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Live the adventures of Dan Walker's travels through reading his travel journal. The travel journals are listed below in descending order of date. To search the travel journals, use the keyword search at the bottom of the page.

Journal Entry:

Tuesday, February 07, 2006 00:27:15

Africa & India 2006: 3 - Southern Cross Mozambique to Kruger Park, S.A

Saturday, February 4, 2006

There was a stop at the Mozambique border last night, where customs officials boarded the train. Staff presented all the passports, paid the visa fees in one sum and charged the $20 fee to each passenger's account. In South Africa the railway ran on smooth, welded steel, but once in to Mozambique it was back to the traditional clickity clack of separate rails.

We were in bed when we reached the Maputo station, but this morning it was very interesting to see. It is a steel structure, built by the same Eiffel who constructed the famous tower in Paris. It is a beautiful old building that has been maintained well in contrast with most of the buildings in the city.

We boarded the mini-buses after breakfast, drove about an hour and boarded a ferry at a river ferry landing. The passenger ferry would take an hour to reach our destination, a lodge of sorts at Praia de Bilene. For those of you who have seen the classic movie "Africa Queen", then you know what our boat looked like. It had an engine in the centre with a smoke stack through the roof,. The roof was supported by a series of poles around the outside. As with most ferries in Africa, it was overloaded, with the lucky passengers who were first aboard sitting on slat benches around the outside and the others standing shoulder to shoulder in the middle. Prices were kept down (or profits up) by eliminating frills and extras such as life jackets, life rings and maintenance. We only had one incident where the engine quit, after our captain ran over a particularly large batch of water hyacinth. The river was full of this clogging plant floating to the sea.

Having safely arrived at our destination we ordered lunch and headed for the beach, where fortunately there were shade umbrellas, as it was fiercely hot. The water temperature was perfect, and there were large waves to play in. We made good use of the couple of hours we had to splash about and cool off.

Lunch was quite good, and was washed down by a quantity of the excellent Mozambique beer. Paying was a whole different matter, though. This was obviously where the real money was made. The owner, and enormously fat Indian fellow with a small, pouty mouth, did not trust anyone with the cash. As lunch was to our account, and it was John's turn to pay, he headed off to deal with the fellow, who was perched on his humble throne - a bar stool.

First he said the credit card machine was out of order, likely because he did not want the government to know about the income, nor did he want to pay the credit card company commission. Then he claimed to have no change, so most people resignedly overpaid to settle their accounts. It was quite a process, and there were some quite angry people in the group. John took the overcharge with a shrug, and asked that the surplus be given to the waiter. None of us really expect that to happen, though.

The ferry and boat trip back to the train was uneventful. Simon and I took the opportunity to go off in search of an internet café and a store that sold water. We found neither, but had quite a walk through the filthy, urine smelling streets. Garbage is everywhere - even where there is a bin it is full and overflowing sufficiently to cover several times its area. There were a lot of street vendors, and most people were friendly.

We boarded buses again about 7 PM and headed down the coast road to an excellent waterfront seafood restaurant, where they had a great buffet featuring crab, prawns, calamari, clams and a good assortment of salads, meat dishes and deserts. Most of us were back for at least two helpings. The service was good and the wine prices reasonable.

Our vans ran a shuttle service back to the train. Simon had spotted a pub just across the tracks from where our train was stopped, so we decided to give it a try. It turned out to be an excellent choice. What we had seen was the indoor part, but passing through to the platform on the other side revealed a number of tables and chairs, and a live jazz band who played great music. Soon the libation was flowing freely, and our group were dancing and singing to the music, which motivated some of the locals to get going as well. Local people were wandering in and out all night. Apparently we staggered out of the place and back to our train at around 2:30 AM.

Sunday, February 5, 2006

We were considerably more subdued this morning as we headed off on a tour of the city. It really is a mess. In the war to destabilize the Marxist regime a lot of buildings and infrastructure was blown up and destroyed, including government businesses, commercial buildings, bridges and schools. We walked through the main market, where I struck a deal to purchase 19-1.5 litre bottles of water at a price of 3.70 rand each. The price of water on the train is 13 rand for a 1-litre bottle.

