Last day in Maputo and leaving Africa behind - 30.sept to 2.oct

The last day of my vacation has arrived :( Did not have much planned for the day. Breakfast at a nearby cafe, reading about Mozambique's history, packing, lunch at Club Naval, relaxing at the poolside by the house, packing, grocery shopping for the evening.

My friend's maid prepared a local dish for us :) There will be people over to enjoy the local food and to have good time. And good time it was. Food was delicious and the company good.

My flights went all quite well. The one from Johannesburg to Lisbon was the longest - 10h 10m :) Luckily I got two seats all to myself so once I folded my legs tightly I was even able to lay down :D It would have been so convenient to stick my legs out of the window though as folding them started to hurt my knees after few hours.

Stayed with Helen and Duarte in Lisbon. They came to pick me up from the airport and prepared dinner and everything. It was like going home :) Thank you both for such warm welcome!

Next day I still had 2 flights, first to Helsinki and second to Tallinn from there. There was a bit of a hassle to go through the check-in and security in Lisbon airport as the lines were super long, but I made it to my flight quite nicely nevertheless. On the plane to Tallinn there were 2 familiar faces on board :) One came from a conference from Tokyo and the other from a training in Budapest. Oh it is so incredibly nice to be at home!

When I started my trip and got advice about sanitary conditions then everybody was telling me how I should clean the food I eat and what sort of pills I need to take with in case I have stomach problems. And I did not have even a little bit of digestion problems :) So far so good at least. I got some mosquito bites, but so far no fever or any malfunction as far as I can feel. I'll probably run a blood test just to make sure once I'm off the malaria pills. I'm quite happy that my health was ok during the whole trip as medical assistance would not have been too accessible there.

This trip has been a real eye opener. And I didn't think I needed any more of that, thought that I've seen what there is to see, but not even close. That is precisely why I wanted to travel to Africa so bad, I had a feeling that there is no other way to understand all the troubles going on in here than to come and witness it on the spot - to talk to the locals and to ask all the questions and to see the bits and pieces with my own eyes. Just reading the words in articles isn't enough to grasp the reality, to see the bigger picture.

Photos are slowly getting uploaded as well - check the links on the right.