Linga Linga

“What is inferno in English?” –Iraque

“Hell” - Me

“This is hell baby.” - Iraque

Not that the place wasn’t quaint, it just isn’t what we were expecting… and Iraque has been known to be a bit dramatic at times. Lonely planet calls the Funky Monkey at Linga Linga Point a “very no frills backpackers.” They should really be a little more honest/specific, and say something like: “Reed huts, dirty bath water, and no electricity.”

Or at least have a little note to travelers: “Warning, don’t wear skinny jeans because you will have to trek through knee deep muddy bay water to reach this semi-quaint destination”

The 25^th of September commemorates the day the armed fighting began (not sure with whom, but I assume something about the Portuguese, yay war I suppose). Well anyway, it was a Friday, and a holiday, so Iraque and I decided to spend the long weekend away. How romantic.

We just knew we wanted the beach, and somewhere not too expensive – cheap and beachy is the story of my life in PC Mozambique. I had heard fantastic things from other PCV’s about the Funky Monkey backpackers, at Linga Linga.

Linga Linga Point is a peninsula that you reach by going just north of Maxixe, to Morrumbene (about 3.5 hours north of Chidenguele). From Morrumbene, you take a boat – little, wooden, rundown, sailboat – to the point of the peninsula.

Iraque doesn’t like boats because he doesn’t know how to swim, fair enough. But he was up for facing the trip because I wanted to go, a few PCVs had recommended the place, and the Funky Monkey man sounded nice enough on the phone.

So we set out, at 6am Friday morning. We hitched a ride with a rather unfriendly Mozambican man in a very nice, comfortable, fast truck. Unfortunately the unfriendly Mozambican man made us pay for the ride, but at least we were able to use seatbelts and made it to our destination in record time. We did have to make one quick stop in Maxixe to use the ATM.

“Shit, I forgot my American bank card and I only have 55 meticais in my Moz account.”

“Well I only have a few hundred mets.” – Iraque

“You never know, maybe I already got paid.” – me

So I entered the ATM booth as I prayed to the baby Jesus that Peace Corps had paid me a few days early and we could in fact carry on with our romantic getaway, and weren’t paying the unfriendly Mozambican man 300 mets to drive us to Maxixe just to turn right on around.

Well, what do you know. PC Moz came through and the money was there.

“Graça a Deus” – Iraque

The luck stopped there.

The nice, and we now realized toothless, Funky Monkey man we had talked to on the phone met us in Morrumbene. From there, we made our way to the teeny-tiny sail boat. As the other passengers took off their shoes, and hiked up their capulanas/pants, Iraque and I stood hesitantly already barefoot in the mud, but hoping someone would tell us we wouldn’t actually have to trudge through the water.

We in fact did have to trudge. Since skinny jeans don’t hike up very well, I soaked my pants, and we then spent the next 1.5 hours gripping the little wooden sailboat for dear life as it slowly bobbed through the waves.

First stop, a little old lady and a little old man got off – ie walked/swam through almost waist deep water. The lady was a trooper, she just balanced her baggage on her head and hiked that skirt up. Grandpa wasn’t so agile. So the boat man had to get out and help. You can tell he does this all the time because he just pulled his shorts right up, high enough in fact, that I am pretty sure I got a glimpse of his scrotum.

“Oh, and by the way, you are going to pay the boat man 150 mets for taking us to the next stop.” - nice, toothless, funky monkey man.

“What! This better be a fucking paradise.” - us

After more wading through water, and then walking for a while through the African bush, we finally arrived.

Iraque’s instantaneous reaction: “We will leave tomorrow."

It looked like a deserted island colony. There were about 6 huts made out of coconut palm leaves, a lot of sand, and one solar panel… which didn’t work very well.

The thing is, I am a trooper every day of my life here. The last thing I want is to rough it when I am on vacation. There is no reason for me to be paying money to stay in worse conditions than I have in my little cement Mozambican house. Maybe if I had been in a group, and we had filled the place up, had bonfires, and roamed the beach to all hours of the night. There would have been that whole freshman year of college “the dorms suck but the experience is great” vibe. Romance, however, wasn’t really workin in the huts.

At least the beach was amazing. It basically felt like a deserted island, overrun by little sea crabs… which Iraque of course spent hours chasing.

To top it all off though, Iraque got sick in the middle of the night. Needless to say, we left promply at 5:30 am the next day.

“This is hell baby.”