Schooled by sardines

This past weekend I had the pleasure of joining my old team from CIDA Ottawa (L to R - John, Philip, Jonathan, Eliane, Bev, Leanne, me) on Inhaca Island, just a 15 minute flight from Maputo. The sturdy 19 seat plane landed at the huge, and prepared, Inhaca Airport without much excitement or need for safety equipment (thankfully). We stayed at the lovely Inhaca Lodge, although we had to watch for falling coconuts. It is winter here now and the temperatures have begun to drop, sometimes going down to 6-8 degrees at night. Mornings are cool, and I arrived wearing 3 layers including a fall jacket I bought to weather the cool Barcelona nights. I am the first to admit I have become a wuss to the cold, and my fellow Canadians were reminding me constantly that I am from Winterpeg and how could I possibly be cold when it's 18 degrees out. It doesn't make any sense I know, except that I have acclimatized to the lovely tropical weather. And I have always been more of a beach bunny than a ski bunny. Nevertheless the days warm up and I managed to stay warm. We spent the day off the island on another island Santa Maria about a 15 minute speed boat ride away. The boat dropped us off on the secluded, isolated beach where we had our own lagoon and a(n awful) picnic lunch. We spent the afternoon sunning and snorkelling around. It was my first time snorkeling and it was awesome. I saw angel fish, zebra fish, amazing coral, and other fish I have no idea what they were. The coolest part was being completely surrounded and circled by a huge (500+) school of sardines. I wish I had had an underwater camera. After a tiring day at the beach we headed back to the hotel to rest. I napped on the beach waiting for the sunset and was awakened by a friendly neighbourhood dog who looked and played exactly like Dambu. Dinner and breakfast were included on the room rate so we dined in the hotel restaurant where I had some traditional Mozambican dishes. Chima (sheema) looks like mashed potatoes but is basically like the paste we made in kindergarten. Its a mixture of water and maize flour and is one of the staples. Curries are a common dish as well, and they served a crab curry. My favorite Mozambican dish is matapa, a spread-like mixture made of pumpkin or young cassava leaves ground with garlic, flour and peanut and/or coconut oil. It's perfect with chima and one of my favorite meals.
Dinner was complemented by some hotel entertainment, a singing group that sang hotel commercials in Portuguese, and an awful keyboard/trumpet player who sang in his worst Louis Armstrong voice. I have videos if you want to experience the sheer horror of it. I feel a little bad that I took a video so that I may laugh at him far into the future, but he was happy I was so interested. The night was topped off with some wine back in Jon's room (my boss at CIDA) and a roaring game of South African Trivial Pursuit from which we learned a bundle of useless but entertaining party trivia.
The next morning we went off to the sorrily underfunded Marine Biology museum, which had a large collection of very old and now colourless fish, sea animals, coral, and island animals. We got a ride there through the bush of Inhaca, riding in the back of a local's truck and being bushwhacked the whole way. But that's one of the best thing about being here for me, riding in the back of trucks with the clear sky above you and I'm always the first to hop in the back. Even better if there's beer. On the return we walked back along the beach, about a 4km walk but a beautiful day and scouring the shore for new and unique shells. It was another awesome weekend spent discovering Mozambique. In a few days I move to Pemba where I can begin discovering the northern part of Mozambique and surrounding countries.