Getting from Maputo airport to the city
Before we visited Maputo we couldn’t find any information on travelling cheaply from Maputo airport to the city centre, even on the airport’s website – all that was listed was to get a taxi. Whilst it’s no doubt not as expensive as getting a taxi in places like London or New York, we’re trying to stick to a tight budget so needed to travel the local way. We asked at the information desk in arrivals and were pointed to a blue building we could see just outside the airport boundary. Walking out of the airport complex (so that the local transport doesn’t have to pay a fee to go through the airport barriers) we see a main road with the blue building on the corner. Cars here drive on the left, so we crossed the road to wait for a bus going in the direction we needed and hoped for the best, after flying all night and arriving at 8am.
We were staying in one of the two main districts of the city – Baixa (pronounced Basha), near the port and main market streets. All of the minibuses coming in our direction were headed to Baixa, but they arrived stuffed full of people. We’d heard the minibuses (or chapas, as they’re known here) get really full, but seeing it in front of us gave the word ‘full’ a new meaning. Three people were squeezed on the two seats of every row and then there were about 10 people standing around those seated, literally bent in double so they could fit on. As people who are used to getting the tube in rush hour we were shocked at just how packed you could get a vehicle and there was no way we were getting ourselves in any of them, backpacks or not.
After about 30 minutes of watching every chapa come along as full as the last we considered what our other options might be, but luckily at that point a full-size bus came along with Baixa written on the front and whilst every seat may have been taken you could see through from one window to the other and out to the other side so we knew this was the vehicle for us. Jumping on we payed 10MZN each (equivalent to 13p) and tracked our journey on Maps.Me (offline maps that are really detailed around the world, which we had downloaded before we left home) to see where to get off; being dropped on the road of our hostel one block away – success!
Whilst Maputo doesn’t have a tick-list of activities or sites like other capitals might, we had a nice day wandering around the streets to see the local market, parks, sea front, shopping centre and back streets. One other thing we learnt whilst in Maputo was that in winter sun sets at 5.15pm (and actually only 6.45pm in summer, due to being so close to the equator). So whilst it’s still warm in the day, with the sun starting to wane at 4pm we had to adjust our normal approach of waking up slowly and mooching around after lunch, as there isn’t very much day to be had after lunch!
Travelling from Maputo to Tofo
Leaving Maputo (to travel to Tofo) was also another interesting experience, as we’d seen that this had to be done early in the day because transport doesn’t really run much after dark here - due to the bad road conditions and drivers. Waking up at 5am we took a local bus to the main bus station, Junta. Near our accommodation was Avenida Eduardo Mondlane, a road on which every bus running down it then passes through Junta. It took about 20 minutes to get there and it drops you on the side of the road, which is when locals surround you as soon as you step off the bus and tell you to get on their chapa (not that they’ve asked where you want to go)! It’s hard with a group of people so close to you, urging you to quickly get on the bus and ushering you towards it but that is not the bus you need. What you actually need to do is walk less than 5 minutes back to the roundabout you’ve just turned off at and down the first left, where you’ll immediately see the real bus station on your right with people coming and going down the dirt track to it. Here you’ll still have people ushering you onto their bus, repeatedly asking where you’re going, talking at you quickly and telling you the bus is about to leave but there are a few men in orange vests who can help direct you to the bus you need – ours was a medium-sized bus which said Tofo on the front. On there, a man with a ticket book charges you 700MZN (about £9), finds a place for your bags and you wait for the bus to fill up. We waited one hour until the driver was happy to leave with only a few seats spare (with him picking up a couple more people on the way out of Maputo). It then took us 8 more hours to reach Tofo, with two quick toilet stops along the way, as well as drop-off points in cities we drove through and several deliveries being given to shops along the route - and even people waiting on the side of the road to receive parcels , packages or letters. As you can imagine, there’s no air con, so sitting on the right means you’ll be in the shade for a lot of the journey and can appreciate the last rays of sun as you arrive at Tofo beach.
Getting from Tofo to Vilanculous
There are quite a few parts to this journey but it's not too bad when you're doing it. We left Tofo on a Sunday and the first chapas went from outside Bitonga Dive at about 6.30am. You know those chapas we said we couldn't fit on by the airport, well these got just as packed but we happened to be the first stop this time. 22MZN per person and 10MZN for a backpack - we recommend sitting in either the back row, next to the driver or on the far right, anywhere else and you'll essentially have other people sat on you for the duration of the journey. Just under an hour and we were at Inhambane bus station, a short walk from the port. There was meant to be a boat across to Maxixe (pronounced Masheesh) at 7.55am but that never appeared so we got the 8.40am for 15MZN each. It's about a 25 minute journey but takes about as long again to get filled with as many people as they can fit on. They also won't leave until everyone puts a life jacket on, not sure if that's meant to make you feel safer or not. When you arrive on the other coast the bus station is just as you walk out of port. We told the employee in his hi-vis vest we wanted to go to Vilanculous and 10 minutes later he let us know that a bus was going near to where we needed, on its way to Beira. For 300MZN each we got dropped just over two hours later at Pambarra, 18 kilometres from Vilanculous on the main road, and waited about twenty minutes for an open-back truck to pass which was driving there. Getting on with all the locals we paid 25MZN each. Arriving just after 1pm we'd traveled for seven hours in total and made it to our last stop in Mozambique.
Comments