The travel day started off around 10am when we left the ministry site we were at and headed into town to catch our Chinese bus that was going to take us to Maputo from Beira. (Yes, you read correctly, a Chinese bus company in Mozambique). It was supposed to be a pretty relaxed travel day as far as they go because the bus wasn’t supposed to stop and it was supposed to have beds as our seats!
As often happens in Africa, none of that came true. First we got a phone call (in broken Chinese/English) saying that we needed to come pick up our money because the bus was broken so the transport was canceled. Great.
Fortunately for us we were with Joseph, who was a HUGE blessing, he is a local, and he helped us find alternate transportation that day. It ended up being an African bus.
An African bus just means that they stop often, fit as many people on the bus as possible, blast music 24/7, and put the luggage on the roof so it looks like the bus is carrying a huge present.
So we get on the bus and get on our way. Everything is going smoothly minus the awful B.O. stench, no personal space, and the fact that after 10 minutes our butts are already hurting.
About 15 hours in we get pulled over by the military for a bribe, the Mozambique government is super corrupt. When they see us, Christin, Megan, and I, they ask for our passport…Uh Oh! Megan’s passport is in Maputo.
All three of us immediately start praying because we don’t enough money to bribe and don’t want Megan to go to jail. I give him my passport, my expired one actually because I cant find my real one, Christin hands over hers, and he looks at them both. No problem. We are good to go. He looks at Megan and says,” No problem.” Waves his hand and walks off. Praise Jesus.
That night we made a rest pit stop, which consisted of the driver going to party and everyone else to fend for themselves. Christin and I found a nice spot of asphalt to lay down on. The only benefit was the stars were AMAZING.
Needless to say we didn’t sleep.
3 hours later we get up, off the asphalt I mean because we didn’t sleep, and are on our merry way again. Around 3am, about 2 hours after the stop, the driver blasts the music again. I can’t tell you how many times I thought of ripping the speakers out of the wall!
It takes another 10ish hours to get to Maputo, but we made it. As we are driving towards the stop we get with in sight of it and the driver decides they can’t make another 100 yards, we stop for gas. AHHHHH!
These were the frustrations of pretty much the entire ride. But we made it finally to the bus stop!
Part 2 coming soon, “A Lesson in Smuggling”
