Adventure Part 3: Cape Maclear (Again?) Good Friends & A Beautiful Hike

Early in the morning of the 24th, I parted ways with Szasha and Joanna. They left to continue their journey back into Mozambique, crossing the border into the north of the country, and I stayed in Cape Maclear to await the arrival of two good friends, Anna and Will.

This gave me an unexpected day to myself. I took a long morning walk on the beach at sunrise, and treated myself to delicious french toast for breakfast. I wandered aimlessly around the town, followed all the while by Tom-Tom, the trusty friend I had made that morning.

Tom-Tom, the German shepherd that belongs to Taipei Garden Lodge.

Tom-Tom and I did some souvenir shopping and then sprawled out on the beach, where I fully intended to read my book, but soon ended up joining T-dog in a mid-morning nap.
  
In the afternoon, I took another walk and then spent several hours finishing up my latest book. Just when I started to get bored, a car drove up and out popped my friend Alexandra who I was not expecting! Apparently, she and her family (who were visiting) ran into Szasha and Joanna at the border, who told her where to find me. Alexandra and her family invited me to their hotel to catch up and have a drink -- they even invited me to stay for dinner, (STEAK!) which was possibly the most delicious thing I've eaten since leaving America, excluding cheesecake of course.

By the time dinner was over, it was dark and I figured my friends had probably shown up. I went back to the lodge to check, and found another surprise -- not two, but three of my friends had come!

(1.) Matt, "tanning". (2.) Anna relaxing. (3.) Will talking on an imaginary shoe-phone.

 It was awesome to see these three again -- I couldn't have asked for better travel companions. Anna is the volunteer that lives in Chimoio (where we celebrated Christmas!) and is very calm and friendly. Will is a total dork (one of the few who understands my nerdy jokes), who I rarely get to see, since he lived clear across town during training and now lives clear across the country. Matt is a total hipster who I never really had the chance to get to know in training, but thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with just the same.

All together, we had a ton of fun. We stayed one more full day, and spend the whole day exploring Cape Maclear. We wandered through the village that sprawls out past the super touristy areas, ate nsima wa nyemba (xima with beans) at the market for lunch, and hiked out on the shoreline, past the fishermen and into the wilderness a bit.

Here are some photos from our walk.

The deserted fish market.

A man builds a canoe out of Baobab wood.

A cool cactus growing on a rock.

Pretty flowers in front of an old boat.

Cotton?

Literally a tree-hugger.

  Coming Up Next:

An extremely hectic and somewhat ridiculous journey