Home Sweet Hotel

Just 2 weeks ago I decided to move hotel. Originally I was in the Polana hotel which is quite a presidential palace kind of hotel. The type of hotel you see in those dictator movies. You know the scene: Outside, people are chopping each other up into many bite-size pieces and inside the general, who just committed the bloody coup d'etat, is enjoying a brandy with some foreign ambassador. Hotel Rwanda! Luckily no one was chopping outside. The only chopping going on were the art craft salesmen working on their merchandise in between 'harassing' all the unsuspecting tourists walking by.

The Polana is a very nice hotel and staying there is like visiting the African Madam Tussauds. The big difference being that the 'statues' are not made out of wax but are the actual originals. It is the hotel where all the famous, rich and/or important people stay. Come to think of it, some of their wives' faces did look like they were made out of wax.

So, in the 2 months I stayed there I saw almost every African president (including their entire posse which can be quite large), the Senegalese national football team, the internationally acclaimed local painter Malangatana (his work can be seen here) and even an actress from Law & Order. Not that I recognised her, but some countryman of hers felt it necessary to announce to all at breakfast how famous his table guest was. I also had Adriaan van Dis, Willem-Alexander and Maxima as co-guests. For you non-Dutchies, these are people that are 'world famous in Holland'.

What else can I say about the Polana? It's very nice and very old fashioned at the same time. It has a great garden with a large (unheated) pool. I tried going in there once, but it was this cold (holding my thumb and index finger about two inches apart). The WiFi works in most parts of the hotel, so you can sun bathe pool-side with your laptop while updating your blog. Not that I would do that, since as a proper Antillian I "sun-bathe" and blog in the shadow.

The restaurant is the only place in Maputo which has European prices on their menu. For one big meal at Polana you could eat an entire week anywhere else. And I've heard the quality isn't that great. I didn't eat there since I don't like eating in hotels. It is sad enough to live in one, so I avoid eating in it too.

And then there's the Polana Hotel Bar. Normally hotel bars are quite lively with business men and women enjoying a few beers after yet another tough day, but the hotel bar here is a bit to stuffy for that. It looks like one of those men-only social clubs where old men with grey hair and grey suits sit in green leather chairs enjoying a whiskey and cigar. The one good things is that they have a great piano player and a local female singer with an excellent voice. I'm not a Whitney Houston fan, but this girl did a flawless "I will always love you" at full force without microphone. And that, my friends, is impressive!

By the way, the bar has this Norwegian spirit called Akvavit (aka aquavit) and legend has it that it will only taste right if it has crossed the equator twice! So that is exactly what the factory does. They ship the barrels before bottling it and on the back of the label you will find the name of the vessel and the dates it crossed middle-earth. Just a bit of trivia that might come in handy during a quiz night (It ain't easy!). On Wikipedia I found the following:

Particular to the Norwegian tradition is the occurrence of Linie akvavits (such as "Løiten Linie" and "Lysholm Linie"). These have been carried in oak casks onboard ships crossing the equator ("Linie") twice before it is sold. While many experts claim that this tradition is little more than a gimmick, some argue that the moving seas and frequent temperature changes cause the spirit to extract more flavour from the casks. Norwegian akvavit distillers Arcus has carried out a scientific test where they tried to emulate the rocking of the casks aboard the "Linie" ships while the casks were subjected to the weather elements as they would aboard the same ship. The finished product was according to Arcus far from the taste that a proper "Linie" akvavit should have, thus the tradition of shipping the akvavit casks past the "Linie" and back continues.

So I decided to switch hotels and I now 'live' in the Hotel Avenida, which is a more modern typical business traveller hotel. Definitely not as 'posh' as Polana, but I actually like it a lot more. For starters, it is right smack in the middle of what I now call the Polana strip. The strip is where most of the restaurants, the sports bar, some banks, the movie theatre and a mini shopping mall is located. Actually, you would almost think that you weren't in Africa when walking the strips apart from all the huge sidewalk holes, street vendors and beggars... and the cars, the smell, the badly maintained apartment buildings, the many guards with AK-47's etc. etc.

The hotel also has a quite well equipped gym. I hadn't seen one since leaving Holland (even though the Polana had an ancient gym) and I could tell! I was developing love handles like never before. Well probably more lack-of-love handles as some loving would've implied some form of activity. So now I am being a good boy again and take the elevator up to the top floor to exercise a bit with a nice night view of the city. That, and the fact that I'm playing football again, should bring me down to my usual athletic muscular Adonis-like sculpted figure... (did I just hear someone cough?)

Overall the hotel has a more modern and younger feel to it. The room size and rates are the same, but the facilities just a bit more 21st century: proper climate control and a consistently working shower. Also the guests are more my peers: business people, consultant types, etc. The Polana looked like a board room, the Avenida like a project meeting room, if you know what I mean.

Well the fact that I am now finally not sleeping next to the elevator engine (yes, I requested a different room....3 times!) and that the hotel is not trying to charge my credit card without me, nor my card, nor my signature being present (did somebody say 'fraud'?) is also a nice little added benefit of this move, but that is an entirely different story...