Misfits Mid-Life Crisis Adventures in Tofo Mozambique & Nels South Africa (The NEXT Chapter).
Week 69, Saturday 10th October until Friday 16th October 2015.
Portuguese word of the week: “Pare” (Stop), such as a road stop sign.
Eat my dust……
Saturday. A quiet day. All set up for a dive to “Giants”, when we were told it was scrubbed, due to the customers didn’t feel well. I downloaded “The Martian” on my Kindle and read 40% by end of the work day. Packed for the visa run tomorrow, I am staying in the same place as Jari and Brodie from Tofo Scuba the cost 380R works out about £18 a night plus brekkie not bad.
Mamma Mia at 4am, shhhhh.
Left Tofo with Brodie at 4am, reached the boarder at 12.30 and arrived at the guest house in Nelspruit at 2.30. To bypass Maputo we travelled along a gravel/dirt road for a couple of hours, it’s like something out of a Top Gear challenge. I enjoy the bumpy road, but then I wasn’t driving. Coz we arrived early we went shopping for supplies straight away, I bought a bug zapper a tennis racket looking device to kill mozzies, I had hours of fun with one at Cindy’s recently. When Jari and Jasmin arrived we went to eat, this didn’t prove easy as Jasmin is vegan, after looking around and my tummy rumbling we settled on a place. I eat myself silly as we had not eaten much during the day. Staying at a lovely place called Mamma Mia, I have a room with 2 beds might sleep in a different one each night. Got a TV but has limited channels.
Brekkie and a coffee and muffin at Mugg & Bean.
Monday in SA. Jari dropped me at Riverside Mall. I saw 3 films all in 3D, I had about an hour or so between each, which meant I just nosed about the shopping centre was very quiet all day for a weekday. I really enjoyed all the films, my reviews as follows “The Martian” gets *****, “The Maze Runner 2: The Scorch Trials” gets **** and “Hotel Transylvania 2” gets ****. Annoyingly they are still cutting the credit; yes I watch them. I will write and complain as I have since read that there were extra scenes in 2 of the films I saw. I got a cab back to the hotel, for the 4th time in a row I have the same driver Sifiso, he remembers all the places he has driven me before, is he my Nels stalker.
In a large dark room wearing strange glasses, and a very quiet shopping centre.
Tuesday, Brodie and I left at 4am, made the queue for the border at 6am. Once the border was open we got stamped out of SA quickly, it was getting back in to MZ that took a lot of time. The queue just didn’t seem to be going down. There are people at the border that will for a fee take your passport and get it stamped, essentially they jump the queue. We paid a man to do this for us. He was back quickly with the stamp in the passport, but then another man took Brodies car papers and that’s what caused us problems. This brought us to the attention of border officials who wanted to look in the car and poke around in nooks and crannies. They could have asked for everything to be emptied luckily they didn’t, but this meant we didn’t leave the border until 7.30am. Travelling along the gravel/dirt road it made me think of a desert in fact there are huge cactus growing there. I saw a water truck filling barrels for people that live near the road, it can’t be an easy life there. Apart from a couple of stops for drink and food we carried on. Today was a scorching hot day even with all the windows open there didn’t feel like any air, we finally reached Tofo at 5.30pm I was dirty and very sweaty it was so nice to jump in the shower.
Shes not the Stig, she’s Brodie from Tofo Scuba. I think she could be the Stigs African cuz.
Thursday, went on a dive first thing to “Giants” a large Grouper was spotted in his usual place, we had a school of Big Eye Trevally above us and as we ascended we were in amongst the group. I have been in the middle of a group like this before, and wonder what really is going on in there heads they have a simple look to them. As always a delight to hear Humpbacks and Dolphins during the dive, on the surface we did in fact see humpys, they will soon be heading south so I have to make the most of each sighting. I did a scuba review in the pool the man a lovely American, all went well. The plan was then to go to “Salon” we kitted up a full boat of 3 different groups. A couple of hundred meters out the steering went we limped home will try again tomorrow. I have started this week’s terrible painting the 5th since I arrived. Head is hurting hope it’s not a Migraine.
More terrible painting.
Friday, its is a Frakking Migraine didn’t sleep much at all, plus its very hot. I took the advantage of the boss’s car and drove to Inhambane, did some chores for the Jari and bought myself a fan. Spent the rest of the day in the dark with not a lot of noise, need to be ready for work tomorrow. What a shit was to finish a good week.
This is where I would work if I was in local government here.
In other news, rescued a huge Cockroach from my shower curtain. Poked myself in the eye while watching skateboarding on TV in SA. Saw a man holding a monkey by its tail in MZ on the side of the road (as if a driver is going to buy a monkey), then later saw a number of free monkeys in SA in what appeared to be a wildlife park. Passed an entire bus load of people having a wee, men on side woman the other it was like a scene from Carry On At Your Convenience (1971).
This pond is in the shape of Mozziebeak.
The Mid Life Crisis Conts……
This week I have been watching: “Orange Is The New Black”, (Season 3, eps 4 to 5), “Killjoys”, (Season 1, eps 6), “Top Gear”, (Season 2, eps 4 to 6), “Doctor Who: Rose”, (Season 1/27 ep 1), “Doctor Who: The End of the World”, (Season 1/27 ep 2), “The Martian”, (2015), “The Maze Runner 2: The Scorch Trials”, (2015), “Hotel Transylvania 2” (2015).
This week I have mainly been listening to: ”LBC Podcast: Nick Abbot (Whole Show)”, (09 and 10/10/15), “LBC Podcast: Nick Abbot (Mid-Week)”, (14/10/15), “Morrissey”, “Suede”, “Bob Marley”, ”Nirvana”, lots of music in the car on the way to and from SA, some I cant admit to.
Reading: “The Martian”, by Andy Weir, “Knit One, Kill Two”, by Maggie Sefton, “Morrissey List of the Lost”, by Morrissey and “A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire” book 2 “ A Clash of Kings” by George R.R. Martin.
Misfits Mid-Life Crisis........ 