Mozambique

January 18 - 24, 2019

We encountered bad roads and bad weather in Mozambique. The coast should have been beautiful, instead we had a tropical storm system that lasted our entire stay.

Our atlas labeled sections of the paved national highway as bad, but that was an understatement. The good sections were bad. The bad sections were horrible. Many areas our top speed was 20 km. There was not much pavement and huge potholes. We saw lots of broken down trucks blocking the road, no shoulders for them to pull off the "highway".

Near the Malawi border the roads improved, but we encountered pouring rain. The roads turned into rivers, so it was still hazardous driving. At least the rain washed all the mud caked on the tires and wheels.

Welcome to Mozambique. This is the N1, the main route along the coast. This is actually a pretty goood section of the road.

Bags of charcoal for sale. Everything is for sale along the side of the road.

There were stretches of the road that were good. You could enjoy the scenery when you weren't bouncing out of your seat.

Bicycles are used to haul very large loads.

You see a lot more people walking on the roads then vehicles.

But when you do see vehicles driving on the road, they are really loaded with people.

City street in Tete.

Our camp site in Tete.

View along the N7, the highway we took to enter Malawi. You can see the dark clouds we are heading toward.

Another view on the highway to the border.

We are heading into pouring down rain just in time to cross the border. At border crossing you have to get out of your vehicle to go through immigration. We were soaked.