DAY 59
Today felt like we were in a Klapish movie. You'll have to imagine each action as a 2-3 second scene, fast-forwarding the day into a few minutes:
Getting a sim card
Calling LAM to know more about the luggage
Being told that they know nothing about it by looking in the system
Going back to the apartment because I need to pee badly
Finding another place to stay
Filing a complaint with AirBnb to get the money back
Moving our stuff to the hostel
Getting something to eat
Getting a call from AirBnb to confirm the refund
Going to the LAM office downtown
Spending an hour at LAM office to finally learn that the luggage is at the airport
Going back to the airport with the crazy 5pm traffic in Maputo
Finding Mar's luggage
Learning the it arrived 3 hour ago with the 3pm flight but no one bothered to call us... Or even yesterday night when they had to check the luggage for that flight.
Looking for the right person to complete the paperwork
Not finding the person and bothering the lost and found lady again
Completing the paperwork with the lost and found lady because after all she can do it too
Having another angry customer in a worse situation at the same time in the office.
Being happy that Mar's luggage arrived only 1 day late and not 4 and counting like the other lady
Learning that yesterday and this morning if we had someone competent, it was clearly in the system that the luggage stayed in Jo'burg
Listening to all these conversation in Portuguese, impressed by Mar's language skill and understanding descent chunks of it thanks to my Spanish
Being told boldly that they receive a lot of luggage from lots of places and they don't have time to warn people about found luggage
Going through customs
Going to talk to a supervisor about refunding the taxi ride among other things
Taking the taxi back to the hostel...relieved
DAY 60
Let's now do tourism! Our peace of mind restored we can resume our planned activities finally. We start by walking downtown towards the sea and the nice areas of Maputo. There's less visible poverty but the city is much dirtier than Tana. Littering plagues all the sidewalk but strangely even though the roads are decent, the sidewalks are riddled with potholes. Furthermore, walking on them is made difficult to impossible because cars are parked there...Security seems to be concern too, the doors and windows are barred by steel grids, giving the 60-70s buildings an even grimmer look. An oddity is to have shoes vendors in the street, with their products laid out nearly in a grid. There's no "wasa wasa" here so far and people just ignore us which feels awesome after two countries quite annoying on that aspect. Our first stop of the day is the cathedral of Maputo. As expected for a cathedral the building is huge. It's also recent which is surprising since the Portuguese have been there for centuries. It has a lots of light and it's very quiet but for a few birds nested somewhere. Next to it is Maputo's town hall. A nice old building but like the rest of the city. It's dirty and poorly kept.
The fort is a quiet place. Its tumultuous military life has been over for quite some time. and it now hosts art exhibits. It offers some good opportunities for pictures on top of that; A successful re-conversion ;) next on the list is the railway station. Unlike Tana, it's still functional and used. It was build by one of Eiffel's disciple and it's obvious. I have a short moment of Belgian pride seeing an antique Belgian locomotive (from Mons) on display in the main hall. The outside looks nice but it's hidden behind scaffolding. A train is about to leave when we're done with our visit and we give way to all the people that are late and running desperately for their train; a constant across the world it seems. On our way to the neighborhood of Polana with stop at the covered market and for the first time in Mozambique we experience a bit of insistent selling attempts. If it's limited in markets I'm fine with it ;) In Polana we spend some time at the "Nucleo d'Arte", a gallery and studio of contemporary art. It's an institution in Maputo and a very lovely place full of artists. Some of them work, others chat, drink beer and smoke pot to boost their creativity ;)