For all you 'roadtrip' fans, the Nelspruit story will continue in next posting, but this time I just had to write about my newly found passion: Rugby! No, I will not spend the next years eating a pig for breakfast, a cow for dinner, smashing beer cans against my head and counting leftover teeth in front of a mirror. No I'll just watch the sport once every four years and only from the quarter finals onwards.
Maputo is very close to the South African border and that means that a lot of South African influences are noticeable. For starters, they obviously drive on the wrong side of the road, even though this used to be a Portuguese colony and even those small chubby and hairy Iberians know which side one should drive.
Second, 95% of Mozambican tourism is South African, the Rand currency is widely accepted, all large South African companies have a presence here (e.g. mobile phone, cable TV, hypermarkets) and, apart from CNN and BBC World, the only interesting TV channels here are South African.
Okay, I lied. There's one absolutely brilliant local TV show called Fama Show. It's when Idols falls in love with Next Top Model and they decide to have a baby. If something goes horribly wrong during conception you get a creature called Fama Show. That is definitely one show they should've aborted way before birth. The participants are hopeless: as singers, dancers and as models. It's like putting myself and most of you on TV to sing, dance and look nice, and actually expect sponsors to line up.
A typical scene would be a participant trying to sing a pop song in English. Not only will it be extremely false, but also with a heavy accent which makes the song totally not understandable. You think you know the song, but it sounds like it's sung in Russian. In the meanwhile there is some dancing going on, including some support dancers. How do I explain this scene? Hmmm, for those of you familiar with Curaçao TV, the dancers on Telefiesta are 10 times better synchronised! For you not familiar with this Caribbean classic, just look at Britney Spears' performance during the last MTV Awards and imagine something even worse. Oh baby baby! Hit me baby one more time!
Back to rugby! For the last months 'local' South African TV (Supersport channels 1 through 7) had been advertising the upcoming world cup. Every TV ad had either a rugby player in it or a reference to a rugby player, pitch, coach or a ball. (By the way, aren't balls supposed to be round?)
Finally 7 September came, the start of the World Cup. I was curious to see what the fuss had been about. Is the game I never really watched any fun? Would it be a cool game to watch? Would I get into it? But at first, only disappointment. The first three weeks of this tournament had some 40 games, most of them extremely predictable. Maybe Argentina beating France could, with some imagination, be considered a major upset.
For the rest it was yawn yawn yawn. New Zealand beating Romania 142-10 or so. I lost count and probably so did the referee. Portugal and others being sent home with little chance of scoring. And yes, the Portuguese had a player which looked 50+, was short, very chubby and and very hairy (in the wrong places). At first, I thought Danny DeVito played for Portugal.
Was this a real world cup? It looked like a Ripley's Believe It Or Not freakshow! Come see the man with 5 bellies!
Luckily for me, I was in Holland for most of the first round, therefore 'missing' out on all the rugby fun. Once I got back it was time for the real thing... so every expert assured me.
I decided, if I wanted to get into it I better pick a favourite. My overall favourites were the Kiwi's or All-Blacks as they're known by in rugby circles. On a side note: the New Zealand national basketball team is nicknamed the Tall Blacks (I am now wondering who over there calls themselves the Ball Blacks or Fall Blacks). Well, my favs were knocked out in the quarters and every other team I picked lost, apart from Argentina. They went on to claim 3rd place in the end.
But what a fun game to watch!!! Especially in a bar full of fanatic South African supporters. South Africa's nickname is Springbokke, or just Bokke for short. These guys really get into it.
The game is like watching a bunch of (really big) kids fighting over a frisbee on the beach. They all pile on each other, pushing, shoving, sometimes even fighting. It is hilarious! They even have rules! I have no clue what these are, but sometimes while bodies are flying all over your screen (like in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan), the ref all of a sudden blows a whistle and claims to have seen something. Probably some ripped off arm and that can obviously not be allowed.
My favourite moments? Two of them! The first, during one of the games things got heated up and two opposing players started getting into a real brawl. The ref whistled really loudly and got them apart. As a proper football fan I sat there and expected some more protesting and pushing, followed by two red cards. In rugby, the ref just says in the tone of your second grade teacher: "Don't spoil a great game!". The two guys, both the size of an American refrigerator, just bow their heads, nod shamefully and everything is fine. That's it! Amazing! Like the guy next to me in the bar said: "Football is a game of gentlemen, played by thugs and rugby is a game of thugs, played by gentlemen".
