An Unexpected Adventure

"You know, someday we should go to Tete City and stay for a weekend," Szasha and I have often told each other. We've heard that it's a fun city, with lots of interesting places to go an friendly ex-pats to meet, but we're usually already on our way home long before the workday is over. A weekend excursion has been on our To Do list for quite some time, but we have just never gotten around to planning one.

Seems fitting, then that our first weekend in Tete came about completely by accident. It turned into somewhat of an epic adventure, actually -- and here's the story:

 PART ONE: In Which Some Drunk Guys Fight About A Car

 

It started off as a fairly normal day out in Tete. We made the rounds to our usual places -- the bank, the grocery store, the market, etc. After a delicious lunch of pizza and chicken, we started the long journey home, taking the chapa to Matema, the turn-off for the road that goes to our towns. At this point, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, so we figured we had plenty of time to catch a Chiuta-bound chapa for the hour-long journey back to Mavudzi-Ponte.

Unfortunately, Matema is pretty much the worst place in the universe. It's a black hole of misery. Have you read or seen No Exit? Yeah, that's not hell. You know what is? Matema.

Usually, the hour or so that we spend in Matema waiting for the chapa to fill up is more or less bearable -- that is to say, at this point we've gotten used to the people heckling us, the drivers trying to overcharge us, and the cobrador forcing us to sit in the absolute worst seats of the chapa (facing backwards behind the driver, interlocking knees with other forward-facing passengers), and annoying drunk dudes asking us for absolutely everything. ("What's in that plastic bag? Can I have it? Do you have any food? Please buy me a beer. Will you marry me? Are you SURE you don't want to buy me a beer?")

This time, we thought we were having a lucky day -- we only had to wait an hour for our chapa to arrive, and it was with our favorite cobrador, Damião. The chapa filled up with passengers fairly quickly, and we had excellent forward-facing seats by a window.

Just as the driver was getting ready to leave, however, a cobrador from a competing chapa came over and demanded that all the passengers get in his vehicle instead. They yelled at each other about it for a while. The Rogue Cobrador then tried to get in our chapa and drive away -- with all the passengers -- alarming us all quite a bit. Our cobrador, Good-Guy Damião, restrained the Rogue Cobrador by force and pulled him out of the chapa. Of course, the driver and two cobradores all being hot-headed Mozambican men, they proceeded to resolve their dispute in the best way they could think of -- by punching each other.

Now, try to imagine this. You're sitting in a crowded chapa that smells like fish, packed in at the window seat, your exit blocked by about a dozen other people, their baggage, and a goat. Right outside your window, there are two guys beating the crap out of each other, screaming in a language you don't understand and ramming each other into your window, shaking the whole car. The man who is supposed to be driving you home is currently being choked by an insane Rougue Cobrador, and he may or may not have received a concussion, judging by how hard they're ramming each other into the chapa. It's Friday evening, so the sun has already started to go down, everyone's drunk, and instead of breaking up the fight, passers-by are egging them on and taking bets.

It was a less than ideal situation, and what with the recent horrible truck accident still fresh in our minds, Szasha and I felt in no way comfortable getting in a car with any of the involved parties. We made the executive decision to go back to the city and view this as a surprise opportunity to have an unexpected adventure.

PART TWO: In Which Szasha Defeats an Evil-Doer

 

Back in the city for an unintended sleepover, Szasha and I start looking around, trying to find the cheap hotel that had been recommended to us. As she's walking, Szasha gets the strangest feeling that something is wrong. She turns around, but there's nothing there, just some dude walking along with a plastic bag.

Wait. What's that under the plastic bag?

Look at that, it's her wallet, which he's just stolen from inside her backpack.

Szasha grabs the wallet back like a snake striking its prey. She glares at the guy and prepares to say something really bad-ass, something to show that jerk who's boss -- to tell him off like he's never been told off before. And in the heat of the moment, she says the most scathing thing she can think of:

"Hey! That's mine!"

OK, well, maybe not quite as intense as she would have liked, but it was still a victorious moment.

Szasha: 1, Pickpocket: 0.

We continued on our way and eventually found the hotel we were looking for.

PART THREE: In Which We Showered and it was Awesome

 

Long story short, we got to enjoy an air-conditioned hotel room, a hot shower and cold beer.

It was pretty much the highlight of my month

PART FOUR: In Which Matema Solidifies its Standing as Worst Place on Earth

After sleeping in the next morning, we resumed our long trek back home. We once again found ourselves in Matema, waiting for a chapa. After two hours and two unsuccessful attempts, we finally managed to secure passage on the third chapa. We took it as a sign of our changing luck that the driver even let us sit in the front seat -- the front seat doesn't smell quite as much of pee, has more legroom, and has an infinitely better view. The view really is spectacular -- in fact, it was due to this great view that Szasha and I were the first ones to see the oncoming SUV that we proceeded to collide with.

Lovely.

Thankfully, we had only been going about 10 miles an hour and we were both completely fine. But the fact remains that our chapa crashed. Given recent history, given the fact that we were only on this particular chapa because we had been trying to travel safely, it was a bit absurd and I couldn't help laughing out loud.

"This is possibly the most ridiculous weekend of my life," I managed to say in between spurts of maniacal laughter.

We had been at Matema for over three hours and had made it an impressive 20 feet. With the chapa wrecked, we had no choice but to go back to the chapa stop for the third time and try again.

PART FIVE: In Which We Finally Made It

Thankfully, about 20 minutes later we managed to get onto a different chapa and made it home two hours later without further incident. When I walked in my front door, I was so happy to be home that I wanted to kiss that dusty concrete floor.

Feeling just a little overwhelmed by the course of the weekend, we proceeded to spend the evening watch chick flicks and back-to-back episodes of How I Met Your Mother while eating Mac 'n Cheese and cookies.

Still, in retrospect, despite the horribleness that is Mozambican travel, we actually did have fairly good luck. Yeah, we got stuck in Tete for the night, but we got to shower and relax for an evening. Sure, our chapa crashed, but it was just a fender-bender and could have been much worse. Yes, it took us over a day to make the 60km journey home, but at least now we have a fun story to tell.

And thus ends the tale of the unexpected overnight adventure in Tete.

Have I mentioned how much I hate traveling in Mozambique? Yeah. I'm not leaving my house for the next month.