Bem Vindos para Moçambique (Welcome to Mozambique)

Sat Nav for planes

Following the stress of the Heathrow baggage harridans and Portuguese language training the trip from Portugal to Mozambique was a comparative doddle.  We were flying with the Portuguese airline Tap from Porto to Lisbon and then a direct 11 hour flight from Lisbon to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.  We were due to arrive around 10 pm on a Saturday night.  There was still the small matter of the excess baggage and Jane had been shoe and handbag shopping in Porto. At least we could spread it around a little more.  Things started well.

  

Our taxi amazingly arrived on time at 4 am to take us to the airport.  The lady at the TAP check in desk was lovely but there was obviously something wrong as she kept consulting her clipboard and making telephone calls.  The issue was that we had not had time to get our visas for Mozambique before leaving UK.  This should not have been a problem as we had letters in Portuguese from the British High Commission for Mozambique immigration control saying who we are, and we had been assured we would be able to get a temporary entry visa at Maputo airport until our full diplomatic visas were issued.  However there had been recent cases of Portuguese nationals without visas being refused entry to Mozambique, and the airline’s policy was now not to carry passengers without visas. In the end we were told the airline would decide what to do when we got to Lisbon - so we could at least fly to Lisbon.

The excess baggage turned out not to be a problem.  We were several kilos over but nice TAP lady said she could let us off the rest if we could take five kilos out the hold baggage.  To lighten the cases I was already wearing my two pairs of underpants and shorts under my jeans, a shirt, three T-shirts, a jumper and my walking boots and was sweating like a drug smuggler.   Our cabin baggage was already bursting at the seams.  
  

Overheard at check-in

I was thinking we might have to ditch the emergency supply of marmite sachets Jane had mysteriously acquired in Heathrow or worse, the square sausage.  We started rooting through the cases to see what we could take out and decided to try and get our wash kits into the cabin baggage.  We then realised security would never let us take all the liquids in the wash kits through so shoved them back in the case.    I think nice TAP lady thought we had taken something out as she then said that’s fine and off went the cases.   Bizarrely the way the cases disappeared  on the little travelator through a flap reminded me of a crematorium.  

At Lisbon there were few more telephone calls made by TAP check in staff but they agreed to let us fly. 

The flight was delayed and there was talk of it being cancelled because the tail end of a hurricane was hitting Lisbon.  From the departure lounge we could see our plane being shaken by the wind  – but they decided to risk it and we took off only 20 minutes late.

Maputo airport was fine.  We had a long wait but they issued us a visa without any fuss and neither of us were asked to bend over by customs.  Our cases had not been cremated.  Immigration and customs was the first time I came across the Mozambican fetish for rubber stamps.  They stamp everything for no apparent reason - even your till receipts at the supermarket.  If you have the wrong bit of paper you will probably be okay if it has a lot of impressive rubber stamps.  If you have the right papers but no stamp you might as well forget it.

AK47 not to be carried in Cabin Baggage

We were met at the airport by one of the office drivers, a charming man called Chomar.  He gave us each a mobile phone with emergency contacts already programmed in and drove us to our apartment.  We arrived around midnight  absolutely cream-crackered - but we were in.