600 km to Chimoio

The sun sets red and fast, like blood on the horizon, pouring over the land, and then it’s cool and immediate dark. We’re mostly alone on the highway from Quelimane to Chimoio, the only light the rusty twinkling brush fires spotting distant hills. Men on bikes and women clutching childrens’ hands appear as apparitions on the roadside, walking hastily to nowhere. No one wants to be out at night.

In the cities, the roads are populated by bicycles and white utility vehicles, driven by NGO and aid workers. Should one of these vehicles take to the highway, the occupants are advised to stock up on food and fuel, because between cities, there’s nothing but bush. Teeth chattering, meteor sized potholes sneak up and give my ever-tightening seatbelt a workout. The occasional chicken vendor waves his squawking, flapping fare high overhead as we barrel past, so close my teeth make involuntary hissing noises. Bridges provide safe pass over long dried up, weed-riddled riverbeds, and road signs give pictorial advice about what travelers may expect to see in the road ahead: cattle, gazelles, bicycles, curves, and men, either belted or cut into two pieces straight across the mid-section. The real bridge, the one built to cross the roaring Zambeze river, is a source of awe and disbelief to all Mozambicans, including our driver who insists we stop at the top of its arch to take photos. A uniformed guard, materializing beside us, chastises at length for the photos we take that could apparently be connected to sabotage, until he gives up on monetary appeasement and begrudgingly sends us on our way.

If you leave late (as we did) without food (also us), you will be forced to stop along the way at the most undesirable of spots, Caia or Inchope, to munch stale bread while keeping wary eyes on your vehicle. You’ll breathe a sigh of relief when you are yet again barreling down the highway, because then at least no one can steal your backpack out of the truck-bed, right in front of your eyes. After all, who would stop them?

After seeing my first wild baboon, lounging lazily on the side of the road like a big dog, distinguishable only when it stood and sauntered off into the bush, 4 foot tail and colorful rump held high, I passed the time by scanning the savannah for other creatures, although I’ve been warned that the wildlife population in Mozambique was decimated after the civil war. All I can see, amid the roaring bush fires meant to startle small edible prey such as duiker, snakes, and rats into a scurrying, huntable frenzy, is a few furious and fumigated fowl.

I turn my attention back to the road just in time to see a sign and make a quick calculation: 300 kilometers to Chimoio.