Mozambique, 16 April 2007: wilderness wall climbing
by Lianna
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Mozambique.
Previously, a place that has caused Hot Rock many troubles. Basic, hard travel
through run-down villages on awful roads, to reach world-class climbing. If
you can bypass the bureaucracy.
In the first minute following the border, the road went from perfect tarmac to very old and pot-holed tarmac. The next minute, it was dirt, and on this dirt road (still the main artery through northern Mozambique) we journeyed for several hundred km, quickly getting used to the bumps and shakes as BiRT made her way through and over ditches, pot holes, vegetation, corrugations and random piles of pebbles. Chickens, goats, pigs and people in the road didn´t help either.
We were heading towards Malema, whose three huge granite domes have been
climbed before by two South African hot-shots. We were hoping to go and repeat
some of their lines and maybe add a few of our own. .JPG)
We spent our first night in a wonderful bush camp (a local village community centre and church, with toilets, perfect flat ground and nice locals), before heading further on ever worsening roads. First BiRT experienced an accidental (and luckily small!) modification in shape crossing one particularly large natural drainage channel. Then I nearly experienced a modification in shape when I thought about jumping into a small ditch, decided not to, and saw what looked like a black mamba slithering through it. But finally, after two days on the worst roads we´ve experienced yet, we made it to a fine looking bush camp right at the base of Malema 3.
Within
minutes of arriving, we were surrounded by anywhere upwards of 50 locals,
but by now we´ve stopped being surprised at always being the major local
attraction, the circus that has come to town. But the locals were friendly,
there was a stream nearby for water and washing, a village nearby to buy food
in, and 700m of rocky spire right behind our camp. Bring on the climbing!
And it was good. There were a few aborted attempts at the South African route
- African Light - which turned out to be too hard, but we did find a new smaller
crag that now has several routes on it. Though the climbing was good on this
single pitch crag, the lure of the summit was strong enough for three of the
boys to start up the mountain early one morning to forge a new route to the
top. Many hours later, well beyond sunset, they returned, shattered but elated,
and with a new 14 pitch route, currently ungraded, in the bag. .JPG)
There was lots of skin lost to a new jamming / laybacking route, one non-serious
ground fall when a hold broke, and plenty of jumping spiders for everyone.
We wandered around in the local town being stared at, scaring children who´d
come round a corner, see us, then run, terrified, away from us. We traded
lots of empty coca cola bottles for chickens (Keeley became particularly attached
to Nora, who laid an egg for us! and Doodal, whose plumage was spectacular),
before having a very tasty chicken curry for dinner! 
One
morning we were woken by a local chap with a plastic bag on the end of a 6
foot sugar cane, who kept waving it at us and shouting, as the locals continually
shied away from it. Considering people here speak a combination of Portuguese
and old tribal languages, communication is a constant difficulty in Mozambique.
So it took us a while to realise he had a cobra in the bag, wanted money from
us or else he´d release it in our camp!!! Then it took him a while to
realise he wasn´t getting any money from us, so he just killed the thing
and went on his way again. As you do.
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With
all this climbing and chaos, we were happy!
But then the Mozambican bureaucracy raised it´s ugly head again and it all went a little pear-shaped. Take a moment to understand that, as we travel through Mozambique we are constantly asked for permits and papers that we don´t have because we don´t need them. Locals need permits to travel between regions, and many years ago tourists did too. Now, the tourist visa covers the entire country and it is not necessary for us to have these papers. However, because the part of Mozambique we were in is so remote, and tourists are nonexistent, local officials are often unaware of their own system.
So
we argued.
Four days later, however, we lost the argument when they pulled out their ace of trumps: a number of men with guns. So we packed up and hit the road to the coast, a journey of about 2 days on some 400km on poor roads.
Crystal
clear waters of the Indian Ocean, fantastic sea food and Portuguese colonial
history here we come....
[Note: the day after this note was sent, the Big Red Truck had a close encounter
with a large tree. Repairs are almost complete, and in the interim we've hired
a replacement truck - no climbing wall, worse luck. The group is on schedule,
and blitzing the first crag Hot Rock developed in Zimbabwe, the stunning granite
dome of Mt Dema. Nothing stops us! Look out for the report of the crash in
due course.]
