I think I tempted fate by labelling our last journey blog Final Journey From Hell? Our travel from Mozambique Island to Pemba was very eventful. This time we had Laura from Texas as a travelling companion and Laura spoke the lingo! It started off well as we picked up a chapa as soon as we left Ruby Backpackers at 4.30am. The chapa said they were going to Namiala and the price was decent enough not to argue. So on we hopped.
Shortly after the bridge from the island most people jumped off and ran onto another direct to Nampula bus. We didn't think much of this since we weren't going all the way back to Nampula but instead getting off at Namiala, the junction to Pemba. The chapa then sped off, only to turn around and go back again to the bridge. This wasn't a good sign. There was another direct to Nampula chapa and so Sean went to check it out. But the drive then intervened and stated he would charge us 50% of our price if we got off, even though we'd come less than 1km in the chapa. So we stayed put, but this prompted them to get going.
However, our hopes were dashed when we arrived at Manapa just up the road. The driver wanted us to get out here and sit on the top of a pile of sugar bags on the back of a pick-up. Now we drew the line there and Laura managed to decipher that they weren't going to Namiala at all and that we had to change, but since she was able to tell the driver that he wouldn't let us off when we wanted to get off the driver conceded that he'd have to find another chapa to put us onto. So we drove to Manapa bus depot and found just that and made the switch.
Of course though, this new chapa needed to fill up. So as we went back and forth never quite making the junction turn towards Namiala our hopes of picking up the big bus connection at Namiala faded with every passing minute.
Still we arrived there eventually and decided just to get on anything that was going towards Pemba. After a few minutes a man in a private pick-up allowed just me, Sean, Laura and this other chap to hop in the back. And off he sped.
We overtook all the lorries that had refused to let us hitch. We passed the inselbergs of granite rock, formed through volcanic activity years ago where the soft surrounding rock has since worn away.
We started to grin as we realised that this expected 6 hour journey was probably only going to take 3! Then we caught up with the big buses as a police stop point. The driver beckoned us to get out and we groaned as we thought he might be trying to put us on the big buses. But no. It was worse. One of the buses (the Grupo Mecular bus we'd been hoping to pick up in Namiala) had had a crash. The front and door side of the bus were completely smashed in and all the passengers were lining the roads. No one was seriously hurt thank goodness, but all the other big buses had pulled over to assist. Turns out we'd have been waiting for hours if we'd actually caught those buses in the end. Seems our mean chapa driver at 4.30am had done us a favour as off we sped again in our private pick-up.
The driver dropped Laura off at Pemba Dive & Bushcamp, drove Sean and I to Wimbi beach and we said our goodbyes. Sean and I then walked a little up the road towards Russell's Place before we were picked up again by another nice driver who let us hitch just the 1km down the road to save us walking. Seems that I also managed to pick up some decent raccoon eyes after all that time in the sun!
The place was a little disappointing. We'd expected it to be nearer to the beach. But the bar and food was cheap (they even served a pizza that contained Aborigine).
We met lots of cool people that evening, including Niklas and Carl from Sweden who were researching for their Masters, Carmel from England who had travelled here 8 years ago and never left and Hywel and Megan from Wales and Scotland who turned out to be the ex-Malawi housemates of Sam and James whom we'd met in Mozambique Island. Small world!!
We figured it wouldn't be so bad here after all! Besides, Pemba is a mere stop-over on our way further north to the Quirimbas Archipelago. We walked the 7km into Pemba the next day to find a working ATM to stock up on cash. Pemba isn't really much to talk about, it has a large market (but we've seen so many now it didn't excite us) and is otherwise just run down and shabby. We managed to hitch a ride back to Russell's with Rob and Joe from an elephant charity and packed our bags ready to head out to Ibo tomorrow morning at 4am. It's still a bit cloudy at the moment, so I hope it passes before we set off in the morning - we have a 7 hour chapa ride and a 3 hour boat ride to go!
Here are the photos:
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