Day 118: Big Travel Day — Leaving Africa, Headed to Middle East
We had a leisurely morning —breakfast, swim, reading and prepping for a long overnight journey to Jordan, where we’ll meet up with Jim and Llewellyn (they’re already in the area, touring Israel).
After checking out, taking a quick look of the main villa and saying goodbye to Sergio and the team, we headed towards the airport around 11:45 am.
Norman, the white Namibian ops Manager gave us a ride to the airport. We learned a lot about Mozambique during the 15-minute ride, including:
- Moz is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world
- The unemployment rate is 40 – 60%, depending on how it’s calculated
- Despite this unemployment rate, hiring staff for the hotel is really difficult: hard to find skilled, trusted employees who speak English; also, culturally many adults aren’t used to working a “western” 8-hour work day, and enforcing full shifts can be difficult.
- The education system is pretty terrible; we saw kids leaving school around noon and learned that the kids go to school in shifts for only two hours a day (not enough schools for all the kids); Norman contrasted the education system with Zimbabwe which is really strong; primarily because of the infrastructure investment made by the British over many years
It was an educational and eye-opening conversation. I was glad we decided to tip very generously upon leaving the villa.
We had about 24 hours of travel ahead of us: Vilanculos to Jo’burg to Dubai (overnight) to Amman, Jordan.
We’re sad to leave (Sub-Saharan) Africa after such an incredible nine weeks on the continent. We befriended so many incredible people, enjoyed so many beautiful landscapes and learned so much about this ridiculously complex place — though still feeling like we are barely scratching the surface.
On to the next chapter: two weeks in the Middle East with Grammie and BeePaw Jim! We start in Jordan, then head to Egypt and Dubai. It’s a short visit before a more extended run through Europe.
