Maputo: nine police-stopps in 24 hours
Dec 1st, 2008 by bjoern
After departing from LICOM-meeting we were supposed to get to Maputo (Mozambique) to follow-up our interview tour but all went different then expacted because our formal invitation to Plenary Assembly of SADC Parliamentarian Forum arrived and also our flights were finally scheduled on Sunday. So after Christian came back from his extensive trip through the Kruger Park we started after changing the tyre he broke to Maputo and had to rush because we thought that the boarder close soon … with 120 – 140 km/h we managed to arrive in time and there our police experiences started. We had to fill tons of different police papers, had to insure our already insured car and had to pay five times at different officers to finally enter Mozambique at almost eleven o´clock p.m. After arriving in Maputo at almost twelve o´clock p.m. the police finally suceeded because I entered a one-way-street in the wrong direction and had to pay a fee … But only 24h later we were experts with police-roadblocks because nine (!) police-officers stopped us on our way to check either us, our passports, travel papers, car or even our attitude and wanted to receive some bribes in return. But we learned and never paid again – after 15-20min they always let us go but threatened before to send us either home, to prison or other nice places…
While these police-stopps were really annoying we enjoyed the one day Mozambique with all our senses and went up north to the beach, were we eat fish direct from the sea and enjoyed over-crowded ferrys with amazing friendly people and Christian and me were afterwards overwhelmed by the cool and fanzy party they do back in Maputo.
