Back in Mozambique - Danger is my middle name

Oh my goodness.

So, after a lengthy 14 hour flight to Johannesberg, 2 hour layover (which ended up being a huge rush due to the airport being ridiculously full) and a 1 hour flight to Maputo (Mozambique's capital), I FINALLY got here ...

The good news.

... and it was great. the roads look nicer (less potholes! less garbage! more trees) and it feels nice. I even got my visa at the airport in the below average time of 20 minutes of standing around - this is down from the usual 30-40!

Things looked even better when my old friend from McKinsey (who had since started volunteering for TechnoServe) invited me to a party full of other cool people working in the same field at one of my favourite restaurants. And, with 3rd world prices, I was flabbergasted at how cheap a good meal was (especially once I converted it to pounds - ah, good times). We hit this cool jazz club that had been literally 200 metres from where I used to hang out late at nights when I was here but I'd never seen (which would've been excusable had it not been this large, old railway station that had since been used in Leo DiCaprio movie). Even though I'd slept 2 hours on the plane and 4 hours the night before - a total of 6 hours out of the last 70 including about 20 on the trot - I felt great (thanks to Diet Coke ... the cool fresh taste you can have all around the world!).

But, it was 1am by then, and it seemed foolish to stay up too late; and it was a good opportunity to get my sleeping patterns right. So my newly made friend (from TechnoServe, staying at the same hotel) Maggie and I were the first to leave. We quickly walked to the nearest cab - only to find that it as empty (even though the light was on!). So we strolled down the main road in search of one (Murphy's law I know) when 4 police officers, including one particularly friendly looking one with a big rifle, walked towards us.

A conversation we didn't want to have ... and keep having

"Show us your ID," they said.

STUPIDLY I gave him my driver's licence.

"No, we want your passport," they said, holding onto my driver's licence.

"I don't have my passport," I said, as in a "you can't fool me" confidently way as possible. "This is my identification. My passport is at the hotel."

"No, no," they said. "Give us your passport, or pay a million meticals fine!" (that sounds like a lot, but is only about $60 AUD. Still, too much to pay a police officer trying to cheat us)

"We don't have our passports!" Maggie said. "Now we know to carry them. So please return the licence and let us go!"

My heart beat continued its rise.

This continued for (literally!) 45 minutes as they used every method of persuasion ("you'll spend the night in prison" / "go to the police station then call the hotel and ask them to get it for you" / "you are very bad") and we, in the absence of knowing whether we really needed to have our passports or not, tried every method to get out of it (stunned silence / "you have no right to take my passport" / "we'll show you tomorrow" / contemplating just making a run for it) ... in fact, at many times when they were saying "come to the police station or else" I was kicking myself for NOT paying the fine in cash and getting out of there. ($60 AUD in pounds is even less!)

For some reason, one of the police officers (maybe he just figured we weren't going to budge nor we were going to go to the police station) just pulled me aside, said "just carry a photocopy with you", gave me back my licence, and pushed us away. We kept walking, didn't look back. Phew.

Until.

UNTIL 250 metres later, after being relieved as anything, ANOTHER pair of police officers - this time both with guns - pull us aside demanding the same thing. "Passport, passport!"

Maggie shouted something at them in Portuguese and kept on walking. I wasn't sure if this was the best strategy - I'd rather be facing an angry man with a gun than facing the other way - but then I figured it wasn't best to be the closer one out of the two of us to someone with a gun - and kept walking. when we turned the corner, we just ran and ran to the nearest taxi ...

And, to "cab" it all off:

... UNFORTUNATELY that taxi, apart from being completel unroadworthy, (i) ran out of fuel, making us stop and wait (nervously) while he looked for petrol stations at 2am in the morning at 20kph, (ii) had to ask for directions - with a few U-turns thrown in for good measure, (iii) decided for some reason (against our instructions) to choose a route that drove past both sets of policemen we had previously encountered on our slow way home.

It was a VERY long cab ride and one of the longest 90 minutes of my life.

Moambique resolution 1.

From now on, we're calling for cabs!!!! :)