And one for the Road, Literally

As I noted in our blog from earlier today, Africa can very easily bring us Westerners to our knees. It is how you deal with it that lets you keep on going. You either cry…or laugh…or write about it which lets you do a bit of both.

So with my family safely tucked into their beds sleeping away, I add one last entry to the Challenges list which is really only a fraction of what we have been through over the past year. We just spent the last 6 hours in the car on a very botched attempt to cross the border into Swaziland where we had planned to spend a nice 3 day holiday weekend at a bed and breakfast nestled in the hills of central Swazi with some great meals, hikes and rendezvous with friends nearby. So having packed up the truck with all the gear (those with kids know this is no small task) and having driven several hours to the border, we were pleasantly stopped by the customs authority who said that I could not leave the country on the new work visa I had just paid $250 to get 2 days before. Apparently this type of visa is only a single entry arrangement unlike the tourist visa which we have had the last which forces us to leave the country every 30 days to ‘renew’ it. Which was actually the reason behind the trip in the first place since Pranvera and Adi both needed to do their exit and re-entry. As we pressed the matter (in Portuguese) we found that they were willing to let me leave thus cancelling my work visa and then return on my tourist visa. Which then would have required another trip to South Africa (1 day) and $250. Which was not an option. Now this could be chalked up as an honest mistake and one that we have known better but my office colleague mentioned this potential situation to me at work which I brought up directly to our Administrative Director. Who assured me under no uncertain terms that this would not be a problem…

So I sat on the border as my wife and son walked past the armed soldiers into Swaziland to enter their border house receiving her entry stamp there on one side, exiting, walking around to the other side to emerge with her exit stamp to come back into Mozambique with her re-entry. This is such a common practice with countless number of ‘repeat tourists’ that luckily as of yet it is ironically an accepted practice.

So we all climbed back in the car kissing our hotel deposits goodbye and drove all the way back to Maputo in Friday rush hour traffic. Which of course hit grid-lock and some-kind of mining truckers protest where they used their huge trucks to whittle 10 lanes of traffic only down to 1 to enter into the city after passing through a toll stations whose increased rates we think they were protesting. The only saving grace to this unnecessary adventure was that we made it back in time to catch our happy hour Caiparinha’s with close friends at the Shack. Before returning home exhausted to unpack, unwind and drift off to sleep.

TIA…