On the 9th of July, I had the pleasure of guiding a group of five: Susan, Michele, Tony and Roben, who came all the way from Australia, and Thomas, who is Swiss.
Hi, my name is Romão from Nenane Tours, and this tour was brought to you in association with Maputo Trips. 😄
Four of them already knew each other and were traveling together, with the easy energy of old friends. Thomas, on the other hand, was doing his own thing entirely — riding buses across Mozambique, alone, apparently just because he felt like it. Within the first few minutes, though, you’d never have guessed he’d just met the other four. Everyone got along immediately.
They arrived a full 30 minutes early, which meant my colleague Egas got the honor of keeping five very enthusiastic tourists entertained before I even showed up. Thank you, Egas — I owe you one. We started right on time, and from the very first stop it was obvious this group was going to ask a lot of questions and absorb everything I threw at them.
We began at Maputo Cathedral, then walked to the City Council building, which happened to be hosting a funeral ceremony that day — not exactly what any of us expected, and it left the group a little unsettled, since it’s not something you stumble into every day. From there we moved to Samora Machel’s statue in Independence Square, then to the Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre, where I got to surprise them with a crash course on African spiritism and traditional medicine. Then it was on to Casa de Ferro, the Iron House, where they learned about its rumored connection to Gustave Eiffel.
Tunduru Botanical Garden was next, home to Maputo’s famous bat colony, which is usually one of the highlights of the tour — tourists tend to lose their minds over it. Not this time. Four Australians looked at hundreds of bats hanging from the trees and shrugged. I’m starting to think bats are just a Tuesday for Australia. We wrapped up the day at the Fortress of Maputo.
The most interesting conversation of the day, though, had nothing to do with any of the stops. It was about Thomas’s job. He’s a teacher back in Switzerland, and his subject is literally called “General Knowledge” — an entire class whose only purpose is to get Swiss students curious about the world: politics, history, culture, everything. As far as I know, it’s a subject that only exists in Switzerland. I found that fascinating, and I’m still thinking about how to smuggle a version of it into my tours.
We also spent a good stretch of the tour talking food, and I made my usual pitch that Mozambique might secretly be a vegan’s paradise — a huge part of what people here eat is leafy greens, tubers, and vegetables. I explained the base of most southern Mozambican dishes: pounded peanut cooked with coconut milk, which becomes nhangana, couve, or peanut curry, depending on what you add to it. I did warn them off cacana, though. It’s one of those dishes that divides opinion hard — if you grew up eating it, you love it; if you didn’t, good luck.
Naturally, since Thomas is Swiss, I couldn’t resist bringing up the World Cup. Switzerland made it to the quarterfinals this year, and I made sure to congratulate him properly. Vamos, Suíça!
The moment that stuck with me most, though, came from Susan and Michele. I told them about the 7th of April, which is, without a doubt, the most celebrated holiday in Mozambique — officially Mozambican Women’s Day, the one day of the year when women go out and celebrate without restriction. It all centers around the capulana, the fabric that’s basically a symbol of Mozambican womanhood. Groups of women buy the exact same pattern to celebrate together, and it’s common for women to receive a capulana as a gift that day. Susan and Michele were genuinely delighted by the idea — the kind of detail tourists remember long after they’ve forgotten which building was which.
Susan, Michele, Tony, Roben, and Thomas — thank you for such an easy, curious, funny day. Whether you came in a group of four or arrived completely on your own, you all left as one group, and that’s exactly the kind of tour I love guiding.
A Luta Continua.