mozambique from lynn's diary

the journey into mozambique began when we got an early morning lift from mtwara (south tanzania) to the ruvoma river. this border crossing was something we had only read a bit about but believe me it was so unreal when we got there .... myself and cathy were piggybacked to a tiny old boat due to excessive mud, tom was left to fend for himself !! serious overcrowding on board this boat, the fee tripled by the time we reached the other side because we were the only whitey's on board not to mention the hippo's in the water .... anyway we made it across after getting jammed in a few sand dunes and eventually got the stamp on the passport when we set foot on mozambique soil. we were expecting a bus of some sort somewhere on the other side but then realised that we really were in africa's only remaining wild frontier !! we managed to get a lift in the back of a pick up truck which we stayed on for 6 hours. we had no idea where we were going, had no guide book and no map so things were rough, also we had a huge language barrier. not a word could we speak to anyone. we jus kept trying to draw 'south' in sand to indicate that we wanted to head down the country.

anyway we survived the pick up truck journey despite 26 other people jumping in too. you name it, it was there ... mothers, fathers, grandmothers, children, 2 women breast feeding and some goats for good measure (this was a pleasant ride for the goats as normally they tie them to the roof of the bus, no joke !! this really gets to cathy !!) we ended up in a really remote one horse town in a rough little so called guest house. at 16$ for our room we felt robbed having only paid 7$ the night before, our cheapest room to date !! the room was so hot it was sauna like, we had one flickering bulb that was fuelled by a roaring generator slowly fading until we eventually resorted to candle light for our usual games of uno and dominoe's. the shower consisted of a trough of dirty stagnet water that you ladel over yourself and the toilet well i'll say no more !!!!!!!

to be continued ....

The Ugandan Experience

This was one hell of an adventure!! It was eventful to say the least. I'll start with the gorillas....It was just amazing! just like gorillas in the mist. we got over to the mountain and trekked through forest for about 2 hours. Jus when I thought we were not gonna find them the rangers chopped a few branches in front of us then there they were....a family of 26 gorillas. 2 silverbacks, a blackback, a load of females and loads of baby ones including a 2 month old baby. The most incredible experience. We were 7 metres away. One kept runnin over to us and we kept crouching (best not to run if you value your life!!!). It was all playful fun though. Lynn got amazing pics and I got some priceless video footage!!! Amazing. Even better the fact that the species are so rare - only a few hundred mountain gorilla in the world and only found in africa. It's funny how before going I was scared about them charging etc but they really are quite peaceful vegitarians...and judging by the way the silverback was posing he's used to the camera!!! You'll get chance to see piccies on our blog in the next weeks I promise!!!

Thats the good part of the story....the bad bit was our driver!!! He turned out to be a right a*se (excuse french). To cut the wind out of story - this joker turned up for us in a clapped out vehicle. Kept braking down, he had fekk all money so kept tapping off me. He told us that we'd get it all back at the end of the journey and stupidly I believed him. Anyway this went on and on until the last day when Lynn & I lost our tempers and told him to take us to the gorillas and we would not be paying him. I coulda wrung his bloody neck...but I thought better of it as he had an AK47 with him!!! (for safety apparently!). That day he asked for around $300 to take him home. Thankfully we got rid of him and after the journey we put him through on the last day we broke pretty much even so I'm happy. I felt sorry for all the western tourists who get shafted by these guys. If you have not got your wits about you they will take you for a ride. Unbelievable like. Anyway, we got rid of him, and things have worked out perfect since then. We met 2 of the nicest gents you could meet at the gorillas. 2 english, one a copper and the other a former marine...proper sound guys. After we palled up and they heard our story they kindly offerred to drive us out of the jungle and to a bus terminal to get us home to kampala. It's funny how you find help when you need it!!
I'll stop waffling now but before I forget...there was an earthquake the night before the gorilla trek!!! the tent was all over the place!! My genius theory was a gorilla jumping out of a tree and a tent stampede!!!! hahahaha
Oh, and p.s..that 28 hour bus journey back to Tanzania turned out to be 35 hours!!! Absolute murder. Believe it or not worse journey's we're to come in Mozambique! - Lynny will fill you in on the Mozambique leg shortly...bye for now ;-)