Living for Disco

We all went through Friday saying “I can’t wait to get on that bus”.  We were fools, but we knew it not.  I expect that’s usual for foolishness, really.

We didn’t sleep.  Not even a wink.  At the end of the twenty-six hour journey, we four intrepid travellers had clocked up:

1 case of cystitis

1 case of D & V (Diarrhea and vomiting to those in the biz)

1 case of extreme nausea

1 case of pathological irritability, brought on by exhaustion

Of course, we recovered in style by going to a birthday party in Johannesburg.  We sat in a sunny garden, surrounded by interesting and friendly people, eating braaied chicken and drinking much wine.  Our bus left at 10 that night, and we were rat-arsed by the time we got on it.  I apparently offended many of our fellow travellers to Maputo by enquiring loudly as to just why people need to import so many fucking onions to Mozambique.  I am still curious, incidentally.  Do onions not grow here?  I am yet to find out.

By the time we arrived, finally, mercifully, in Maputo, ten hours later, we’d clocked up:

1 severe bladder infection

1 case of uncontrollable vomiting

1 case of impetigo

4 hangovers

God, we’re getting old.

The dawn border crossing was an experience.  We stood sweating in a rubbish strewn warehouse while a large fat man wrote excruciatingly slowly, and as I was later to realise, illegibly, into our passports.  Meanwhile, a stream of semi-literate travellers were sent away to refil visa forms that they hadn’t understood in the first place, by a man whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to utter the words “No. Go away and fill it out properly” to bewildered visa-seekers.

I have to tell you though, it was worth it.  Maputo is wonderful.