Day 99 of 138 of our cruise from Fort Lauderdale to London. Today we docked in Maputo Mozambique on the south east coast of Africa just above the country of South Africa.
To be honest with you all, we were not particularly looking forward to Maputo due to recent reports of some civil unrest, crime and terrorism in the outlying area – in fact travel advisory was level 3 which is “reconsider travel”. So we listen to the port talk and the tour we planned on was all located in the general vicinity of the port and knowing how Viking cruise bubble wraps their passengers, we figure a quick 2 hour tour would be fine, but nothing more than that.
Docking in the harbor in downtown Maputo, out our cabin balcony, we were under the newly constructed Maputo-Katembe suspension bridge that was opened in 2018 and built by China.
Getting off the ship was interesting as the disembarkation door was closed up as we approached and they had to move it to a higher floor because the tides were subsiding and the gangway had to be raised. We made it to our tour about 5 minutes late.
The tour took us to the train station that was built by the Portuguese in early 1900’s which was actually quite beautiful. The platforms had no residents on it because all of the residents caught early morning trains and the place is idle from 8:30am until the afternoon rush hour.
We also went to an outdoor market where you can buy cashews, fruits and various goods. then a trip to the 1790’s historical Portuguese fort that protected the bay. The fort was also site of the 1975 Mozambique’s civil war to gain independence from Portuguese control.
We rounded out the trip with some views of areas of the city and a stop at a trade market that vendors sold souvenirs and crafts.
The city was actually quite modern in many ways and a far cry from the poverty we saw in Mombassa and Madagascar – although we did not get out into the rural areas.
We were back on board at lunch and just relaxed the rest of the day. We were just surprised that the city was generally clean and not overly crowded. Sure the vendors were begging and pleading to sell you their goods and would get overbearing, but we muddled through.
