Representatives from The Swedish Diplomatic Training Programme are coming to Maputo soon and we will spend the next couple of days with them. Very interesting. Here’s a little girl from Inhaca that I was hanging out with for a moment. I’ll be back online when I’m less busy, my internet at home is gone again but now at least you know that I’m still ok. haha..

As you already know, I spent the weekend on Inhaca Island, which is just a three hour boatride from Maputo city. We took the boat early on Saturday morning and were in Inhaca by noon. Finding a place to stay wasn’t very complicated and we teamed up with a group of portuguese people that we spent the rest of the weekend with. We were driven by Rogerio the crazy driver to distant beaches where we got to be by ourselves and enjoy clear waters and wonderful views. The two beaches we visited during our two days were completely different, the first one was like a hidden beach where you could find new beautiful details when walking, it was close to dense vegetation, the tide that was coming made it smaller with every minute, and it was almost gone by sunset. The one we went to the second day was on the contrary one of those huge paradise beaches where the feeling of being alone as far as the eye can see is amazing. Anyway, on the first day, when it was time to start going back from the beach, the tide had made everything look different and the way we had walked before was now under water. It was an adventure to find that little path out of the beach and we ended up completely far off in the jungle, where we were finally saved by a local guard that came running to show us the right way, I still wonder where he came from. Saturday night was a party night in little Inhaca, and the people gathered in the local bar where we got to witness some great dancing, both by cool hipster dudes and by a group of kids. We also got to dance tons ourselves and I was extatic about finally getting a proper night of dancing. We ended the night by hanging out on a pitch black beach before heading back to our huts at Rita’s place. The music on the Island was generally very questionable. When we arrived to the restaurant the first day we got to listen to a Luther Vandross disc, which maybe isn’t really what you expect to hear while eating your plate of seafood in the sun. Then there was some Celine Dion, Rihanna, of course (you hear Rihanna EVERYWHERE around here) – and some sort of unspeficied electronic music for the dancing that we at some point interrupted with dancehall brought by Maya from our group. On the way back from the beach at 1am we were accompanied by the soundsystem of the bar set on full volume, kids still awake and playing and the forever nostalgic hits of Tina Turner. What was most striking about Inhaca was how safe it felt in comparison to Maputo, I was thrilled by the fact that I could have my camera on the shoulder at all times and finally get some good shots. The eating experience at Inhaca was seafood as fresh as seafood can get and waiting for food just as long as waiting can get before becoming completely unbearable. All in all, the beautiful beaches, the patience tests, the great group, the very friendly locals and the sun that burnt my shoulders summed up to a perfect weekend. More than that, it was a maningue nice weekend, or actually it was maningue fixe!

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