There ya go... At the bottom of the country you'll see a little tip that goes south... That's where Maputo is. On the Indian Ocean, not far from Swaziland (the little circle bordering Mozambique) and South Africa (the much bigger, and appropriately named country covering the Southern portion of Africa).
We actually arrived almost two weeks ago and have been taking that time to adjust to the city and culture here. Here are some notable differences that we've encountered thus far:
- Maputo's infrastructure is significantly better than Accra. There are pretty decent roads that actually have lane divisions painted on them, parking spaces are marked and many streets have (gasp!) sidewalks.
- Maputo appears to be more European than Accra. More high-rise buildings, rather than the sprawling development of Accra.
- Mozambique drives on the left (we assume because South Africa does and the countries border each other). Since we don't drive, this isn't a huge issue but is important when walking that you look the appropriate direction to check for oncoming traffic.
- Mozambique speaks Portuguese... womp womp. We can both read Spanish fairly well so that helps quite a bit with menus and written directions. However, spoken Portuguese sounds nothing like Spanish so we're having a hard time with that part. When in doubt, a little charades with a server or hotel staff goes a long way.
- Less taxis available here in Maputo. We kind of miss just walking outside and having our pick of taxi as they honk at you beckoning you to pick them in Accra.
We live in a hotel while we are here in Mozambique. We are currently not certain of the timetable for Dan's work here but assume we will figure it out as time goes on. Dan's business visa is good for 6 months, whereas my tourist visa is only good for 3 months. We will reassess the situation in April to determine if he is almost finished or if I should attempt to renew my visa.
I'll leave you with a couple of photos of the view from our balcony:
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