After driving through vast coastal flood plains and through forests of Cashew nuts we reached our last stop in Mozambique, which was its capitol city, Maputo. From what we had heard, Maputo had once been a nice and promising city, but the sight that met us was quite the opposite. In between there were some tall office buildings, but the city itself was very run down. Most buildings looked like Stalinist concrete boxes with the paint halfway peeled out and rusty old balconies. There were some old colonial palaces and together with all the people out in the streets, that gave the city almost a South American feeling. We got to spend a couple of hours in the city center, where we got to soak up the smells, sounds and feelings of the city. Unlike most cities in Southern Africa, the urban area felt small and concentrated, with wide streets and old trees. The street vendors used this big space to display everything they had to sell, and every one we walked buy was eager for our attention. Maputo was a interesting city in many ways and the few hours we spent in the city center was enough for us before we headed out to the suburbs where we would spend the night.
