12th June Ihle de Mocambique
An interesting day walking and driving around this fascinating island. It consists of two parts: Stone Town with its grand old buildings many in various stages of disintegration, and Makuti, an area of narrow alleyways, flimsy shelters, energetic kids and squawking chickens. The alleyways are their lounge room and tourists are not welcome unless invited. Stone Town is their area. Makuti is two metres loser than the northern part of the island caused by the quarrying of the coral rock to build the residences in the north. The fort on the end of the island with its 20 metre high walls is the biggest and most intact in sub-Sahara Africa. The slaves were held here before being shipped out. Even during the War of Independence a Portuguese garrison was housed in the fort. To the north of the fort on a tip of land stands a little chapel. There are other interesting old churches here as well.
Our room at the O Escondidinho overlooks a bougainvillea surrounded swimming pool. We learnt today that where the pool is now was the place slaves were brought for buyers standing on the balcony above to bid for them. Such a quiet haven yet with a terrible history.
Well we have come to the realization that Zanzibar may once again be outside our reach. We crossed the border 2½ weeks ago and have travelled over three thousand kilometres since then. The border into Tanzania is still 800kms away and then a further 3-400 to get to Dar es Salaam. We both have felt very tired at times and wonder if it’s worth pushing on to just say we have been there. Our option is to head west into Southern Malawi, an area we haven’t been to, then south into Zimbabwe. This island is very much like Zanzibar in many ways without the tourists.
The country we have driven through hasn’t been that varied and the beaches have been ok but we haven’t found our idyllic one yet. Perhaps we won’t now.
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