We visited the natural history museum, and my first though was ABM - another bloody museum - but actually it was quite well done. It was largely made up of stuffed animals in hunting or other action poses in a diorama that resembled their natural habitant. The centrepiece was a large area heavily populated by many of the African species that can be found in Mozambique.

Lunch was at an excellent restaurant that had an internet café, so I managed to get my second dispatch away. I understand I may face severe challenges trying to get emails away in Zimbabwe, as the telephone system, like pretty much everything else in the country, generally does not work.

After a lunch of good food and great beer we headed back to the train, where departure was scheduled for between 3 and 3:30 PM, depending on when the Mozambique Railways engine showed up. They must have been right on time, as at 3:20 we pulled out of the station and headed for the border back into South Africa. Along the track kids lined up to shout excitedly and waved as we rolled past.

Mozambique has had a rough history. It was discovered by Portugal in the 1500s and they liked the excellent harbour at Maputo. During the scramble for African colonies Portugal signed an agreement to give Britain exclusive rights to the port at Maputo in return for protection from takeover. As a result it was a Portuguese colony for about 500 years.

In the late 1920s President Salizar of Portugal sealed off all Portuguese colonies to foreign investment, allowing only investment from Portugal. A tyrannical apartheid government ensured that only whites attended the few schools there were, and medical facilities were also white only. Speaking any language other than Portuguese was forbidden.

In June 1960 Portuguese troops fired into a peaceful demonstration at Mueda killing a large number of demonstrators. This triggered the war of independence. By 1966 both northern provinces were in rebel hands. Fighting continued until after the overthrow of Salizar in 1974. When the Portuguese pulled out they did so quickly and completely, leaving little infrastructure.

Independence was declared in 1975, and a Marxist government took over. They nationalized banks, insurance companies and businesses and established ties with Russia and East Germany. By 1983 the country was near bankruptcy. A civil war began, which was sponsored first by the government of Rhodesia and later by the government of South Africa, as Mozambique was hosting training camps for the armed wings of the groups trying to overthrow the governments of those two countries. This is when the program of destabilization became fierce. Professionals and educated people were assassinated and infrastructure destroyed.

In 1984 the government agreed to ban the training bases, but the civil war continued until 1992 when peace was declared and the UN supervised disarmament of the rebels. In 1989 a new constitution was approved which led to free elections and a market economy in 1994. Foreign investment is now being actively encouraged, although there is little sign of much happening. Empty factories and skeletons of buildings are a very common sight.

The country has an area of 801,509 sq. km. of which 17,500 sq. km. are water. This is about the size of Pakistan or twice the size of California. It has a coastline that stretches for almost 3,000 km. A major export is electricity from dams on the Zambezi River, which flows for about 800 km. through Mozambique before reaching the sea at Chinde.

The population has reached 19,407,000, many of whom are impoverished. The 2003 study found that at that time 1.3 million people had AIDS, and that 110,000 had died from the disease. The life expectancy is 40 years, and a mere 47.8% of people over the age of 15 can read and write.

The border formalities were minimal, and did not involved the passengers once again. Shortly after crossing into South Africa we arrived at Komatipoort where we spent the night.

Monday, February 6, 2006

This morning those who signed up departed at 6 AM in open safari vehicles for Kruger National Park, a $100 per person option. These 4 X 4 vehicles each held 9 people 3 across in what looked like quite comfortable seats. Each seat was elevated above the one ahead, as you would see in a theatre. It had rained hard during the night, but seemed to be clearing up, which would permit the removal of the canvas covering of the vehicles leaving them completely open for wild life viewing.

Most of the group went on this tour, but it was interesting to see who was left. There are 60 passengers on the 15-coach train, which has a capacity of 78. If they have a full complement there would be 16 coaches. The majority of the passengers are European - English, Dutch, German and French. None of the Dutch went on the tour, all but one of the Germans went and most of the French did not go. Our group went, but I chose the train's covered mini-bus as I've seen most of Africa's animals in the wild at one time or another.

