Maputo, Mozambique

Maputo is thecapital of Moz and we stopped there for a few days at the end of our trip before flying up to Botswana (via Jo'burg).


Shot #1) a view of the Maputo skyline from out hotel in the upper part of town, Hotel Cardoso. Maputo still shows plenty of signs of the long civil war years (burnt out buildings, torn up roads and sidewalks), but they look like they are getting things together somewhat. There is a massive cleaning effort going on and many of the hotels and other facilities are newly refurbished. It was nice to be back into some sort of civilization after spening so much time in the middle of nowhere. We were able to catch some live music in the Africa Bar Saturday night and we watched Moz beat Kenya in a World Cup qualifer soccer game in a local bar on Sunday. Pretty cool stuff.

2&3) The Maputo Municiple Market from the outside and me, Wortman and Eberly inside. This place is one of those markets that has everything thta the locals need to live - literally eveything is under this one roof.

4&5) Frelimo is the ruling political party in Mozambique and they are gearing up for the October 28 election by posting signs all over town. Frelimo was the group that lead Mozambique to independance over the Portuguese in the 60s and 70s and then they were the group fighting Renamo (now the other polical party in Moz) for ~16 years in the country's devastating "civil war." Kind fo crazy that they went from civil war opponents to peaceful political opponents. And from the sounds of it, Frelimo still relies heavily on the "hey we won independance for you guys" platform when it comes to elections.

Some more Moz transportation pics:
6)Its hard to tell from this picture, but this chapa (going from Tofo to Inhambane) is crazy full inside and then these guys are riding the outside of the chapa with the sliding door open. Thankfully we were NOT on this chapa or one like it.

7) Me going thru airport "security" in Inhambane airport with my passport (and a beer - Laurentina, a nice Moz brew)

8) While waiting for our flight from Inhambane to Maputo, which was delayed by 4+ hours, we noticed the Inhambane airport workers firing up a tractor and then loading it with lanterns. They were to light the runway for our plane to land and then take off! Nothing like flying by candlelight.

Thanks to Wortman and Purvis for their pics on this post. I've been taking shots with my DSLR that are incompatiable with these computers so my shots will have to wait until I'm back in SF to be shared.