But the absolute highlight for me was seeing the Springbokke and their fans sing the South African national anthem before the final. I have never ever seen a national anthem being sung with so much passion and pride. And by each and every player and supporter. And it's a unique anthem It has 4 stanza's and is written in 5 official languages: Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza) and English (final stanza). In the end the South Africans claimed the title and I spent half the night listening to drunk guys 'n gals shouting 'Go Bokke!'.
PS: If any small hairy chubby Iberian feels insulted, I apologise. There's very little to be taken seriously when it comes to opinions expressed by myself in this blog. There's absolutely nothing wrong about being small, hairy and chubby. However, being Iberian is a burden you will have to carry forever... ;-)
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Road Trip
Sorry guys, long time no posting. Why? Simply because I didn't find the time to write one. Normally I write posts in weekends but the last two have been fully booked with other stuff. First there was two weekends ago. This was the weekend aimed at avoiding deportation by the Mozambican Rita.
For you non-Dutchies out there, she's a politician, part of the previous cabinet of our prime minister Harry Potter, who's sole purpose in life was to waste my tax euros by making one law proposal after another, aimed at discriminating between Antillians and other foreigners. With 'foreigners' she refers - of course - to non-western foreigners (Don't ask...). I guess she wanted to go back a few hundred years in time (just like her hairdo). Luckily Holland does have a non-discrimination clause in its constitution. If only someone would've read that to her...
Now that she's out of the government and more-or-less thrown out of her party for insubordination, she's starting her own party. The name? Proud of Holland. Scary huh? Wasn't there a small European guy some 70 years ago with a similar slogan? Come to think of it, she has a freaky little moustache too!
Okay, okay, I'll get off the soapbox now. Getting back to my story, I currently have a 180 day visa, but can only stay 30 days in the country. This basically means I should go have a cup of coffee in Swaziland or South Africa every 29 days. You wonder why? Join the club! So do we! Since my return from Holland, I had been in Maputo some 25+ days, so it was time for a Kurdish style border crossing. A quick in and out.
The choice fell on a two day trip to Nelspruit, South Africa. That is somewhere between Klipspruit, Hectorspruit, Hoedspruit, Robertospruit and Groenespruitjes, and about 1.5 hours drive from the border. It is the place where all middle and upperclass Maputonians (I just made up that word) go for some serious shopping. The fact is, that however nice Maputo is, you cannot do proper shopping here. There are just not enough quality stores and the few have very limited stock. It's a husband's wet dream! ;-)
First, I had to rent a car and the choice fell on a very cute small Kia Picanto. A spicy car indeed! Okay, okay, I'll admit. It was the cheapest they had. But! It had a good radio CD player. As opposed to the brand new 2007 Ford Forest a colleague bought, which came with a cassette player! Yes, a cassette player. For all of you who have not yet hit the age of 35, that is a clunky piece of plastic which your parents used to record their favourites artists on (like Boney M and Harry Belafonte). You would spent 4 minutes fast forwarding and reversing in order to find that 2.5 minute song. And you could even buy a Walkman, which was an appliance 2 times the size and weight of you iPod, which enabled you to take no less than 20 songs on the road! a technological master piece!
My Kia was a left-hander. Meaning the steering wheel was on the right and you had to shift using your left hand. Yes, in Mozambique and South Africa they don't drive on the right side of the road, but the wrong side. I had driven on the left side before, in the Bahamas to be exact, but there I had an American car and it was an automatic (since the only sticks the Americans handle are cheese sticks). This car here was a whole new experience.
First of all driving on the left messes up your entire sense of orientation. Where to go? How to turn? Where to look? Luckily, I learned to drive on Curaçao where you develop a 360 degree street vision in order to survive and it was even further perfected in Rio where every traffic participant is allowed to develop their own traffic rules. Unfortunately, the local traffic cops have the same prerogative...
