The last morning on Ilha, I decided to leave with 4 PCV Moz girls in the morning. Considering the horrific chapa ride coming here, I was happy to have people who knew Portuguese to help me hitch out of here. We walked to the bridge and got a 5 Met chapa across, which was an open-backed truck more indisutrial and a bit bigger than a pickup. Then we got another Chapa to Manapu, a town where the junction to the bigger road toward Nampula is. It was weird to so nonchalantly ride in the back of an open truck. Since these kinds of chapas are so common here, the Moz PCVs aren’t outrigh forbidden from riding in the backs of trucks as Lesotho PCVs are, only discouraged. The conductor (money collector) was a big, kinda scary looking dude, except for the fact that he was wearing a women’s shirt, something with anthropomorphic eggs and French fries below a scoopneck and rolled/pearly buttoned sleeves. This is actually very common, I’ve noticed. Except for things like skirts/dresses, there’s a very vague notion of gender divisions in terms of clothing styles and colors.
We got to the junction and walked just past a gas station (of which there are lots in Moz, compared to maybe one or two only in towns in Lesotho) to wait for a hitch. Called a “boleia” here, the hitching method is to stick your arm out and flap your hand at the wrist. The flappier, the better. Many flaps and several rejections later, we got into a mini SUV driven by a Uruguayan man who, with his wife, runs some sort of art/clothing operation here. He had a cup of mate, which is a kind of tea commonly drunk in South America, in the cup holder. I was excited because seeing the mate, in a horn cup complete with metal filter straw, reminded me of being in Brazil where I drank lots of it. Even the music in the car was great: upbeat Spanish songs that I was totally jamming to. The guy said that he never picks up hitchhikers, but he saw “three women alone” and decided to make an exception to his rule (which I’ve found is often the case with us, people who obviously aren’t locals).
He dropped us off in Nampula and I walked the few blocks back to Ruby’s backpackers (this time, the one in Nampula). I dropped my stuff, checked in and paid (since I would be leaving for the train at 4am), and headed off in the drizzle to the train station to buy my ticket for the next day. The window opened at 2pm, and I was one if the first in line. The sell 2nd class and executive (like 1st class) tickets ahead of time the day before the train leaves. 3rd class is apparently like the train version of a chapa and is crazy packed and unadvisable, but you can buy tickets for 3rd class up until the train leaves in the morning. I bought my Nampula to Cuamba ticket for 205 Mets. I had contacted a Moz PCV, Brianna, who lives in Cuamba and she happily agreed to let me crash with her when I got there. She told me to expect a 12+ hour ride. She’d ridden executive class before, and it has plushy seats, outlets, and air conditioning, but it was also 600 Mets. No thanks, said stingy me.
My next task was getting some money out of an ATM. I walked all over town looking for one that would accept my card. After at least 3 different tries, none did, and I suspected that my card was blocked. Backstory: My bank had sent me a new card (to my mom’s address) and my current card was supposed to be blocked soon, despite my mom’s valiant attempts to talk them out of it. The day had come. It was blocked. I called Mom on whatsapp to ask her to call the bank to tell them to unblock it, but, coincidentally, it was the 4th of July and they were closed. Just my luck. So she said she would try again tomorrow. I needed to get some money out in order to pay for the Malawi visa, which is $75. I wasn’t sure what currency they accepted, but I figured they must take Mozambique Metacais, or if not, I would be able to exchange for Malawi Kwacha at the border. I wasn’t worried, though, because I had enough money in Rand, and I could surely change that for whatever I needed (I hoped). I decided to try an ATM in Cuamba when I arrived, since apparently there are 5 (!) banks there.
After a few hours of sleep at Ruby’s, I woke up at 4am, grabbed the bread and banana left in the kitchen for me, and headed to the train station armed with my ticket I bought the day before. People were lined up by gender, for no apparent reason. Backpacks in one line, bundles balanced on heads in the other. I got in the men’s line just to see what would happen, because it was shorter and I like to be contrary. No problem. Thanks again, herdboy hat. I got a seat in 2nd class, which has molded plastic seats.
The train left at 5am, fairly empty. I watched stick huts and giant rocks I guess you could call mountains flow past. The train stopped every 10 minutes or so to let people on and off. Around noon, we stopped at one place almost halfway to Cuamba and didn’t move again for another 3 hours. Apparently (thanks to a nice dude translating for me), there was another train having problems, so our engine went to go rescue it. All the while, people are selling bananas, oranges, bread loaves, random fried things like fish, cabbages, onions, bundles of carrots, etc. through the train window. Every time the train stopped, all the babies (and boy, are there tons of babies) in the then-crowded car woke up and would start babbling or crying, which makes all the boobs come out. So many boobs were shamelessly being stuffed into babies’ faces to make them shut up. The original pacifier. Overhead, there are many colorful capulana-wrapped bundles, rectangular zipper bags, and backpacks.
Around hour 14, I was hanging in there, but this special and exciting thing that was a train ride lost its charm and got annoying many hours earlier. I was pretty hungry, so at one stop, I hung out the train window at my waist so I could reach wayyyy down and grab some little breads and a bottle of “maheo” which tasted kind of like the sour sorghum porridge they have in Lesotho. The people selling had to hold their products up above their heads, and if you dangled yourself sufficiently out the train window, you could reach it. Coins were aimed and tossed down onto the platters or into hands or even just on the ground. Close enough. Around this time, I got messages from Mom saying that after going through 2 levels of bank supervisors, she finally got my card unblocked for another month. Yay! She’s a superstar.
After 18 butt-crushing hours on that train, at around 11pm we got to Cuamba. By the end, I was nearing my wit’s end. The zillion and a half babies and little kids were either tired and crying, or were bored and banging on the hard seats with empty plastic Frozy bottles. One woman’s baby was loudly banging a bottle on the seat, and every time he’d toss it on the floor, she reached down, picked it up, and gave it back to him. I wanted to kill them both. To retrieve my sanity, I asked the guy who spoke English (who had been translating things for me earlier) where I could get US Dollars, as after some texting around investigating the visa situation, I had found that the Malawi visa could most likely only be paid for in Dollars. He said with confidence that I could change them at the banks in Cuamba. I was doubtful, but at least it put my restless mind at ease to get me through the last few hours of the train ride.
I was beyond happy to get off the train when we pulled into Cuamba in the middle of the night. I was to meet my PCV host Brianna in town, but I made sure to stop at one of the several ATMs I saw on the side of the road. Thankfully, they were 24/7, so I was able to get some cash out that maybe I could exchange for USD somewhere. Brianna took me to her house where she had thoughtfully set up a yoga mat and sheets for me. Her tiny orange kitten was having fun climbing my backpack. Her house is fairly big: bedroom, “living room,” bathroom, and another extra room where I slept. Before we turned in for the night, she was a champ and texting lots of people asking if anyone had USD. She asked all the Americans she knew: other PCVs, missionaries, whoever could possibly have some extra dollars stashed away.
Stay tuned to find out if our hero can actually get her hands on Dollars or if she ends up getting stranded at the border!
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