Trip on the Onion Truck

Getting back from Ilha de Mozambique to Pemba turned into a 13 hour adventure. It started at 5:30 in the morning, when I got onto a truck which about 5 other people and drove across the bridge at a good clip with the wind in my hair and the thought that this was one of those backbacker experiences. It became one of those other backpacker experiences when they made me change truck half way to the junction town of Namialo onto a vehicle which just couldn't say no to loading extra passengers ... and just when you thought it couldn't get worse and it encountered 3 people carrying large containers (of fuel) enroute? No problem, climb on board.

Then I got stuck in the small town of Namialo, together with a mixed group of other backpackers from France, Germany and Portugal. While I was there, I took these pictures of street vendors:

 The first vehicle going up to Pemba turned out to be a giant truck with a heavy load of onions. One of the other backpackers, Michael from Ulm, agreed to go with; as we were talking a luxury 4x4 pulled in and gave all the others a lift. So Michael and I set off on the onion truck, which broke down for the first of many times about 2km north of the town.

Turns of sprawling on a canvas over a tonne of onions is one of the most comfortable travel experiences you can have in Mozambique, and its also a great opportunity to take photos of the spectacular scenery (just add a lot of sun creme).

But the truck did stall or break down continuously. Each time, the driver seemed to choose an incline to stall on, and then we got to push the truck - and the onions - up the hill to get it going again. The truck broke down one final time at the end of the day, more seriously - they opened up the engine, and I was thinking I'd be spending the night on the side of the road. But one of those African mechanical operations happened, and after about an hour and a lot of pushing we were back on the road and drove through the darkness, reaching Pemba at about 7pm after 13 hours on the road.