By the time I got used to shifting with my left hand, and even mastered the art of signalling a turn (the lever is on the other side of your steering wheel, so you keep turning on the window wipers when you actually want to signal a left turn), I was out of town and on my way to the border.
Oh no, the border! Yes, the border! The border represents many years of perfecting bureaucracy. Not only did I have to fill in a form in order to leave the country, but there's a whole separate counter, line and form to 'export' your car. You spent a lot of time filling in important details like engine and chassis number of you car, even though at the gate, some guy just checks if you actually drive a Kia.
Of course, once you have left Mozambique, the process starts all over again in South Africa. You fill in basically the same form (but the South African customs also want to know the serial number of your built in radio CD player), but now to 'import' your car. These guys sitting just 200 meters from each other should go have a cup of coffee together to discuss possibly, maybe using the same form? Just an idea.
Oh well, I guess this won't happen because in order to share that cup of coffee, one of them should cross the border... and they know how complex that is....
(hmm, this article is getting a bit long and I need to go to the sports bar in order to secure a table for the Formula 1 season grand finale, so I guess I'll have to tell you all about Nelspruit the next time)
For you non-Dutchies out there, she's a politician, part of the previous cabinet of our prime minister Harry Potter, who's sole purpose in life was to waste my tax euros by making one law proposal after another, aimed at discriminating between Antillians and other foreigners. With 'foreigners' she refers - of course - to non-western foreigners (Don't ask...). I guess she wanted to go back a few hundred years in time (just like her hairdo). Luckily Holland does have a non-discrimination clause in its constitution. If only someone would've read that to her...
Now that she's out of the government and more-or-less thrown out of her party for insubordination, she's starting her own party. The name? Proud of Holland. Scary huh? Wasn't there a small European guy some 70 years ago with a similar slogan? Come to think of it, she has a freaky little moustache too!
Okay, okay, I'll get off the soapbox now. Getting back to my story, I currently have a 180 day visa, but can only stay 30 days in the country. This basically means I should go have a cup of coffee in Swaziland or South Africa every 29 days. You wonder why? Join the club! So do we! Since my return from Holland, I had been in Maputo some 25+ days, so it was time for a Kurdish style border crossing. A quick in and out.
The choice fell on a two day trip to Nelspruit, South Africa. That is somewhere between Klipspruit, Hectorspruit, Hoedspruit, Robertospruit and Groenespruitjes, and about 1.5 hours drive from the border. It is the place where all middle and upperclass Maputonians (I just made up that word) go for some serious shopping. The fact is, that however nice Maputo is, you cannot do proper shopping here. There are just not enough quality stores and the few have very limited stock. It's a husband's wet dream! ;-)
First, I had to rent a car and the choice fell on a very cute small Kia Picanto. A spicy car indeed! Okay, okay, I'll admit. It was the cheapest they had. But! It had a good radio CD player. As opposed to the brand new 2007 Ford Forest a colleague bought, which came with a cassette player! Yes, a cassette player. For all of you who have not yet hit the age of 35, that is a clunky piece of plastic which your parents used to record their favourites artists on (like Boney M and Harry Belafonte). You would spent 4 minutes fast forwarding and reversing in order to find that 2.5 minute song. And you could even buy a Walkman, which was an appliance 2 times the size and weight of you iPod, which enabled you to take no less than 20 songs on the road! a technological master piece!
My Kia was a left-hander. Meaning the steering wheel was on the right and you had to shift using your left hand. Yes, in Mozambique and South Africa they don't drive on the right side of the road, but the wrong side. I had driven on the left side before, in the Bahamas to be exact, but there I had an American car and it was an automatic (since the only sticks the Americans handle are cheese sticks). This car here was a whole new experience.
First of all driving on the left messes up your entire sense of orientation. Where to go? How to turn? Where to look? Luckily, I learned to drive on Curaçao where you develop a 360 degree street vision in order to survive and it was even further perfected in Rio where every traffic participant is allowed to develop their own traffic rules. Unfortunately, the local traffic cops have the same prerogative...
By the time I got used to shifting with my left hand, and even mastered the art of signalling a turn (the lever is on the other side of your steering wheel, so you keep turning on the window wipers when you actually want to signal a left turn), I was out of town and on my way to the border.
