I arrived at the Namaacha border at about 14:00. I prefer this normally very quiet border crossing to the hustle and bustle of Komatipoort - on my prior two visits it was always pretty smooth going, even though I didn't have visa arranged upfront and had to go through the whole visa issue procedure at the border.
But this time it came to bite me in the *** properly. It was pretty quiet, except lots of trucks loaded variety of second hand cars. That straight away gave it a bit dodgy feel, as I would bet at least some of those vehicles were not obtained legaly - seemed to me like the totsies found a new route to smuggle stolen cars from SA.
More relevant there were quite a few bored touts milling around who naturally immediately zoomed in on me. Now I have done by now dozens and dozens of African border crossings, so I'm pretty adept at keep them at bay, but these clearly worked in cohoots with the border officials and I was badly outnumbered. The immigration was no issue (this time I got visa at the consulate in Pretoria), but the piece of c&*t officer at customs pretended not to speak English and one of the lingering touts conveniently swooped in to help fill some new customs form. I kept being an ******* as much as possible short of punching the guy, but I was clearly coming short in this game. The racket was, that I had to declare the value of the items I had on me and if it was over R1000, I would have to pay some kind of deposit on the border (like 30 - 40%), supposedly refundable on the exit of Mozambique. However if I kept the value less than R1000, I didn't have to pay any deposit.
Now the tout who adopted me explained this to me (whether correct or BS I had no way to check as the officer was just incommunicado) and proceeded to change the value I have put in (about R3000 which was BS of course, but at least remotely believable) to R400 under watchfull eye of the piece of **** custom officer. Where they had me by the balls of course (unless they were bluffing all along and there was no such a thing as custom deposit), was that there were other custom officers waiting outside by the barrier who would according to the tout check the content of my luggage and easily estabish that my crap is worth way more than R400 (the smartphone on its own would probably suffice as evidence for them). So I had to fork out coule of hundred rand to grease the snakes to avert their eyes. From pure business perspective I would merrily pay that if it saved me hassle with the deposit (yes I'm pragmatist, not a moralist), but of course the whole episode left me with the sour taste in the mount as the situation was just stacked too much against me, and I felt that there most probably wasn't any such a thing as import deposit.
I have somehow managed not to punch anybody and not call anybody too outrageaus names (except probably the tout, but he merrily took it for the cut he took from the bribe), but shot out of the border at pretty foul mood. The weather wasn't helping either - there were heavy low clouds rolling about threatening proper tropical downpour every minute.
I rolled into the Namaacha town and stopped at the cash machine to get Meticais. Namaacha is a stark contrast to anything on Swazi side. It is very desolate and decreipt, looking like the war finished only a month or two ago. I've been here twice before so I knew what to expect, but with the bad weather closing in, it just looked particularly ******.
This can be actually extended to the whole of Mozambique. It is sunny day country. Meaning, when the weather is good it looks like tropical paradise with green palm trees, red dirt roads, white sand, deep green grass, turquoise seas and colorful houses provide myriad of dazzling colors and contrasts. People smile and even the neglected buildings widespready everywhere have nice latino kind of charm with sun shining on them.
But as soon as the sun hides behind the consistent cloud cover, the place gets much more omnious and unpleasant feel. All the colors disappear into dark mush of grey and brown, people seem distinctly gloomy and the abandoned carcasses of ghostly moldy buildings (that has previously been clearly nice big properties) many of them with bullet marks that dot the landscape everywhere make one inevitably wonder about who built them, lived there and what end did they meet.
In short, Mozambique didn't welcome me with a nice vibe, so I just put my head down and focused on getting to my planned overnight spot on the beach of Macaneta as fast as possible. I have made the mistake of riding to Macaneta through Maputo twice before, so this time I came ready and plotted a route bypassing Mapute in wide north west angle through Moamba. I thought I plotted it on tar, but to my this time pleasant surprise it turned out to me mostly very remote double track runninig up to Moamba mostly on rocky/muddy tracks along the Swazi hills and later from Moamba on sandy tracks roads towards the coast.
I got caught out by quick intense downpour, that turned tracks in one section into a bit of clay nightmare. Even on light agile 500 I was sliding all over the show and duckwalking the bike for km or two. I don't know how to ride mud - I guess speed is key to keep tyres cleaning themselves, but I didn't have cojones to try that one out.
So the sand after Moamba was a welcome change. I followed my track for about 20 km until I came upon two guardhouses with slits to shoot out from and was met by two soldiers with AKs and stuff. They didn't speak English and kept saying something about quarter or some such - which I figured is either prison or military camp (I couldn't see any other buildings in the bush though). What was clear was that I was not allowed to pass so I backtracked few km to a little settlement where I turned onto another much less used track that was heading towards another track I have remembered from my map research. After getting lost in the bush few times I have eventually found the other sand road connecting Moamba nad EN1 past Maputo and about 10 - 15 km short of Marracuene and pushed on as it was getting late.
On tar I filled up and headed for Marracuene where I turned off and crosse Inkomati river on the newly built toll bridge. I have finally arived to Macaneta already in dark and headed for one of its oldest establishments (that I have never visited before) - Tan-N'-Biki lodge. It turned out to be big establishment and to my surprise it was almost completely empty. I got a chalet and rushed to the restaurant as they were about to close due to lack of clients I assumed. That would have been a disaster after testing day as I eat only once a day in the evening and the idea of that proper meal in the evening kept me going all the way from that bloody border.
Anyway, I managed to get my obligatory 4 - 5 courses evening meal, so at the end of the day all is well that ends well. O0
