get it at the border, and that’s indeed true, but apparently the rules have changed and you can’t board buses without a visa anymore because it often causes long delays. Another day in Johannesburg and I would have gone crazy, so I said I was getting on anyway. They called the manager, and we agreed that if they couldn’t issue the visa quickly, they would leave me at the border. Luckily they did it in 5 minutes.

So I arrived in Maputo, which I barely saw (I’ll pass through again anyway). It seemed very fascinating. Not exactly “beautiful” in the literal sense, but it has a kind of “soul”… I’ll describe it better when I see it properly.
The next morning, about 25 backpackers and I took a minibus to Tofo. It was small, but they miraculously managed to pack us all in tightly with our luggage.
After a few hours on the road, while the minibus was speeding along a long downhill straight, we heard a violent noise: ta-ta-TA-TA-TA-TA, followed by a strong burning smell, smoke, and black pieces flying everywhere, both big and small. Panic everywhere. The bus didn’t even stop at first, and it felt like we were going to catch fire.
Then the girl next to me jumped on me, and I tried to move to the right as much as possible, since the smoke was coming from that side. Finally the minibus stopped, and we saw that the seat next to mine, where the girl was sitting, had practically exploded! There was a hole with strange fibers sticking out, and even the metal underneath was torn open.
Basically, a tire had exploded and caused all that mess. Anyway, nobody was hurt. Shortly after, on the same road, we saw a large bus completely overturned on its side. I don’t know more, but it was clearly a serious accident.

So I finally arrived in Tofo, a small village on the tip of a long, wide, and almost empty beach. There is a lively little market where fishermen arrive with fish of all sizes, and friendly women and girls selling skewers, fruit, peanuts, drinks, etc.
Along the seafront (which is about ten meters above the beach), there are various hostels. In general, they have small bungalow-style huts, very basic, just a bed and a mosquito net.
I went to a hostel that was recommended to me, but the small bungalows were all full, so for now I’m in a strange shared dorm. It’s a large circular hall with 12 beds arranged around the edge like Knights of the Round Table.
But it’s fine, and in fact only 3 other beds were occupied. The next morning I woke up and at first couldn’t understand where I was. Through the mosquito net I could only see three seriously stunning girls in the middle of the room putting on sunscreen. One of them was wearing a cowboy hat. It looked like a scene from a porno movie. Then I went back to sleep.

And now I’m here in Inhambane for just one day. It’s a nice colonial town... but I’m a bit tired of writing now.

Kisses.


The place that exploded.


Overturned bus.


Ok, no more dramatic images from now on.



My bed, already taken over by a cat.


The market in Tofo.


Sunset.

I’m here, but my luggage is somewhere else in the world :-(

Ok! I’ve arrived. My luggage, however, I have no idea where in the world it ended up. Maybe it heard that Johannesburg is a very dangerous city and got scared of being stolen. Hopefully they’ll find it tomorrow, otherwise I really don’t know how I’ll manage.
I haven’t really seen anything of the city. Tomorrow I’ll take a walk in the centre, but I don’t think it’s very nice. As soon as the luggage arrives (if it does…) I’ll head to Maputo.

Ah, something strange happened on the plane on the Rome–Athens flight. There was a group of Panathinaikos fans, completely drunk (I don’t know if they were returning from a match or just from a trip) who almost started a fight in mid-air between themselves.
Some were seated in the front and others in the back. They started insulting each other and at one point they rushed towards the middle of the plane to hit each other.
We tried to stop them but there wasn’t much we could do, so in the end they ended up clashing, with only a chubby flight attendant in between. Miraculously, no punches were thrown and after a while they went back to their seats, continuing to shout insults and Greek threats at each other, until the whole scene repeated again.
They kept getting up and meeting in the middle of the plane, then being pulled back again, over and over for the whole flight. I don’t even know how many times. I’ve been on many flights, but I’ve never seen anything like it.

Let's go!! :-)

Ok guys! I’m heading to Southern Africa ✈️

It wasn’t an easy decision to quit my job, especially with all this “crisis” talk going around. But as I already said on Facebook, I don’t make decisions based on Wall Street trends or little-bourgeois fears (like the risk of not finding another job... mmmh, what a terrible thing: to be free from office slavery forever!! 😄).

And honestly, as far as I can see, “crisis” has always been around us, and probably always will be, for both poor and wealthy people alike.

So... follow me on this adventure 😉

The blog is also in Italian: giandecaro.blogspot.com