Baixa District, Maputo, Mozambique
After a very, very long trip from Europe, we breathed the salty air of Maputo, a city Heidi had such fond memories of. Its crazy mix of faded colonial Portuguese architecture and post-colonial precast concrete with slabs (vulgo “Plattenbauten”), left a lasting imprint on her. Continue Reading →
Maputo - Picture by Gerti Brindlmayer
By the time the Intercape Bus left Maputo behind, I had finished most of my food ration. Knowing the border was only one hour away, I figured I could get new supplies there for this nine-hour trip to Johannesburg.
What comfort! I had the front seat, upstairs on a double-decker bus with toilets, staff serving drinks and collecting the litter, no blasting music and a reclining seat. It was heaven! Leaving Maputo, I noticed the first traffic jam in five weeks, commuters driving into the city. Very disturbing to watch was that only single occupancy was the rule: bad habits are spreading fast.
At the border, I lost sight of my bus and quickly tagged on to a passenger from my bus, since borders can always be confusing.
Maputo fish market, shopping our lunch
The fish market is actually the only place in Maputo where you meet tourists. So I was not too surprised to detect familiar faces on a neighboring table. Matt, an American and Eric, a Swede, whom I had met in Vilankulo and Tofo. We joined forces and still could not finish everything. With the tourists come throngs of street vendors selling everything from paintings, cameras, woodcarvings, bracelets, Apple tablets… This can be a bit annoying.
Eric had lived in Maputo the previous year and kept fantasizing about this bar in the city’s train station. So off we went in a cab and walked all over the place. The bar is long gone but luckily we went there. The building itself is absolutely stunning, so very colonial.
Inhambane, art deco architecture from colonial days - photo by Jason Risley Portuguese colonial art deco- Picture by Jason Risley
I hardly ever fall in love with bigger cities, but with Maputo I did. Nobody remains untouched by its unparalleled mélange of typical communist apartment blocks - all efficiency, no decor - and colonial architecture. The later comes in all stages. Some neatly renovated, others charmingly run down.
Maputo is a city void of sights, where street life itself becomes the very attraction. Picture a sidewalk with long, neat rows of single shoes for sale, stalls hawking license plates and chargers that dangle from clothes hangers, also for sale. Shop windows are displaying skimpy dresses together with traditional garb for Muslim women. Another landmark are young men in yellow signal vests advertising Vodacom and Mcel: it seems everybody in Mozambique is wearing them, whether or not they are selling telephone cards.
