We go for brunch at Cafe Acacia on the hill. Service is slow and the food is just ok, but the location is wonderful. The cafe sits on the hill above Maputo Bay. Tables are arranged on a terrace and we watch huge empty cargo ships navigate the channel into the harbour. The sea is calm and turquoise. Maputo looks idyllic - down to palm trees that line the road on the end of the bay. There is a rustic climbing frame type construction for children and safe paths for our youngest to cycle on. The morning is hot, but there's a breeze on top of the hill. Our waiter is friendly and speaks passable English - which is good since my Portuguese aquisition seems to have halted and DB's never really started.
We drive back home , down from the hilltop towards the sea. There is a sleepiness about Maputo on this last day of a long weekend. Cars meander languidly over junctions after the lights have changed against them. Everyone seems too sleepy to hoot. The weekend beggars are out at the main intersections; limbless men in wheelchairs, old women bent crooked with age and the blind, hands on the shoulders of small boys who spend their time between traffic light changes absently playing with odd bits of junk.
The tide is impossibly low and it looks like we could walk out for miles. Fishing boats wallow in puddles and cockle pickers are tiny stick figures out on the sand. The sky is a flawless blue and the beginnings of a wind scarcely ruffle the bright white-clad bride and her party who are down the very end of the pier - and still far away from the water. Some of her bridesmaids, shiny in satin purple, stand on the edge of the walkway and wave.
The informal shebeens are out with their cooler boxes of beers and their coca-cola umbrellas. A solitary white tourist, complete with mirrored sunglasses walks between the locals, attracting no attention whatsoever. The Marginal is picking up.
Our youngest talks endlessly, pausing to comment that she is sweating. DB puts the aircon on.
Its a nice time of year in Maputo.
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