Ever since last year, in order to go to
Mozambique, you need to get a visa ahead of time. In South Africa, you can go
to the Mozambique embassy in Pretoria to get it, so off we went. After a 4 or 5
hour taxi ride from Ficksburg, we arrived at the Pretoria rank. After getting
new sim cards and airtime in the mini-mall next to the rank, we inquired about
taxis to take us to our guest house. We learned that a taxi would have cost R70
(an insane sum compared to R6.50 for Lesotho’s 4+1 taxis), so we decided to
walk down the street and catch a passing kombi (minibus taxi). But that didn’t happen, so we
just ended up walking the few km to the guest house. Compared to walking around
Joburg, Pretoria seemed much nicer looking, and had lots of parks and things.
We arrived at Pretoria Backpackers (highly recommended) in a really pretty
neighborhood. They had two huge dogs, a pool (we almost felt like jumping in
after that long walk, despite it being the middle of winter), and…wait for it…A
TRAMPOLINE! Many back tucks were had and it was enough to soothe my
gymnastics-less soul. For some reason, that night they had accidentally
overbooked, so they drove us to a nearby guest house, which was quite comfy. We
walked to Woolworth’s Food, a swanky grocery store, where we bought nacho
ingredients, then made amazing nachos that nearly brought tears to my eyes. I
had definitely gotten my share (but not necessarily my fill) of Mexican food,
what with having tacos two nights in Lesotho.
The
next day, Jen and I brought our stuff back to Pretoria Backpackers where we ate
breakfast, and the husband/owner François drove us (in their huge sprinter) to
the Mozambique embassy. The security guard filled us in on a place around the
corner where we could get passport photos taken. Then we came back, filled in
the application, and gave the lady proof of our flights and hotel reservations.
We then had to go to an FNB bank a few blocks down to deposit R750 each into
their account. The lady said that we should come back the next afternoon to
pick up our passports with the visas inside.
We
then walked to a music store where Jen bought a ukulele (a favorite instrument
among Lesotho PCVs), then went back to the guest house and we played with it.
And by “we played with it,” I actually mean that I commandeered it and plucked out a few tunes. Then the wife/owner came over and talked to us about what we could go
see nearby in the city. She convinced us that we should go to the Union
Buildings and the giant Mandela statue in the surrounding gardens. We arrived walking
between the rows of jacaranda trees to the Union building, which was a huge,
sandstone government building presiding over terraced garden, where a giant
Madiba (Nelson Mandela) outstretched his arms, watching over the “good people”
of the city.
On
our way back, we stopped by Harry’s Pancakes for some kind of sweet
potato-filled pancake wrap with yogurt sauce. Then, we got an Uber (Uber
actually exists here in civilization) ride to Capital Craft, a restaurant whose
menu was full of pages and pages and pages of different beers, ciders, etc. I
got one beer from Clarens (a city just north of Lesotho) with a hazelnut
flavor. I sipped that alongside my ice cream- and berries-topped red velvet waffle. Drool. I was in sugar heaven. Another Uber back to the guest house, and
Jen and I soon found ourselves taking advantage of the fastest wifi we had ever
encountered in Southern Africa to take care of important business: catching up
on Jimmy Fallon lip sync battles on YouTube. Very official stuff.
We
were in the middle of enjoying Ellen Degeneres and Emma Stone killing it when
Husband and Wife Owners knocked on our door. They said that either the US
Embassy or the PC had called to make sure we were ok among the
violence/riots/car burnings/looting in the townships outside of Pretoria. There was outrage over the government dismissing a voted-for mayoral candidate who was
supposed to crack down on corruption, and instead planning to install some
other guy to maintain the corrupt status quo. Yeah, we were fine, safe in the
fancy part of town, but it was weird to be so close to so much violence.
The
next day after breakfast, the wife took us to Brooklyn Mall because she
happened to be going there, and we needed to kill some time before picking up
our visas. We just farted around for a few hours, getting a new charger for
Jen’s computer at the Apple store, enjoying Mugg and Bean (an awesome restaurant), and then
practically crying over finding Pop Tarts, Reese’s cups, peanut butter Oreos,
and Dr. Pepper at a candy store. Then, the son of the guest hosue owners showed up in the
huge sprinter and drove us to the Mozambique embassy where we picked up
our visas. Quick and easy. Then, he was super nice and even drove us to the
Gautrain (pronounced like a phlegmy “KHAO-train”) station. They didn’t want us
to take taxis or even go to the rank for fear that it might be too dangerous
amid the riots. R70 later, we had our shiny new Gautrain cards and enough to
get us to Johannesburg Park Station. It had been about two years since I rode
any kind of train, and it was cool to look out the window as Pretoria slowly
turned into Joburg. We called Brown Sugar, the hostel in Joburg we were staying at, for
their free pick up, and soon enough we were on the way to the hostel. We
dropped our bags at the dorm upstairs and walked to China town for my
obligatory bubble tea fix. Jen got some spring rolls to go (“take away” here)
and we walked back as it started to get dark. We happily sat in our bunk beds
eating, then fell asleep, only to soon be woken up by a crying girl and some
guy trying to console her. Jen later told me that the guy was trying to make
her feel better for whatever this other guy, her traveling companion, had said
or done, and he was just cursing the entire male race, trying to get her to
stop crying. I only heard muffled blurbs
of this middle-of-the-night sob fest, but it was still really obnoxious. Earplugs for the win.
At
6am, we got another Uber to the airport to fly to Maputo, Mozambique. As you
will soon see, sleeping was not one of the main themes of this vacation.
No comments:
Post a Comment