MOZAMBIQUE

This story first appeared in "Surf Session " magazine in 2003
CLICK HERE to see photo's from this trip. (Opens in a new window)

Even though she freely admitted that this was the most romantic thing that anyone had ever done for her, we both knew that it couldn't change the fact that she spent most of her waking hours wondering what on earth she was doing with me. And so I didn't need to look over at her now to know that the glare currently being aimed in my direction meant that once again I wasn't in her good books. Seconds before there had been a spluttering sound as the last drops of fuel had passed through the engine, a final surge of power and then the car had come gently to a halt right next a bright red sign on which was engraved a skull and crossbones and the words : Danger, landmines'. I figured that I might be able to get her to look on the bright side by announcing that this was actually the second time I'd got stuck in a minefield in four months, and at least she hadn't been there the first time as well. However, instead of the "Stuart, as long as I'm with you I really don't care where we are" reaction that I was hoping for all I got was a frustrated sigh before she slipped on her shades, turned up the radio and said simply "Right, you're pushing".

I've always maintained that I'd never under any circumstances take a non-surfing girlfriend on a surf trip, in-fact I'd normally do everything I possibly could to avoid even going to my local beach for the afternoon with a girlfriend if I knew that the surf was good. I just can't stand the hassles of it, trying to hurry them along before the wind switches or explaining to them for the umpteenth time why it really is necessary to spend most of the day driving around the countryside looking at beaches that to her all look identical before returning to the beach we started at several hours earlier. As such I'd had some reservations about
inviting Katy to search for surf in Mozambique with us, I mean some of our biggest arguments have been because of surfing, but in the end I knew that Africa was her dream trip and that maybe if she came along it would open up a new world of possibilities for us and this time it could be perfect.

Mozambique is one of those obscure African countries that we've all heard of but most of us would be hard pushed to actually locate on a map. This is hardly surprising as on the surface there's little to recommend about the place and no real reason to know anything of its existence. Its history reads like something from the pages of the Old Testament, all fire, floods and rage and it forms a world so different from ours that you might think we could be forgiven for not caring. But it was us who created this world. Back in the days before the west came to rape the land of all its natural and human resources, Mozambique was, thanks to a string of coastal cities trading with Arabia, doing all right for itself. But then, in 1498, the Portuguese ships of Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and within years the slaughter of Africa had begun. At first Mozambique's distance from Europe kept it safer than the countries of West Africa, but soon enough the slave traders turned their eyes to this south eastern corner of the continent and a million people were dragged away from their families and homes. Eventually Europe decided that maybe there were one or two moral issues against slavery and the trade was abolished, but the pillage of Mozambique continued at the hands of the country's Portuguese overlords. Finally, in the 1960's, the Mozambicans picked up guns and began to fight for their freedom. It was to be almost three decades before the bullets stopped. After eleven years the Portuguese called it a day and the Mozambicans finally had their independence, but one war quickly turned to another and the country was plunged back into a civil strife that appeared to have more to do with its neighbours than with Mozambique. The ANC, fighting the apartheid regime of South Africa, established bases in Mozambique against which the South African government responded by helping in the creation of RENAMO, an organisation whose sole goal was essentially the destruction of Mozambique. Atrocities were committed by both RENAMO and the Mozambican government, anyone with a skilled profession was executed and countless schools, hospitals and other public buildings destroyed. And then, in the : 80's, just when you'd have thought they'd have found it impossible to cope with anything else, further misery came in the form of draught and famine. But despite it all, the people of Mozambique remained brave, they knew that nothing could last forever and with the collapse of South Africa's white regime in the early : 90's Mozambique finally dried its tears and entered a new world.

Things are far better now than they were, many would even call it an African success story and certainly the people give that impression with their smiles and their warmth but you'd
still never call this a perfect new world. The odds are still stacked against Mozambique, it's one of the poorest places on the planet, malaria kills thousands, floods and cyclones drown the country and millions of unexploded landmines are still poised and ready, however all this could be nothing compared to what might be lurking just around the corner. In the next ten years or so, Mozambique, like much of Africa, is, thanks to the massive scale of the AIDS epidemic, likely to suffer from a population crash the likes of which this perfect new world may never before have seen. Experts predict that 71 million people will die of the disease in Africa over the next ten years. It looks as if the people of Mozambique might have to be brave for just a little bit longer.

