14 June Hluhluwe to Bobolo

Well here we are a few days later in the beautiful Eastern Highlands of  Zimbabwe. Today I have a bit of time to catch up while Mark and his brother Patrick go "walkabout". Let me go back to Monday morning.

Today (Monday) was very interesting. We left Dave and Anne in Hluhluwe just before 8am. We can really recomment Country Rose BnB. Great people, great accommodation.

We managed to clear two border posts without any problems. The people were pleasant and thing went very smoothly. Some of the roads in Swaziland were pretty rough - and we thought the Addo Rd was bad before it was repaired. However the main road through Big Bend was great. Then it was onward and upward to the border post near Goba where the views over Swaziland stretched away below. All the border control offices are clean and neat and things seem well organised. Joy!

The roads in Moz up to Bobolo were in good condition and very pretty with lovely trees and lots of evidence of crops being grown. And then we arrived in Maputo. That was less pretty, less organised and very busy even for a Sunday. We stopped at a garage for fuel and a large crowd of little boys soon gathered around the car asking for money, bread, sweets ..... One little boy stood next to my window saying, "I want money, I'm hungry. Ag Shame!" He'd obviously had heard this from previous travelers. It was so cute. I did notice that the boys only approached tourists - not locals who chased them away.

And then on to Blue Anchor Inn just north of Maputo at Bobolo. Paul and Liz Hallowes run a superb establishment. The hospitality is great, the food is delicious and of course the company is congenial. The inn was full and included some families from Johannesburg getting away from the traffic problems. One of the visiting children had a vuvuzela which one of Paul's dogs broke as soon as he tried to blow it - a feat Paul tells us he's trained to do! It was lovely to connect with Paul and Liz again. Thank you for your wonderful hospitality.

Oh and we did get our first traffic fine for doing 69kph in Maputo - so easy to do when one is trying to find the route through the chaos. The traffic cops were pleasant and we paid up. Ah well, we were speeding....