Mexican fiesta, line dancing and more misused words

For those of you who don't want to read the blog, here's a link to the entire photo gallery from Mozambique. I'll continue to add new galleries for each place we visited, but it's taking me forever. Sorry!  

Mozambique photos 

Thursday, Aug. 18

Thursday morning came, and with Alan having to work and Bekki en route to Africa, Lesli and I had most of the day to ourselves. We woke up and went into the kitchen and Alan had made us breakfast (his momma raised him right...or Bekki trained him). Either way, Alan deserves an award for taking such good care of us while Bekki was away.

Breakfast consisted of coffee and a fruit salad with mangoes, craisins, fresh coconut, cinnamon and sugar. Why don't I do this for breakfast back home, and why is breakfast always better on vacation?? Of course, maybe it was the fact that we enjoyed our breakfast out in their gazebo overlooking the ocean that made everything seem that much better.

Bekki had left us notes for each day she was gone with things to do, but of course, we couldn't even stick to her plan from Day 1. After lounging all morning, we decided to go visit their friend Lize outside of town at their fish hatchery. We approached Bekki's car still debating on who would brave driving the car. Everyone drives on the left side of the road in Africa. We decided to play rock, paper, scissors, and sure enough I lost and was designated as the driver. I grabbed the keys and headed toward the door, at which point Lesli pointed out, "Sara, it's the other side." Oops, not a good start. Needless to say, I didn't exactly exude confidence from Lesli. 

I hopped in and turned the key in the ignition and immediately got a click, click, click notifying us that our fearless road trip would be diverted by a dead battery. Not wanting to accept defeat, I turned to look at the guards just to make sure their car noises here were the same as in the States. 

Right at that time, I saw Alan peering over the back gate just laughing at us as he discovered our situation. We ventured to jumpstart the car but someone had confiscated Alan's jumper cables at work. It was probably divine intervention that saved us from killing ourselves driving in Africa.

Bekki arrived that afternoon and the real fun began. As soon as she got home, we grabbed some drinks and headed up to their upstairs balcony to watch for whales. Although we didn't see Free Willy or his compadres, we enjoyed a beautiful ocean view and sunset.

Alan grilled us a feast of seafood that night consisting of crab, lobster and tiger prawns. As we sat at the table outside looking at our beautiful spread of food, we finally had to look at Alan to teach us how to eat the darn creatures. We made it through the prawn beheading and lobster deshelling before tackling the crab. Let me just say that in the future, I'm perfectly content with paying more to have crab already prepared to pop in my mouth. We practically had to do surgery on the thing to get to the meat. Bekki the vet and Lesli the bio-med major didn't make it past the de-gilling, but I persevered and followed Alan's lead. The tasteful meat made it worth it (I think). 

Friday, Aug. 19

Thursday night us girls stayed up until 2 a.m. catching up on our girl talk. The next morning, I slept in while Bekki went shopping to get more stuff for our Mexican fiesta. The three of us then went to Starfish Restaurant for lunch, which overlooked the bay. We sat outside on the balcony and shared our plates: tomato and mozarella panini, roasted sweet pepper wrap, and a spicy tomato crepe. Everything tasted wonderful. I was expecting the food to be unappealing in Africa, but it was quite the opposite. My souvenirs weren't the only extra pounds I brought back to the States with me.


After lunch and a few errands, we went to visit Bekki's neighbors, Mary Lou and John -- such an interesting couple. They're originally from Canada but have traveled all over as ESL teachers primarily. Their last stop was Oman before they chose Pemba for retirement. Now, they work as professors at the university in Pemba and own a beautiful place on the beach that they have built from scratch practically. 


They have built their gorgeous estate to serve as a retreat for missionaries in the area. John does all the woodwork, and it's beautiful. Umbila and ironwood were my favorite woods that I discovered in Pemba. After a walk on the beach with Mary Lou, the three of us girls headed back to prepare for the Mexican fiesta that night.

