This morning Maputo is enveloped in cloud and drizzle. Our hotel doesn’t offer breakfast and is unrepentant on their pricing so we leave early in search of food and another hotel. After a few transactions with street vendors we have ourselves bananas, bread, tempura and water, and are marching towards Fatima’s Backpackers, the Maputo branch of the place we found quite hospitable in Tofo.

We get a room for only a little more than half the cost of the previous hotel, and set off on a tour of the main sights of the city. We start with independence square, framed by the cathedral ___________, and the more austere city hall. These are practically the only nice looking buildings in Maputo.

Next is the market, on the way to which we are stopped by the Police. After checking our passports they conclude that we are illegally in Maputo without getting a stamp when we moved from one region to another. We will have to pay a fine. News to us, certainly, and the visa does not appear to have space for region-specific permissions. A middle eastern looking chap woth a long beard walks up and decides he is on our side, and starts to harass the police officers. “You are lying – we will go to the embassy now. No, I won’t show you my passport here. At the embassy”. He’s awfully good, and by the look of the maroon passport sticking out of his chest pocket, a fellow Brit, but I’m not sure at this point whether he’s helping or hindering, particularly as the Police look as though they’re getting a bt stressed. One is fingering his rather large gun nervously, as if for comfort. Eventually they decide this tirade is not worth the hassle and tell us we can go. I move away immediately to let our rescuer continue berating the Police and get shot if he wants to.

Eventually we do reach the market, where rows and rows of vendors are selling everything from wigs to pet rabbits. We get a couple of apples for snacking later and move on. It’s not yet 2pm, and we need to be at the bus company’s office at 2 to buy a ticket for tomorrow’s bus to Neilspruit, South Africa, so we find a foid court called _______, and specifically a chinese restaurant inside it.

At the bus company’s office, tickets are bought, and we have seat reservations on tomorrow’s 7am bus. A taxi then takes us to the natural histry museum, which was closed yesterday. It’s open now, but only until 3:30, contrary to the info in the Lonely Planet guide. It’s a fascinating place, typical of many museums in countries without lavish science budgets – rows of austere wooden display cases containing stuffed skins of animals along with small cards announcing their name in portugese, and (if you’re lucky) in Latin. The centrepiece of teh museum is a savanna model complete with life size animals – elephants, antelope, lions, buffalo – some of which are busy fighting others. It’s an impressive exhibit, and Nick comments that he can easily imaine them all coming alive singing Circle of Life from The Lion King. Maybe not.

One rather nice and unique exhibit is a collection of elephant embryos from each month of a 22 month elephant gestation. These were collected during an elephant cull in the Mozambican civil war, when thousands of elephants were killed. They are now a protected species in Mozambique.

From the natural history museum, we made our penultiate stop at the main art gallery – a showcase for modern Mozambican art. It’s free, which is a strong reason for going on it’s own. The collection is better than expected, with a gallery of photographs of Moz life, and a temporry exhibit of installation pieces. Around the back of the gallery, a small group of sculptors are busy at work.

finally we reach the striking train station, where about one train a day still manages to sustain the original purpose of the building. The trains are petty appalling though. The bus that we’ll be taking tomorrow will get us to the border in an hour. The train from this station takes five hours.

We’re unable to find a Jazz cafe we’re told is in the station building, so we head back to Fatimas for dinner. Fatima has however, apparently decided to close the kitchen, so we end up at a locals’ cafe – a sort of Mozambican Wimpey, which is good enough, and cheaper than we’ve come to expect from Moz.