The Road to Chimoio

There is something about traveling on small, poorly regulated airlines that creates an icy stone in my stomach. Cubana de Aviación, VASP, AeroFlot - all have ancient fleets and conform to a security standard that is treacherous at best. I was expecting to add another airline to the list last week when Ricardo and I boarded an Air Corridor flight from Maputo to Beira. Air Corridor is Mozambique's newest airline, a private company created about a month ago to compete with LAM, the government's domestic airline that previously monopolized the travel market. It turns out that Air Corridor was a much better experience than I'd anticipated. Okay, so there were some things that TSA would have frowned upon (no ID check, people carrying boxes on board for strangers) and the whole process was a bit unorganized (no assigned seats and one big line to get on the plane) but overall Air Corridor got a big thumbs up. Ricardo and I had just gotten settled in two tight seats in coach class when a flight attendant approached us and asked where we were going. Ricardo responded that we were headed to Beira, and the attendant motioned for us to collect our bags and follow her to the front of the cabin. I was slightly confused, but it all made sense when she smiled warmly and motioned for us to sit in the two bulkhead seats in first class. A free upgrade! What a way to kick off the trip.

After a delicious meal of baked fish and a good strong coffee to top it off, we landed in Beira. Gemelli and BL, two of our friends/colleagues, were waiting curbside with a driver and a 4x4 to pick us up. BL was one of my best friends when I lived in Rio and it had been a good 4 years since we'd last seen each other. We made a proper scene in the airport, hugging and shouting and becoming the entertainment for the rest of the people waiting outside. Not only were there 4 white people traveling together - reason enough to stare agape - they were all cackling like idiots! We piled our suitcases in the back of the 4x4 and headed down the dirt road to Chimoio, some 200 kilometers away.

The highway was really terrible, mostly dirt and dust interspersed with sections of bombed out asphalt. We jolted along, listening to hip-hop on my new iPod speaker system, drinking beers (not the driver, mom!), and eating fresh cashew nuts. We danced and laughed, speeding our way past livestock and roadside vendors. After about an hour on the road, Ricardo and I both had to pee so the driver slowed down slightly to look for a good section of trees for us to "use the woods."

Suddenly we heard a "POP" followed by a grinding of metal on asphalt. The 4x4 dropped to the left as the passenger-side wheel spun off the car and flew across the highway, nearly missing a man on a bicycle. Our driver managed to keep control of the vehicle and we skidded to a stop, about 100 meters before a steep curve and the beginning of a roadside ditch. Stunned, we all piled out of the car. A brush fire had started where the overheated wheel landed, and people ran to the scene of the accident to check out the action. The axle had snaped clean in half, a smoking scrap of metal all that remained. A tall African man on a bicycle rode by us, hands streched toward the sky. "Now I know that God exists!" he shouted emphatically, relishing his new lease on life after a flaming tire had missed his head by only a few inches. "We are all lucky to be alive!"

After about 30 minutes a tow truck arrived and we called up Stefano, an Italian friend/colleague, to come pick us up in his 4x4 and drive us the rest of the way to Chimoio. We joked on the way home that it was thanks to Santo Mijo (Saint Piss) that we hadn't suffered a fatal accident. Needless to say I was incredibly grateful when we finally pulled up to the house, exhausted from adrenaline and three straight days of travel.