Oh no, the border! Yes, the border! The border represents many years of perfecting bureaucracy. Not only did I have to fill in a form in order to leave the country, but there's a whole separate counter, line and form to 'export' your car. You spent a lot of time filling in important details like engine and chassis number of you car, even though at the gate, some guy just checks if you actually drive a Kia.
Of course, once you have left Mozambique, the process starts all over again in South Africa. You fill in basically the same form (but the South African customs also want to know the serial number of your built in radio CD player), but now to 'import' your car. These guys sitting just 200 meters from each other should go have a cup of coffee together to discuss possibly, maybe using the same form? Just an idea.
Oh well, I guess this won't happen because in order to share that cup of coffee, one of them should cross the border... and they know how complex that is....
(hmm, this article is getting a bit long and I need to go to the sports bar in order to secure a table for the Formula 1 season grand finale, so I guess I'll have to tell you all about Nelspruit the next time)
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Ponta d'Ouro
Last week Tuesday was a public holiday here in Moz. Something like Army day or so. Even the locals didn't really know why. It's a bit like Ascension day or Whitson in Holland. It's a public holiday, but less than 10 per cent actually has a clue why. You think that is bad? Every year we get a similar statistic regarding Easter. Only a small percentage even knows what (supposedly) happened on that day some 1.974 (being 2007 minus 33) years ago. The rest probably think we're celebrating the first hatching of a bunny egg or so...
A Dutch colleague, Astrid, being here on a 4 week assignment decided to extend her weekend and spend it in Ponta d'Ouro. That is a beach village on the very south eastern edge of this country. Right on the border with South Africa. Of course that means that the visitors are almost all South African and that the local economy runs on the Rand. So much so, that when I wanted to pay for something using Meticais, the girl at the counter looked at the money as if it was a picture of George W looking intelligent. So surpised! And she lives and works in Mozambique!
So, a few colleagues decided to use the holiday to go pick her up. That means, taking the 4x4 and driving there for about 3 hours on a road which can hardly carry that name. This was the worst "road" I ever took! It is a sand dune road which you cannot take unless you have a very good off-road vehicle. Not just any 4x4, but the real thing. So no Suzuki Samurai's or so, but the stuff you see on Camel Trophy or Paris-Dakar races.
At 07:15 hrs we mounted the Ford Forest of one of the managers and went on our way. First obstacle, the ferry to cross the harbour, right here in Maputo. That, of course, is another amazing display of 'how many can I fit in...". This ferry was a bit larger than the one I wrote about 3 months ago. This one was the size of a tennis court, so it fitted 9 cars, 2 large quads, a trailer and then still had enough room for a truck carrying cement blocks! You should see how they load up these ferries. Cars have to go back and forth 34 times to ensure that every single square inch is used. If a Paris Hilton on a diet fits in between two cars, then there's obviously way too much wasted space. Then again, any space occupied by Paris....
Finally we got to the other side. It was 09:15 now, we were two hours on our way and I could still see my hotel! The trip could really start now. The first hour driving was easy. It is on sand roads, but hardened sand, so quite smooth driving. On our way we passed Maputo's animal reserve where you find road signs warning you for elephants pushing over your car. At some point the road changes to the earlier mentioned sand dune path. Me and a colleague were sitting in the back. Not the best place to be! For 1.5 hours we were thrown around in the back. Heads bumping into each other. Later my brain was were my left testicle should be and my kidneys were playing hide-and-seek behind my lungs. I think I even ate my breakfast again that ride. It was not as good as the first time...
When we got there it was time for a quick lunch followed by the 3 hour quad ride. Yes! As a proper American would say: Awesome! Or "Vet!" according to the Dutch teens. I'll just stick to the Curaçao 'Campion!' It was really fun, doing a quad safari. Technically, it wasn't really a safari as the only animals you would see were gerbils and small monkeys. it was just a fun off-road challenge driving these things over the rough terrain. I want a quad! Now that is what I call toys for boys! Three toyful hours later me and my quad had to part ways. It was an emotional goodbye and I promised I would visit her soon again. That line really came out too well... ;-)
It was time to go back again. Yes, back to Maputo over that same road! this time there was an added bonus. It had rained making the road even more 'fun'. Another 1.5 hours wobbling in the back of the car. This time there were three of us back there making it even easier to bump heads. I think while knocking heads, we even swapped some IQ points back there. I felt really smart (but that could've been the cold beers too).
