The great Hitchhike Extravaganza.

Mistake #1 Don’t start hitching at 12 noon, start at 6am, there’s more traffic in the morning.
Mistake #2 Don’t end up sat in a local village for 4 hours, unable to speak the language.
Mistake #3 Don’t look too friendly, the local mad man will flash his nuts at Vicky.

However after a less than ideal 4 hours, we got a lift from a Frenchman (3rd car to pass) who’s opening line was “how the hell did you get here, this is the arse end of nowhere.?”

He gave us a lift on the back of his truck as far as a road junction bout half way to the nearest town. Both of us spent the entire journey grinning – travelling at speed through a beautiful setting in the open air with the wind in your face is a simple but true pleasure. We stopped along the way to buy wood (well for the Frenchman to buy planks, we were not in need of tree bits, having recieved a couple along the way from passing tree branches)

We were in an area where the locals do not see many white people - particuarly travelling on the back of trucks so the local kids thought we were a bit interesting and crowded round to look at us. At first they were curious but kept their distance. However, the power of a smile works where ever you are in the world and they started to grin, say hello and strike poses. In return, we started to take their pictures and they loved it! They’d never been in a digital photo though and when we showed them their pictures they were delighted and were jumping around to see them selves on the back of our camera. Eventually nearly the whole village came out to wave us off. Was a lot of fun for them and us. And nobody flashed their nuts at me (vick) which was also a bonus.

Anyway. When we got dropped off at the road junction in a little village the Frenchman told us to camp where we were and hope for a lift in the morning. He left us with a sort of “they’re nutts” shake of his head and headed off down the road we didn't want.

We sat and waited, it got dark. We communicated needing a P to the locals in a mixture of bad Portugese and possibly very good sign language and they pointed us in the right direction. Then we sat and waited for another 2 hours or so.

Eventually a truck came past loaded to double decker height with stuff and with about 30 people sat on top. We scrambled up, I found a nice spot at the back with a comfy seat and a local drunkard to converse with. Vicky perched at the front holding herself on with her left foot and the bags on with her right foot and squeezing up to the bloke on her right for warmth. I did ask if she was okay, she said yes, so I went back to getting the drunkard to tell me where the hotel we wanted was. Conversations with drunk people who speak the wrong language are remarkably effective. I discovered that he makes roads for a living and lives nowhere near where we were, but he did point at a dark building in the background and say "hotel" when we got to the last stop for the night at about 10pm.

We found a hotel (pretty minging VB, basic but fine for a night PB), checked in, ordered a take away beer and walked off to the market to buy dinner. We had Donuts, Chicken and bread, which is about all they serve. The food comes out of a plastic bowl and it's handed to you in an old newspaper. Double bonus for us, it didn't have sand in it and we didn't get the squits (always a worry when ordering cold chicken from a plastic bowl thats been sitting around in the market all day.) We opened one of our cans of tuna in the hotel room to go with the bread, it was lovely, but did have the effect of attracting an army of ants to our hotel room.

The bed had a slat or two missing in the middle, so the matress kept trying to fall through the middle of the bed. If felt a bit like a camp bed trying to fold up on you. I slept like a log, Vicky, er.. did not. She said that every time I turned over the bed squeeked, woke her up and then when she turned over it kept trying to fold up on her. I think she got about 2 hours of sleep.

Then it was time for day 2

and for Vick to take over as narrator...

Learning from the previous day we got up good and early. As it was now daylight the locals were able to see that two weird white people were in their town and it led to the usual curiosity, people pointing us in the right direction and generally laughing at us, (easy to do given that phil had bought himself a white cap with 'Ryde or die' on the front, hee hee VB ). (best of a bad lot and better than sun stroke and with the added bonus of amusing both Vicky and the locals, one of who shouted Ride or Die at me from across the street. PB)

We knew that a bus would turn up at some point but had decided to get on the first thing going in our direction. This happenend to be the local form of transport which was a pick up truck. Fairly small, but it can hold a lot of people, vegetables, chickens, grain, wood, pretty much anything - all at once. So we clambered in which was a challenge in itself. Standing on the side of the truck looking down at a sea of people already covering the bottom of the truck you have to wonder where on earth you are going to fit. However, the locals knew better than us and made space. Again Phil got a comfy seat, hmm. I saw enough of the floor of the van to see maggots crawling around but was then pleased to see a rather large lady sit on them. Maggots no longer a problem.