The day before Katy and I had run out of fuel on our way to a South African safari we'd said goodbye to the rest of our travel companions in the capital, Maputo. Traveling with us had been a crew of South African's, Brandon Foster, Ian Kruger and Vijay Maharaj, Ralph from the US, Emi Mazzoni from Italy and fellow Englishman Ben Wallis. I think it would be fair to say that none of us really wanted to leave, because leaving meant going back to our dreary old worlds, far better to stay and enjoy the perfect world of coconut palms and Indian Ocean beaches. And what beautiful beaches and waves we'd found here. At first though things hadn't been quite what we'd been expecting or hoping for. Mozambique is a funny sort of place for a surfer, all South African's know it gets good waves, really good
waves, but yet few actually seem to make the long journey up here and there was little in the way of solid information on where to start looking. We knew about a point break deep in the south that surfers lavished praise on, but they told us that this was one golden point that demanded a lot of time and patience to get good. And then there was the wave that Tom Curren and friends made famous in an early Search video, that was tempting, but not as much as the two thousand odd kilometres of beaches, islands and fringing reefs that stretched away to the north of Maputo. We left the city early one morning, whilst it was still cool, and begun our own search. The maps we had and the clues we'd been given led us to believe that we'd be finding exposed beachbreaks from the very start and maybe there were, but at no time in our planning did we take serious consideration of coastal access into account. We'd just figured that there'd be fishing villages everywhere and anywhere there was a village it followed that there'd be a road linking it to the outside world. This though turned out not to be the case and enormous stretches of coastline were completely inaccessible to us in our cars, in-fact with the vegetation as dense as it was even if we'd had a 4WD we wouldn't have faired much better. By the end of the first days exploration we hadn't even seen the ocean and the closest we'd come to waves were some micro ripples on a saltwater lagoon where Maputo's jet set played in speed boats and lounged about in beachside bars. We found ourselves a café here, hidden away under shady green trees, where we ate fried sardines and drunk cold beers in a scene that could have been removed straight from the south of Portugal, we were even serenaded by a guy playing the melancholic Portuguese version of the blues called Fado on his guitar. The next days hunt for waves was only a little more successful, much of the day was spent drifting down mud red tracks that wound through thick forest, past garish green fields and occasionally alongside little straw huts built in groups around large circular courtyards, but none of the tracks ever seemed to lead us to a beach. Finally we came to the town of Xai-Xai, years ago I'd seen this place marked on a map of Africa and had taken to it immediately, there was something about the name that I just found so appealing and exotic. In early 2000, I, like millions of others got my first indications that Xai-Xai wasn't the perfect paradise that I'd hoped for, as television pictures of families trapped on the top of trees, thanks to the
devastating floods of that year, were beamed across the world. Aside from a new road and bridge leading into an otherwise rundown, one horse town, so typical of Africa there's little left to remind people of this most recent of tragedies to stalk Mozambique. It was in Xai-Xai that we finally reached the beach and found both good news in the form of an overhead swell, but bad news in the shape of an almost totally dry fringing reef with no passes and no hope of a rideable wave. Dejected we found ourselves a room for the night in the Motel Concha, a place that has surely seen plenty of late night action, and drowned our frustrations in cheap alcohol.

Eventually, after many more dead-end tracks and rocky closeouts our luck finally changed when we reached the crumbling town of Inhambane. Wide streets and open spaces characterise Inhambane as does a laid back tropical lethargy and fading colonial Portuguese architecture. Somewhat symbolically for a town like this the clock on the cathedral stopped recording the passage of time long ago and around it other buildings were turning slowly back to dust. The most romantic corner of the town though was saved for the tiny port, where, amongst the rusting ship wrecks could be found a few traditional wooden dhows dragging up images of an almost forgotten past as they continued to ferry people and goods up and down the coast, some even set sail for the great Swahili trading centre of Ilha de Moçambique and, once in a blue moon, they'll go as far as Zanzibar. I've always been attracted to decaying towns like this, but rarely have I found much in the way of surf near them, Inhambane though was different and just half an hours drive away we came to a low grassy cliff at the base of which was a sharp and very shallow reef ledge along which were peeling fast and hollow rights. Aside from Emi, we
were a purely bodyboarding group and the way this wave rebounded off the edge of the cliff, slammed into the shallow ledge, sucking much of the water off the reef in the process, and barrelled its way down the line made it perfect for us. It wasn't the only wave we found around here either, the next morning a stroll over a couple of headlands and along a beach or two brought us to an equally shallow and tubular left that seemed to suck in all available swell. Further on from this we came to yet another right, as hollow and empty as the others, whilst beyond were a dozen other headlands, all hiding bays that contained waves that we were never to get to see.

