After the rather strange end of the previous day, we were initially very pleased that breakfast was included in the overnight rate at Hotel247. And we were offered a really great breakfast buffet. So we could at least start the day and Melanie’s birthday a little cheered up.

Unfortunately, the day did not continue quite as nicely as it had begun. Our next destination was the South African-Mozambican border. But since we were now stuck in a small town, which had not been planned before, we had to somehow organize transportation. Fortunately, the receptionists and the hotel manager helped us with their contacts, so that we managed for a paltry 120€ to be brought the 2h drive to the border.

Our driver was the friend of the receptionist Tumi Melanie (should the name be a good omen?) and had been instructed by her not to let us out of her sight until we were safely on a bus on the Mozambican side of the border, waving happily.

The exit from South Africa should still be the easiest undertaking today – stamp and done. The entry to Mozambique should be much more difficult. The whole procedure should cost us almost 2h. We were confronted with several officials, sent back and forth, went through individual steps twice and somehow everything seemed unorganized, strange and overall very unfriendly and incompetent. With Andreas, the artery emerged again easily and he had plenty of comparisons with past systems ready.

After all visas ($50 per person) and stamps were finally cleared, we could continue. We were still in the control zone and were stopped every 50m by a border guard who wanted to see our passports and covidtests.

Andreas’ irritation threshold was exceeded at the point when one of the “officials”, after checking our papers, demanded another 100 dollars for the onward journey. Andreas asked him in English if he had ever heard of corruption. The official fiddled a bit with his AK-47 and asked, “What?”. Andreas was about to explode: “Corruption! You ever heard of that? I think you are corrupt!”. The “official” took a step back from the vehicle, our driver told Andreas to close the door, stepped on the gas pedal and thus had entered Mozambique illegally (he did not have his passport). The baffled official stayed behind us and we were in Mozambique. Our driver organized an illegal exchange of money from South African Rand into Mozambican Metical (money exchange is forbidden at the border and is punished with imprisonment) and a ride for us.

We hugged him, thanked him for everything and got into the minibus after the usual price negotiations.

After 1.5h ride in this oil sardine can (19 passengers plus driver) we arrived at the bus station of Maputo – the capital of Mozambique. But as soon as we arrived, the fun continued.

While Mel was still discussing with the driver how we would best get to our accommodation, Andreas unloaded our luggage. Surrounded by locals who had not seen white tourists for a long time, he always had an eye on our 3 backpacks while being asked for the papers by the next policeman (same uniform as the “exemplary” border guard before).

Still irritated and fueled by Mel’s stories from the Internet, he held his passport, unfolded in front of the officer’s nose. He continued to demand the passport, while Andreas vehemently resisted and explained to him that the passport was German state property and that he was allowed to show it, but never give it out of his hand. With a smirk, the driver of the “oil sardine can” de-escalated the situation.

The rest of the day was comparatively quiet, the car rental we wanted to visit had closed. An acquaintance of our hostel father would have demanded 1500 dollars for vehicle with driver for five days – we declined with thanks. So we booked for the next day 2 bus tickets to Tofo Beach for 2000 Metical (also called Meticash, 2000 were about 27€). We went opposite our accommodation still something to eat and went to sleep early – at 5 o’clock our alarm clocks should ring for the approx. 10-hour bus ride.