Maputo, Mozambique was more as we
expected Africa cities to be than
Cape Town or even Mbabane. This is especially true in light of Mozambique's
liberation from Portugal in 1964
by the Communist Frelimo Party, subsequent 20-year civil war, and Communist
dictatorship that ended a only a decade ago.
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| (Top L) View of
the pool, beach, and Indian Ocean from our room at the Holiday Inn,
which turned out to be a small tourist oasis. (Above L) is the same stretch of beach about 1 mile closer to town, but at least the land is used for growing maize as part of the "informal economy." (Above R) is an apartment building in downtown Maputo, and (Top R) Rick stands next to a colorfully painted car in front of another nearby apartment complex. |
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| We kept
following the walking tour in our Mozambique Rough Guide book. (Top L) The
cleanest area in the downtown is around City Hall, the main Cathedral, and a business hotel. (Above L) We stopped at the "Iron House" designed by famous French architect Eiffel, literally clad in iron siding. While very neat and pretty, it is impractical because it heats up like an oven so the building is rarely used. Continuing along the tour, we saw what was once a lovely building (Above R) then carried on to the City Market (Top R) which is closed on Sundays but normally teeming with vendors and customers. |
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| (Top L) Here's a
colorful corner in the city's version of New Orleans' French
Quarter, with the landmark Mamabel's Hotel. (Above L) The train station is another Portuguese-style building, similar to the City Market's architecture. (Above R) Rick converses with a more recent addition to the interior of the old Portuguese fort, a statue of Comrade Lenin, probably added in the 1970s after Mozambique's independence under the Communist Frelimo Party. (Top R) These now-quiet cannon were used by the Portuguese to conquer and defend their holdings in Maputo against other colonial powers. |
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The Portuguese
army and government proudly used these cannon and other modern weapons to subjugate the local native Karanga tribe, seen on the stone friezes inside the fort (L & R). |
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