Our stay in the Massingir district was a very comfortable one.

The camp was run by Jason and Britt and they were amazing hosts!!

Our chef was named “Good Life”……

…and he provided some outstanding meals from a very compact kitchen!!

Hi name is actually “Hard Life”, but someone in camp started calling him “Good Life” and it stuck!!

He was assisted by Simon…..

…who made sure that everything was “just so”!!

Each night we enjoyed the typical African “Fire Pit”……

This is a fun and super relaxing tradition…. Maybe we should build a fire pit at home?

The camp was overrun with birds including various species of Horn Billed Parrots…

Not far from camp, we encountered Elephant tracks.  Look how big they are compared to Michael’s foot….

I love that you can see the “toes”!!

There were also large herds of Cape Buffalo roaming the property….

They have such interesting looking faces…..

There was an electrified fence around the campsite to keep the buffalo out, but one had learned how to jump the fence!!

He was missing an eye so we named him “One-Eyed Alphonse”, and always had a good look for him prior to walking to our cabin!!

This camp is highly involved in the community, helping to build a new 4-room schoolhouse….

….that will take the place of this one room building currently used…..

They are also helping to prepare a new soccer field….

…a VERY important part of village life!!

One of my favorite finds in camp was a giant Baobab tree……

This tree would be hundreds of years old….possibly as many as 800 years!!

The wood looked more like rock than wood and it was interesting to see this hole in the trunk…..

It was my first Baobab sighting and it was wonderful to see a tree that I had studied with awe so many years ago!!

We stayed in the Massingir District for 7 days and were sad to leave…..but there are more things to be seen in the Kalahari Desert!!

Come back on Thursday for the last of our destinations!!

Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single trip!!

Yesterday, we visited the people living along the lake. Today, let’s look at other parts of the country.

On Sunday morning, we were met at our guesthouse by Dylan Holmes, our guide for the Mozambique portion of our trip.  Dylan has guided for us before and he and his wife (and new daughter Emily) have become great friends.  In short….he is one of our “kids”!!

As we drove out of Maputo, we encountered a large market that took up two lanes of a four-lane major highway.

Now, this is NOT a market for tourists where every stall has basically the same crafts and every stall-keeper is telling you that HE made everything in the stall.

THIS market was where the city’s inhabitants bought the items needed for their everyday life.

It was quite hectic….

The mini-bus in this photo is actually a taxi and we passed hundreds of them as we drove.  They are mostly 15-person vans but are often stuffed with 20-25 people.  Most of them have a small trailer on the back where they load all of the larger baggage of the riders.  Those without trailers carry long lengths of rope and they will stuff everything in the back of the bus and then lash the back door down.

Dylan said that they are often involved in accidents and you might hear of 20+ people killed or injured in one crash!

Things became much less crazy as we left the city and entered the rural areas.

Since it was Sunday morning, it was fun to see groups of people, mostly women and children, walking to church.  The ladies were all dressed “to the nines”, with many wearing a white head covering…..

Most of the churches were simple metal sheds, with the doors thrown open and people spilling out as they worshiped.  I have to say that it warmed my heart to see this!

As we drove, we often saw groups of women at the local well, each carrying a large barrel to be filled with water and then taken back to their homes.  These gatherings also served as a place for the women to meet and catch up on the latest gossip!

There was a huge variety in the houses that we passed.   A few were made from bricks…

… but most were a form of stucco.  The base of the house is made from two sheets of wire with rocks placed inside the “walls”…

The walls were then covered with a mud mixture to add additional insulation to the structure….

We often passed these bags along the road…..

…and naturally wondered what they contained.

Dylan explained that these were bags of charcoal that the villagers were selling to earn money.

The charcoal is made by cutting down trees, chopping the branches into smaller pieces, covering it all with dirt and then setting fire to it.  The fire smolders, partially burning the wood and producing charcoal that is used to heat most homes.

Sadly, this practice has lead to the de-forestation of much of Mozambique, including the old trees that are now extinct.

The really sad part is that each of these bags would be sold for about $2.

We also passed houses selling plastic bottles filled with a slightly yellow liquid. Apparently this was Palm Wine and should NOT be drunk by the unprepared!!

Tomorrow we will spend a little time at the Massingir camp.

You don’t want to miss it!

Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single trip!!

On this trip we were determined to spend a little bit of time in a city and not just out in the boonies!!

To fulfill that desire, we hired a guide to show us around the city of Maputo, Mozambique.

I could have just shown photos, but there were so many things that you needed to HEAR as well, so enjoy this video…..

Tomorrow we will continue our tour of the back country areas of Mozambique….

Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single trip!!

Today, let’s visit with the people who inhabit the Massingir Lake area.

This area is extremely rural and it was sad to see the living conditions, however everyone that we met were smiling and ready to help us!

As we drove to the lake each morning, we passed various small villages.  When the kids would see a truck coming, they would all wave and smile.  One group saw that I had a camera stuck out the window so they gave me a great show.