Languages by group are interesting as well. North Americans and British basically spoke only English, and the French spoke only French. Most of the Germans I met spoke at least some English, and the Dutch speak several languages. In our van were 2 British, 2 Dutch, 3 German and 2 South Africans in addition to myself. A bit of world war II was fought over window rights initially, but once truce was declared everyone got along fine, sharing the limited open windows for photos and viewing. The park entrance was only about a 10 minute driver through sugar cane fields from the train.

The train's vans are not well designed for sightseeing. They are comfortable Mercedes 13 passenger vans, but the windows are divided by a horizontal two-inch wide metal strip running the length of the van at eye level. A little less than half of the window is under this strip, and does not open. This leaves about 10 inches of window above the strip, where there are three sliding opening sections. When the back is opened, the glass slides forward over the front portion, leaving the passengers seated there looking out through two layers of dusty glass and visa versa. It took a lot of compromising and negotiation to get the windows positioned to minimize everyone's inconvenience.

We had not been in Kruger Park long before we began to spot animals. This is one of the best-maintained park/reserves I have been in. All the major roads in the park are paved, and there are well done rest stops with food service and accommodation within the park. The founder of the park was President Kruger of Transvaal and two of his ministers. It was initially much larger than it is now. Currently it is 350 km north to south, and up to 90 km wide, covering 2 million hectares. There are 300 species of trees, 49 of fish, 33 of amphibians, 114 of reptiles, 507 of birds and 147 of mammals. Getting out of a vehicle in the park, other than in specified places like rest areas, is prohibited for safety reasons.

Our group met up with the others for lunch, where Simon kindly pressed a cold beer into my hand the minute he saw me! The was a leopard on the other side of a river that ran past the outdoor seating area, going about his business oblivious to the excitement he was causing. At this point we had all tallied up a very impressive list of animal sightings, most quite close up. Our group lacked only elephant and rhino to complete the main wish list, and the open vehicle people had us on a close up look at a pride of 14 lions which had 3 adult males and an immature male, and also a close up of two rhinos.

The clouded day was a blessing, as the temperature remained comfortably cool. There were some heavy, tropical rainstorms in the afternoon, which made us glad of our closed vehicle, but when they cleared away the air was fresh and clean and the temperature perfect. A phone call was received by PJ, the driver, notifying him that the train had experienced some difficulties and would not be at Hazyview Station at 3 PM as planned, but at 6 PM. PJ promptly turned the van around, deciding on a longer route to Hazyview.

The turnaround proved to be very fortunate. One of the people in our van who was counting lost track at over 50 elephants. At one point an entire herd crossed the road, moving around our van to do so. PJ quickly commanded that the windows be closed, as a huge bull elephant had decided to make it his business to ensure we were not a threat. Video I took from inside the van showed only a moving grey wall - he was within a foot of us, and was much taller than the van. The herd had babies of various ages, one little fellow must have been very young.

On another occasion I got some great video of a bull elephant walking away from us in the middle of the road to challenge a stopped car for the right of way. I suspect the occupants may have needed a change of underwear as the huge bull walked up to the car, studied them, then turned away and strolled arrogantly into the forest. He could have flipped the car with his tusks with very little effort!

Towards dusk PJ's sharp eyes spotted Rhino, so the binoculars were all out and trained on the site. He took some side roads to get us as close as he could, but it was still too far to photograph. It did finish up the day with an impressive list of sightings, though. In addition to huge numbers of birds and the rhino, we had stopped near a tree with two lionesses sprawled out on limbs on each side sleeping. We also were very close to hyenas, giraffe, wart hogs, cape buffalo, gazelles, impala, monkeys, kudu and waterbok. There were a lot of hippos in the rivers and ponds we passed, and on two occasions black mamba snakes slithered across the road. We even saw a Shongololo - and it did look like a train. Centipedes here are about a foot long!

On our way out of the park a cheetah dashed across the road in front of us, but I didn't see it. Being in the back seat of the bus the instant wall of bodies that leaped to their feet made any forward vision impossible. All in all, it was a long but marvellous day. I would certainly recommend Kruger Park to anyone wanting to see Africa's major species close up, safely and comfortably.

When we returned to the train it had just arrived. After drinks and dinner we made it an early night. The temperature here is quite cool, which made sleeping a lot more comfortable.