Always an adventure in Mozambican travel

Traveling with Adam to Nametil a couple weeks ago, we encountered a surprising, yet not so surprising, twist to our chapa ride.  First off, I think I have briefly explained the conditions of their road before, but it bears repeating.

The road from Nampula to Nametil is only 72km yet takes at least 2 hours.  That is about 45 miles in 2 hours!  And sometimes, more common probably, it takes closer to 3 hours, even 4, depending on your driver.  Now this ridiculous length of time is neither due to rush hour traffic nor lots of people or animals on the road.  It is because of the terrible conditions of this road.  Think of your typical four-wheel drive dirt road; yeah it has a few pot holes and you can’t travel too fast, but this road is not your typical dirt road.  Pot holes, deep crevices (sometimes at least a foot deep and half a foot wide extending for ten feet across the road, maybe canyons is a better word), random dips in the road…basically awesome times riding on a chapa with at least 23 other people, almost no suspension, and generally very little, if any, padding in the seats.  It is pretty amazing what you can get used to here though.

So we are riding along “comfortably” in the back seat, backpacks in our laps, trying to avoid hitting our heads on the roof or window, when the chapa made a funny sound.  The driver got out, inspected the tires, deemed them alright, then we continued on.  About ten minutes later however, the sound happened again followed by the driver’s “Ee-pah” (essentially, the Mozambican sound for “oh shoot!”), definitely not a good sign. 

All the passengers began to file out of the chapa with all of their belongings, Adam and I still seated in the back wondering what was going on.  I asked the woman next to me who explained that there was a flat tire or something wrong with the car and that everyone was deciding to walk because we were “close”. 

“Close” in Mozambican terms can really mean anything, one kilometer, one mile, 5k, 10 miles… But Adam and I decided we might as well walk with the rest of them rather than just sit and wait, maybe we could catch a ride with another passing car perhaps. 

By now it was already dark outside, and for some reason, tonight the street lights decided not to work.  So we had a nice walk under the stars, but had to be careful not to look up for too long for fear of falling in to a crevice or pot hole.  About an hour and a half later, we finally arrived at Adam and Kevin’s house, sweaty, a little dirt covered, but thankful to be there.

I have a feeling though that this won’t be my only broken down chapa story….