Being on the truck is the equivalent of rush hour on the tube. Difference is on the truck there is a real spirit of comoraderie. People talk, laugh and give you advice when the place you have picked will likely lead to you falling off when the truck moves! There can also be no squeamishness about bodily contact and you can kind of forget which leg is yours in the squash. Phil, on his comfy seat was raised above all and was surrounded by a group of female friends. One was sat pretty much between his legs and despite not knowing any portugese it didn't take much for me to work out the women were laughing with each other about being between a white man's legs!!

Probably not that many westerners have being in these vans and we again provided a great source of amusement to those in the van and the villages we passed through. However, the people took us to heart and offered us strange looking vegetables to eat (people sell them on the road side) and were kind to us. Very friendly feel which we'd have missed out on a bus.

Between being bounced around on a metal floor being in the van is also a good place to people watch. In North Mozambique there are still old traditions in place so on our van were ladies with tatooed patterns on their face and people in all different types of clothes depending on their background. All very interesting.

We arrived in the next down after a long, bumpy (the road was pretty much all unsealed), hot but enjoyable journey. We had the option of staying there and getting a bus the next morning or carrying on in local transport making our own way. Guess which Team Bennett chose.....

Yep, we got on to another pick up truck for another four hour journey. Usual squashed and uncomfortable journey. At one point I realised that I couldn't feel my foot and this was because a big bag of corn which was on top of it. I managed to squeeze my foot out by leaving my shoe still under there.

This was probably a worse road than before. However, our attention was soon taken off the condition of the road and the corresponding bashes to our bottoms by the sudden downpour that hit us. A nice goretex rain jacket is of no use at the bottom of your ruck sack so we basically got soaked. It was a true topical storm that lasted for about five minutes. As the roads were sandy great puddles formed at the side and the water that splashed up at us from the puddles was really warm!

After the rain passed I must have looked like a little drowned rat feeling pretty sorry for itself as a local lady gave me a scarf and indicated at me to wrap it around and cuddle up under it for warmth. This was really sweet of her and worked a treat! It also gave the others on the van a lot of amusement. They continued to look after us and gave us different vegetables to eat on journey. It was a really jolly journey.

We arrived at our destination (Palma) just after dusk. We stayed in another minging hotel (I quite liked this one, it was part of someones house and was clean PB) and our evening meal consisted of bread, peanut butter for me and peri peri sauce for Phil because that's all we really wanted. They were selling nice food in the market and the hotel offered to make us something. Whilst walking around town we ran into the nice lady who gave me the scarf. I managed to communicate how grateful I was to her and we gave each other a nice hug. (they both sort of hopped from foot to foot a bit too to show they were happy. PB) Then went to bed as we had a 3 am start for the next morning's journey in to Tanzania.

The Dreaded Ruvuma crossing!!!!

(PB narrating again)

Got up at 3am and clambered aboard another flat back Toyota. (Clarkson was right, it’s true the Toyota flat backs are indestructible, they use them everywhere and repair them with hammers and welding torches.) Worst road yet, which is cruel given that its dark and you can’t see the bumps coming. Arrived at the Mozambique border post and had our bags searched. We’ve got BIG bags and the border officials just opened the top flap, looked at the task ahead of them and we were allowed through. Then we headed off to the Ruvuma river which forms the actual border. We’d been warned to watch for pick pockets and Vicky had spent the past week reminding me once a day to “be vigilant”. I was getting a little irritated by this which was encouraging her and my case was not helped by leaving my flip flops behind at the border post!

The Ruvuma river is about 500m wide and sadly the dug out canoe crossing the guidebook promised has been replaced by heavily overloaded wooden boats with little motors on the back. Passed a hippo in the water, a little to close for everyone’s liking given how low in the water the boat was. Then the other side was manic. We spent 10 minutes circling around as the driver refused to dock as we were arguing with the price he wanted us to pay. On docking there were 30 people all trying to help with your bags and get you to use their truck to get to Mtwara. We got sorted anyway, I think we’ve seen it too many times now to get worried about it.

The Tanzanian border post is far more modern. The dark huts with no lights of Mozambique are gone to be replaced by whitewashed concrete walls and fluorescent lighting designed to keep the reflections off the border officials computer screen. Bought our visa. Walked to the police post, very nice people, friendly chatty. Quite enjoying the conversation until the woman starts asking Vicky if she has a ‘gift’ for her. She tried ‘no sorry’ and ‘we don’t have anything that would work as a gift’ but the lady persisted and it dawned on us this was a bribe attempt. Vicky tried the blank look and the open handed stance that seems to be universal sign language for I got nothing. Then when the lady asked again Vicky asked me if we had anything. I said we had some broken biscuits she could have. Vicky nearly snorted. Woman gave up, seemingly broken biscuits were not what she was hoping for. Still we are very pleased with ourselves to have avoided the bribe.

Then an hour on the road to Mtwara...