Hitchhikers Rule Number 1: Remember that peeing into or behind a bush on the side of the road is almost always more pleasant then using a public bathroom. But, bumpy roads and full bladders are a painful combination, so go when you get the opportunity. (Ladies might want to travel with a capulana handy to drape over your bare hieney while you squat.
Thinking I might run into trouble getting home on a Sunday, and because lets face it I naturally wake at the crack o dawn these days, I headed out of Barra Beach, on the coast outside Inhambane city, at about 7 am this morning. But to my delight, things kept rolling in my favor.
About 10 minutes into my 25 minutes trek to the chapa stop, I managed to wave down a nice man in a rickety truck in hopes of getting a ride to the city. He said he could take me as far as the turnoff to Tofo beach for ten mets. It was a tad pricey, but having little other hopes of getting out of Barra aka the deserted paradise, and knowing that Tofo gets a lot of traffic and I would easily get a ride from there, I hopped in the back and held on tight.
The best way to ride in an open back truck is to sit all the way down in the bed with your back preferably against the cab, or sit on the side ledge. The worst place to sit? On top of the wheel well. However, this rusty little Toyota circa 1972 had water puddles in the bed and I was wearing my low-rise jeans. So, in order to avoid wet bum and butt crack show to the world, I was doomed to the wheel well. So there I sat, as the seemingly shock-less truck violently trundled along the unpaved road,
clutching my straw hat as it tried to escape in the wind and cringing as the side of the bed beat me into submission.
After arriving and hopping/limping out at the turnoff, I immediately waved down another ride. This time I was within a closed, air-conditioned vehicle. Amazing. They were a South African family, that lives in Barra because the father is a contractor working to build a lodge on the beach. On this delightfully sunny sunday morning they had turned up the christian tunes and were on their way to church in the city, and were nice enough to let the little white girl with the straw hat and possibly broken back join their trio.
So getting to Inhambane turned out to be a little painful, but relatively quick and easy. Now the hard part, how the heck do I get out of the city and to my home? I checked the market just to see if there was a Maputo chapa ready and waiting to leave within minutes. Nope. There seemed to be not a single passenger headed down south. Plan B: hitchhike.
Well, hitching is actually Plan A, because its cheaper/free and usually safer. But, it requires patience, and a little travel savvy.
The hard part about hitchhiking from Inhambane City is that it isn't on the EN1 (estrada nacional 1 aka national highway), and thus there isn't a large flow of passing traffic going long distances.
To hitch north, your best bet is to cross the Inhambane Bay by ferry to Maxixe. As you squeeze off the ferry in Maxixe, you will make your way up to the main road. This main road is in fact the EN1 or Mozambique's hitchhiking mecca. It is best to walk north on the EN1 until you are out of the center of town where there is less local traffic. Then its just a matter of waiting and waving a car down.
Only today have I learned the secret to traveling south out of Inhambane. Yes, there are a few small gas stations in the city, and you can hit those up to see where travellers are headed. I, however, have never had luck with this, and today was no execption
Instead, I caught a chapa in the market to Lindela (20 mets). This is a little village situated precisely where you turn off the EN1 to go to Inhambane. Small towns are perfect hitching spots because there are slow speed limits, most traffic that passes is traveling a sizable distance, and the little backpacker on the side of the road looks semi-desperate amid the women selling coconuts. They can also be good places to stock up on snacks like fruit and cashews... however Lindela specifically is a little barren. I took advantage of the opportunity to buy cheap coconuts, but your average traveler wouldn't opt for the heavy cargo... or really have any need to buy 25 coconuts.
After only about 10 minutes of chatting with the coconut ladies and listening to the crazy man talk at me in bitonga (the local dialect in the region) I was able to flag down a car. Two men in a sedan going to Maputo: “Oh sorry, you have too much stuff, I dont think it will all fit. Sorry.”
Damn those coconuts.
But only minutes later a black South African that works for a natural gas company in northern Inhambane province threw my coconuts in the back of his beautiful Toyota circa 2010 truck, and we were flying in style towards home. Glorious.
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