Shortly before we'd arrived in Mozambique another one of the endless string of cyclones that plague the country hit the stretch of coast we were now surfing. It had been a big one and many of the villagers living along the coast had packed up and moved to safer ground for the cyclones duration. Now, for us, its after affects could be felt in the surf. One evening, as we got out of the water, we were greeted by the only other surfer we were to come across in Mozambique, a middle aged South African man who'd been sat on the cliff watching us. He was an annual visitor to this coast and told us that many of the waves were nowhere near their normal standards due to sand being pulled off or piled onto the reefs we'd been surfing during the cyclone. But he also told us about another spot that
was normally a very forgettable close out, now however it had turned into barrel machine. Very early the next morning found us bouncing down a rough sand track in search of his story. Our friend hadn't been lying, finally we rounded a last bend and came to a palm lined beach with Caribbean blue water and a sandbar set up that was as close to perfect as you'll find in this world and whilst we got our fill of sandy, blue tubes, Katy entertained herself by diving with the Manta Rays and Whale Sharks that patrolled the waters a short way beyond the line-up. If we ever needed a reason to travel then this was it.

Why did we come to Mozambique? Why does anyone come to Mozambique? I suppose we've all got different reasons, some are after adventure, some are after money, some just want to see, some used to be after people. Whatever it is, Mozambique is used to being used as a backdrop and a pawn in other peoples dreams and desires. Now though, for the first time in its modern history, Mozambique is trying to live its own life and is busy creating its own new world, if the people are brave then maybe they'll do it and this time it could be perfect. Mozambique might not be on everyone's wish list, but maybe it
should be. Right now, it, like so much of Africa, needs our help, we've screwed them over in the past and we're screwing them over now, but the people of Mozambique are still smiling, they're still being brave and any love and support we give to the country will be repaid many times over, because even after all we've put it through Mozambique will still play the part of the backdrop to our own dreams and desires.

I, for one, had used the beaches and waves of Mozambique as the backdrop to creating my own perfect new world or was it a last grasp to keep hold of the old one? Whatever it was I'd been hoping for when I invited Katy along I knew, in my heart of hearts, as the strain of pushing the car in this heat caused the sweat to pour off me, that the frustrated sigh Katy had exhaled as the car had come gently to a halt meant that this really was it. Even with Mozambique helping me, whatever reason I'd had for inviting her here hadn't worked. Yes, I was going to be entering a new world, but I'd be entering it alone. It was only a couple of kilometres from where we'd run out of fuel to the South African border and in the end I abandoned the idea of pushing the car to the border town and a garage and hitched there. It turned out of course that the nearest place selling fuel was on the
wrong side of the border and I only had a single entry Mozambican visa. What followed was a comical half an hour spent stringing together a web of lies in broken Portuguese to the immigration officials that I'd done something very stupid and let my girlfriend drive the car and that she didn't know that when the fuel gauge light comes on it means that without more petrol it won't be long until you stop moving. Of course they loved that and yes certainly I could pop over to South Africa to get some more fuel. When I finally returned to the border, clutching my water bottle full of petrol, the still laughing immigration staff waved me on my way with the advice never to be as stupid as to let my girlfriend drive me again. Wise words I thought, never let someone else drive you to do anything. But why hadn't Mozambique listened to these words? Why had it been necessary for Mozambique to be driven to destruction before it got up and chased after its own dreams?

At some point in your life the building blocks of the world you're trying to construct will come tumbling down, everyone's does. I'd failed to build my own perfect new world, so what, it's nothing. After all, the world of Mozambique collapsed in a way few of us could ever imagine, but we're both being brave and we've both entered new worlds, who knows what they hold, lets hope they're perfect, lets hope we're brave enough. Fuck it, the truth is that in the end none of us are brave enough, nothing lasts forever and no love story can possibly have a happy ending. This is life, this is the perfect new world, be brave.

THANKS

Thanks to the following people for helping to make this trip happen.

Oceansurf www.oceansurfpublications.co.uk

Saltrock Surfwear www.saltrock.com

C-Skins Wetsuits www.c-skins.com

SurfNews Magazine www.surfnews.com