Sadly having a good day doesn't always translate to having a good night. The wind got up to gale force levels last night and we were buffeted inside our very hot tent. To make things worse, we were camped in an area where the locals had been burning off the scrub; the strong winds not only kept us awake, but carried ash into the tent. By morning everything was covered, which is not what you need when you have had a night of limited sleep. Brushing everything off, we breakfasted, got packed up and hit the road by 7:30am.
The strong winds of last night had died down a little by the time we set off and they had brought with them a much cooler overcast day. This turned out to be a bit of a blessing as our water supplies were a fairly short and we only passed one borehole along the road. We are going to have to watch our water supplies, as getting enough may be difficult. Especially if the temperature gets back to anything like it has been.
The road to Tete was gently rolling and the wind was coming from our side so we made pretty good progress. Once again we received plenty of friendly waves, although the road was more sparsely populated than it had been yesterday. What did come as a bit of surprise was when a light rain started to fall. It barely got us wet, but after not seeing any rain since Kenya it came as a shock. The rainy season in Mozambique shouldn't be for a least another month, so we hope it isn't going to arrive early.
By mid morning we arrived at the outskirts of Moatize, the large town before Tete. Having passed what looked like a coal mine and several construction company camps, we pulled into a small parade of shops to have a bite to eat. Everything looked very modern and a large amount of the clientèle seemed to be South African construction workers. The small supermarket was full of western brands and unlike Malawi the prices seemed reasonable. Perhaps getting supplies, in the bigger towns at least, isn't going to be such a problem here.
Having had an early lunch we carried on toward Tete, crossing the Zambeze via a large suspension bridge. Guessing the way into the centre, there were no signs, we went to try and find a hotel. This turned into a bit of a nightmare. The prices quoted were staggering and the rooms in the first hotel were pretty awful. The Zambeze Hotel wasn't where the 'Lonely Planet' said it was and was equally as expensive. Debs was shown to a room with a single bed in it and told that it was 3000metical (£70) per night. This is a long way from the prices quoted in our admittedly out-of-date guide book. It looked like we had no choice but to pay the money and stay for just one night instead of our planned two. We are hoping that the high prices are because of the mines and the fact that it is the junction city for people travelling from Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. If the prices are indicative of the rest of Mozambique we may have to leave early.
Leaving our expensive hotel room, we wandered down to have a better look at the suspension bridge we crossed earlier and then found a supermarket to get supplies. Having had a look around, there is probably no need to stay in Tete longer than the one day. It certainly isn't as friendly as the villages that we passed through to get here. Plus looking at the map we are going to be fairly pushed to get through the country and see the places we want to, in our allowed visa time. If getting an extension is anything like getting the visa at the border we may give it a miss and just be here for the month. So far our lack of Portuguese hasn't been a problem, so we should be able to negotiate our way round a restaurant menu this evening and then hopefully get a good nights sleep; or at least Debs will I am on the floor! We have a long way to go until our next guaranteed accommodation.
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