Let me just say that this might have been the only time Lesli and I earned our keep on our vacation. Bekki, in her optimistic way, thought two hours was plenty of time to get everything prepared for the party with the three of us working. What she didn't tell us was that really she would be MIA the entire time taking care of some vet stuff (she runs a clinic out of her home while they are building a new facility). It was up to Lesli and me to get everything ready in time. At least Alan had gotten home from work early and helped as well.

Lesli and I went to work preparing the marinade for the fajitas (chicken and sable). We did anything from juicing more than 30 limes to peeling and hand pressing garlic to kingdom come as well as chopping veggies and measuring ingredients. I think Lesli had the most fun beating and tenderizing the sable.

Thinking our work was done, I quickly grabbed a shower before everyone arrived. When I returned to the kitchen, Bekki was making the first batch of chips. Since corn tortilla chips aren't readily available there, we used a thick pastry and baked it in the oven. Of course, wouldn't you know, Bekki disappeared again leaving Lesli and I to take over the chip making process. 

It was quite comical. Here we were slaving away in the kitchen while guests arrived at a party that was supposed to introduce us to all of Bekki and Alan's friends in Pemba. Given the day rate that they pay their help, I would have gladly paid $5 to have someone else make the chips. Instead, we took the opportunity to read The Help on my Kindle while we baked the chips. Pretty fitting!

We were rescued from our chip duty when a couple arrived with two bags of potato chips. Hooray! At that point, we moved on to more important things...drinking margaritas. Alan and Bekki must have had 20-25 of their friends over. Such a fun group! Of course, Alan made me tell my Jo'burg story, which got a lot of laughs from the Africans. They also taught me some other local (and probably just as inappropriate) words to say, which I'm sure was just another source of entertainment for them. 


I had brought my iPod full of Texas country music, and by the end of the night I had a handful of people learning how to line dance. It was hilarious. By the end of the night I felt I had left them with a little bit of Texas.

Saturday, Aug. 20

Whale watching

The party came to a close, and we had time to get about a 3-hour nap in before we were up before dawn to go fishing and whale watching. Wes allowed us to use his little fishing boat named Oobas Charlie's. I wish I had taken a picture of the boat to illustrate our experience. It was so small that all three of us girls had to sit at the front most part of the boat while Alan got in to balance the boat. It was like the rules of canoeing applied -- no sudden movements and try to maintain proper weight distribution at all times. 


Alan warned us it would be a little bumpy on the way out, which turned out to be the understatement of the century. Us girls were positioned so that we had to straddle the center storage bin, and off we roared. I felt like I was riding a mechanical bull! Needless to say, we got into several laugh attacks on the way out to sea.


The main reason we left so early in the morning was to go when the waters were calmer, since our boat was so small. After a certain point when the swells got to be 6' with 1' chop and white caps, Alan felt it was time to head back before things got any worse. I was a little disappointed we didn't see a whale, but the ride out was so much fun I still was glad we went.


As we headed back, the wind picked up and Alan voiced, "I don't like this at all." Now Alan is one of the most knowledgeable outdoorsment/boatsmen I know, so I wasn't exactly thrilled to hear that he was concerned. We kept plugging along on our way back when suddenly Alan slowed the boat and pointed to a whale straight ahead. It was actually a mama humpback and a newborn baby calf. It was an amazing sight to watch. We trolled along watching the mother and baby flap their fins and blow their spouts. It was my first time seeing a whale in the wild, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything. 

Of course it wouldn't be an African adventure without some malfunction. On our way back we lost steering to the boat. Looking at the shore so far away, swimming wasn't an option. But I wasn't above jumping ship and attaching myself to one of the crazy locals out their kayaking in the open sea. Fortunately for them, Alan found the piece that broke off (in the boat, thank goodness) and fixed the boat.What I didn't know then was that this boating adventure would be the easiest and safest water activity I would do for the rest of the trip.


By the time we got back, we were pretty beat. Alan drove us through the village markets on our way back, which was neat to see. We spent the rest of the day packing and resting up for our journey. We were to leave on at 1 a.m. on Sunday for Zambia, stopping along the way in Malawi. 


Next post: Journey to Malawi