The next morning we were up and heading to the Mozambiquan border which, as it turns out, is no easy feat. There are 2 (maybe 3) border crossings into Mozambique. The first is a couple of dugout canoes that the locals have strapped together that you drive your car onto and they then paddle(?) you across the river. Whether you get to the other side depends on 1) the tides – it had to be a spring tide before you can make it over 2) the rains – not sure why 3) your capacity to put your life and the wellbeing of your car at enormous risk.
Needless to say, that was not the option we took, deciding that discretion trumps valour every time there is a lot of water involved. So the second option… This is the cumulative brainfart of a large number of Mozambiquan and Tanzanian government officials who decided the smart idea for a border crossing would be to build it in the middle of nowhere, with a 200km dirt road on either side that becomes impassable in the rains.
The bridge itself, Unity Bridge, is singularly unimpressive. But if you combine it with the extraordinarily awful access roads it becomes doubly if not triply unimpressive. We still have not been able to work out the best way to do this border as there are no towns nearby, the dirt road from end to end takes about 8 hours and once you cross the border there is absolutely nothing in the way of infrastructure for over 200 km (and after 200 km you arrive in a small town with a 1 small motel, no ATMS and no Forex options).
And another thing, there is no information anywhere, our Garmin is sure that the bridge doesn’t exist, there is very little on the internet (except for a couple of blog post from people doing similar trips to ours) and no signs to help you on your way. Luckily we had some internet signal in one of the towns so we downloaded a couple of blog posts and hoped that they would be enough for us to find the border.
We ended up crossing the border (after waiting for the customs guy to pitch) and driving 100 of the 200km in the dark. Not our first choice. We were stopped by a dodgy looking army guy which made us a little cautious. But, after praying and seeing 28 Spotted Eagle owls and a number of nightjars on the road on the last 50km stretch, we figured that – as always – God’s got it covered.
After a night in a clean, slighty distressing motel of sorts we were back on our bicycles and heading for Pemba.