I got a taxi outside Fatimas to the Junta bus station about a 15/20 minute ride away. I hadn’t even gotten out of the taxi and the people were swarming towards me like the paparazzi honing in on the Kim Karadashian-Kayne West wedding. (This was the only non macabre analogy I could think of. The others involved locusts or ants surrounding a dead cockroach. You get the idea.)
More travelers Hints and Tips at the bottom
I should mention here that the main language is Portuguese. Mozambique first become a Portuguese trading settlement and then one of their colonies in the late 1400’s. Those Portuguese were definitely quick off the mark as regards exploration and trading/settling.
Amongst the jostling of body mass and bags I managed to pronounce my destination correctly enough to be understood, Xai, Xai (pronounced: shy, shy) and pointed at the first guy who’d run at me. Another guy grabbed my backpack and en masse we crab crawled our way towards a minivan. The cost of the trip (approx. 3 hours) was written on the bus shelters wooden beam above the minivans, 270 Metical ($4.90 usd) but as they pushed my backpack underneath the seat in the back of the van I was told it was another 100 mt ($1.8 usd) for my pack – fair enough.
I was told to take a seat next to a guy who smiled back at my smile and that was about it for interchange over the next couple of hours. We, and a couple of other people sat in the van with all its doors and windows open while people leaned in trying to sell us anything from chicken & chips out of a large plastic bin, to power packs, earphones and shoes while we waited for the van to fill up. Which it seemed at one stage doubtful it was ever going to do. The saving grace was the occasional breeze that filtered through the van to cool us down. Although, at odd times the breeze would carry with it the pungent aroma of urine which I chose to ignore in exchange for the appreciation of coolness.
I watched people for the first hour; the hawkers traveling from one van to another, over and over again, potential customers being swarmed that I crossed my fingers were going to end up in our van. I checked out the outfits and the amazing physiques of the locales, very volumptuous woman and small wiry men, in the most part. Such a hugely different site from what I’ve been used to seeing in the last seven years.
Another hour passed while we waited and I read and some more people began to board. I screamed euphorically on the inside when the motor finally got turned on and let out a “hoop-la” peep which generated another smile from my bench seat neighbor. Then followed a lot of high volumed discussion as one quite large lady ran off for snacks and yet more people piled on.
Then finally, finally we managed to make some forward motion for about 50 meters and then stopped again as a trailer was attached on the back and one more person, the drivers assistant squeezed on. More high volume discussion and I can understand why because we now had 18 people not including the child and driver in a minivan designed to comfortably seat 12. Which in Asia wouldn’t have had much of an impact but in a country where my arse could be classified as small, bordering on extra small, the outcome was high impact squeeze. And totally brought reality to the saying “getting up close and personal with the locals”.
The highlights of this trip were the wind through the open windows, no particularly bad body odor and my expertise at falling asleep anywhere, anytime. The sleep was fairly erratic however as we stopped more times than I bothered to count for traffic police stop points. Each time the driver produced his official particulars to the policeman, very smartly dressed in spic, span black and white uniforms complete with very regimented hats. And we’d take off again only to have to stop some 15 – 20 mins later. The actual distance between check points was hard to tell because thankfully, I couldn’t see the console which would have included the speedo. Although I could tell without looking that the speed felt immensely fast for a mini van overfilled with people and a trailer on the back.
Mission accomplished though, I’d made it from point A to point B! And now the next step was to get to my accommodation.
- Junta is the bus departure hub in Maputo and is about 7km from the city centre
- You can get a bus directly from Fatimas at 5am which then goes to the Junta station and waits for the bus to fill up. I got my own taxi to the Junta which cost me 500 mt ($9 usd) but it meant I got a nice lie in and could leave when I chose. Either way you have to wait for the bus to fill up.
- There are signs at the Junta, with the destinations listed and the price above where the relevant minivans are parked up
- Once in Xai, Xai the bus drops you off right where all the local “chappas” (local transport – more minivans) leave from. I had no luck asking, one after the other, if they were going to the beach (could have been my crazy English) if you walk past the chappas and go a further 100 metres you’ll find a park with taxis parked up that are just normal cars waiting to take you where ever. They charge about 30 mt per km.
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