Not my dollars, unfortunately, image courtesy of Google images. You have to search for the year of printing, and the manager told us the owner would subtract the amount from his salary should he accept the 2001 bill.
They were firm on the note from 2001, however, which saw us scratching through wallets for rands to pay the outstanding amount (and more high finance exchanging dollars into rands). No, they don't take credit cards (that was on the website, why not the dollars?)
Apparently this is quite common in Africa, although it was news to me. Now you know too.
Of course this meant we didn't have enough cash to buy petrol in Xai-Xai and would have to draw money, which we did. Also important - the banks in Xai-Xai don't have Maestro ATMs so you can't draw from your debit card. The Xai-Xai FNB did take my VISA card, however, so we could draw enough for petrol, snacks and the toll fees.
That would have been fine and dandy, apart from the traffic fine.
We left in dismal weather, with a thick fog limiting visibility to less than 100m until more than half way to the border
Fog at the Xai-Xai garage, can't even see the KFC across the road!
So driving at around 40km/h with fog lights and hazard lights (good trick we learned from the Mozambicans, increases your visibility from behind) and then looking out for the alternative road to the border that allows you to avoid Maputo (to be recommended; the traffic is horrific) by taking a dirt road via Xinavhane to Moamba. The road is not signposted, ("turn right at the big sugarcane field") but I did remember seeing it on our way down. When there was no fog.
As soon as I saw the road I turned, straight into the no entry side with an oncoming traffic police car quite surprised by my move. There was nothing for it, however, I was caught. The traffic officer asked me why I had done it, and mentioned a fine of M1000 (around R250) I owned up, saying I hadn't seen the sign until it was too late, and apologised, "Sir" I also mentioned that we only had M750 but that I could make up the difference in Rands. He declined, pocketed the M750 and got back into his car. So. Not an "official" fine, then, but a fine nonetheless. I think this may have made Walter's entire holiday since it evens the score from our Zambian trip when he was fined for not wearing a seatbelt (although he got a receipt from what he called the "wild-eyed bandits brandishing AK-47s who were about to kill us all and steal the Land Rover")
Not too bad, but not 80km/hr either. Worth it to avoid the Maputo traffic though. "It's like being in the bush" said Walter. "We are in the bush, Walter".
On this section of the journey we probably averaged around 40-50 km/h which is why, after leaving at 06h30 we only reached home at 19h00
We saw more birds along this road than we had at the resort, spotting fork-tailed drongos, glossy starlings, red-winged starlings, yellow-billed hornbills, a grey heron, 2 anonymous raptors (they wouldn't stay still for us to identify them), more kingfishers, a coucal and more cattle egrets. We also saw monkeys in the fever trees, I had been convinced there should have been monkeys at the resort, but we didn't see any.
Arriving at the border at lunch time seems to be a good plan. We politely refused "help" to get through customs even though we were warned by the "agent" that we would face interminable delays. We sailed through in about 30 minutes, even allowing for almost forgetting to visit the South African side. Again, it's not clear where you should go and we had to backtrack to get our passports stamped back into South Africa.
Home.
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