As we approached the lake, the two lane roads quickly turned into one lane roads and finally to trails that were barely big enough for the truck to pass.

And, the trails were often shared with small herds of cattle….

The herds were being tended by young boys looking to be between 10 and 15 years old.  That is a lot of responsibility for someone that age!

We also passed many oxen-pulled skids…..

…carrying everything from household items, to mud bricks, to tree branches.

The ingenious skids were made from a large tree branch that “branched” out to provide a place for the loads to be stored….

People along the lake live a hard existence!

The family unit lives in a small area….

….that contains their shelter for sleeping, and their kitchen….

Their “dining” is normally done sitting on the ground….

….and their clothes are hung to dry in the few bushes that exist….

I actually enjoyed seeing these “clothing trees”. 

I watched these two boys playing a game using stones and simple holes in the dirt……

As I watched, the game seemed to resemble Backgammon.

The primary income source is from fishing, most of it done with nets…..

Sadly this fishing method is hard on the environment and there is a good chance that they will “out-fish” the lake and lead to its demise.

Some of the fish are used for family food, but most are dried…

 …and taken into the next village to be sold.

Every time we arrived in the truck, it was a village occasion…..

….with people gathering to see what the “crazy white people” were up to!!

It was hard to see the living conditions of these people, but, as always,  the kids were a highlight in the darkness.

This young girl was proudly carrying a smaller sibling on her back and she could outwalk ME!!

I always asked (ie…motioned to ask) if I could take their photos.  In each grouping, there were normally one or two who would move away but most were happy to have their images captured….

One young boy was enamored with my camera and phone and I asked if I could take his picture…..

The shy smile gave way to a big grin when I showed him his image on my phone!!

And, as I said in Monday’s post, the kids were always willing to carry anything….

This little girl was so proud of the load that she was carrying….

Now, let me end on a sadder note. 

One of the purposes of this trip to the lake was to kill a crocodile that had eaten a villager about three weeks previously. He was a monster…..

….14 feet long and weighing about 1,500 pounds!

Most of the locals eat crocodile meat and they walked away with about 450 pounds of meat…mostly from the tail of the animal.

Take a closer look at his teeth….

It is satisfying to know that this one is no longer a menace to the lake villagers.

As always, I worry for the kids in these situations.   I worry for their safety as they bathe and play along the lake.  I worry for their nutrition.  I worry for their education.  But mostly, I worry for their future.  I desperately want them to know that they can do something different and be something different, but unfortunately, that is out of my hands!

I am grateful for the opportunity to have seen into their lives.

Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single trip!!

Yesterday, I showed you the building of the blind for crocodile watching, so let’s start the story from there!!

As we arrived at the lake shore and started unloading all of our equipment, we were wondering exactly how the 4 of us (Michael, myself, our guide Dylan, and our tracker, Albino) were going to get it all to the boats and to the island.

We needn’t have worried!!

As if on cue, a HOST of kids arrived with arms ready to carry whatever we needed!!

When we arrived on the island, the bait was put into the water and we settled into our “home” for the next few hours….

About 30 minutes later, a small Crocodile appeared, grabbed the bait, and started splashing around.

Dylan had told us that, if one Croc starts splashing, then all of the others will come running to see what is up.

Sure enough, almost immediately, we started seeing Crocs in the water, heading our direction….

In this photo, you can see the three “lines” in the water toward the left. Those are three Crocs heading in!!

I was reminded of looking at the ocean from an airplane and seeing the “lines” in the water from the ocean liners. As over 40 animals descended on our island, Michael said that it looked like the storming of the beaches at Normandy!

Here is a super quick video of a small portion of the feeding frenzy….

At one point, I counted 9 crocs on one little spit of land in the lake…..

We spent two days sitting in the blind and then took to an aluminum boat on the 3rd day, with plans to cruise the shore and look for other animals in the area.

And, man did we see Crocodiles, including this BIG BOY…..

One of the cooler things about traveling in the motor boat was being able to move quickly across the lake and get closer to other animals along the way.

It was fun to see these mostly submerged hippos, especially with the people on the shore behind them.

I fell in love with this pod of Hippos……

It was such fun to hear them calling and making their laughing sound. I also enjoyed watching these two slip into the water and simply disappear….

It was interesting that the crocs and hippos apparently had a truce and were living together well….

Other “non-lethal” sights on the lake included these two fisherman throwing out their nets…..

… these Egyptian Geese…

….cormorants…..

….and a “Goliath Heron”……

These birds can be 6 feet tall, although this guy was an immature bird and probably only 4 feet tall.

My favorite animal spotting on the lake were these 4 elephants heading down the slope to drink from the lake….

This was the first one that I saw…..

…and it was such a thrill to my heart!!

I had previously seen all of these three big animals from a helicopter, but never on the ground!

I was SUPER excited!!

Tomorrow we will spend some time traveling the rural roads and visiting in some villages. Be sure to come back.

Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single trip!!