Oh well, around 21:00 hrs we were (finally) back in Maputo and ready for some food! 24 ribs and 2 beers later I was in my bed. I needed that!
PS: The world map on your right has been upgraded. Now you can look in even more detail where the visitors of this blog come from. Click on the map and a new page will open with a large world map. You can then click on a region to zoom in. And if you select 'map with smaller clusters' the red dots will even be more detailed.
PS2: Also the Google Map has been updated showing the spots described in this piece.
A Dutch colleague, Astrid, being here on a 4 week assignment decided to extend her weekend and spend it in Ponta d'Ouro. That is a beach village on the very south eastern edge of this country. Right on the border with South Africa. Of course that means that the visitors are almost all South African and that the local economy runs on the Rand. So much so, that when I wanted to pay for something using Meticais, the girl at the counter looked at the money as if it was a picture of George W looking intelligent. So surpised! And she lives and works in Mozambique!
So, a few colleagues decided to use the holiday to go pick her up. That means, taking the 4x4 and driving there for about 3 hours on a road which can hardly carry that name. This was the worst "road" I ever took! It is a sand dune road which you cannot take unless you have a very good off-road vehicle. Not just any 4x4, but the real thing. So no Suzuki Samurai's or so, but the stuff you see on Camel Trophy or Paris-Dakar races.
At 07:15 hrs we mounted the Ford Forest of one of the managers and went on our way. First obstacle, the ferry to cross the harbour, right here in Maputo. That, of course, is another amazing display of 'how many can I fit in...". This ferry was a bit larger than the one I wrote about 3 months ago. This one was the size of a tennis court, so it fitted 9 cars, 2 large quads, a trailer and then still had enough room for a truck carrying cement blocks! You should see how they load up these ferries. Cars have to go back and forth 34 times to ensure that every single square inch is used. If a Paris Hilton on a diet fits in between two cars, then there's obviously way too much wasted space. Then again, any space occupied by Paris....
Finally we got to the other side. It was 09:15 now, we were two hours on our way and I could still see my hotel! The trip could really start now. The first hour driving was easy. It is on sand roads, but hardened sand, so quite smooth driving. On our way we passed Maputo's animal reserve where you find road signs warning you for elephants pushing over your car. At some point the road changes to the earlier mentioned sand dune path. Me and a colleague were sitting in the back. Not the best place to be! For 1.5 hours we were thrown around in the back. Heads bumping into each other. Later my brain was were my left testicle should be and my kidneys were playing hide-and-seek behind my lungs. I think I even ate my breakfast again that ride. It was not as good as the first time...
When we got there it was time for a quick lunch followed by the 3 hour quad ride. Yes! As a proper American would say: Awesome! Or "Vet!" according to the Dutch teens. I'll just stick to the Curaçao 'Campion!' It was really fun, doing a quad safari. Technically, it wasn't really a safari as the only animals you would see were gerbils and small monkeys. it was just a fun off-road challenge driving these things over the rough terrain. I want a quad! Now that is what I call toys for boys! Three toyful hours later me and my quad had to part ways. It was an emotional goodbye and I promised I would visit her soon again. That line really came out too well... ;-)
It was time to go back again. Yes, back to Maputo over that same road! this time there was an added bonus. It had rained making the road even more 'fun'. Another 1.5 hours wobbling in the back of the car. This time there were three of us back there making it even easier to bump heads. I think while knocking heads, we even swapped some IQ points back there. I felt really smart (but that could've been the cold beers too).
Oh well, around 21:00 hrs we were (finally) back in Maputo and ready for some food! 24 ribs and 2 beers later I was in my bed. I needed that!
PS: The world map on your right has been upgraded. Now you can look in even more detail where the visitors of this blog come from. Click on the map and a new page will open with a large world map. You can then click on a region to zoom in. And if you select 'map with smaller clusters' the red dots will even be more detailed.
PS2: Also the Google Map has been updated showing the spots described in this piece.
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