I disovered the
smulers had
wire-cut an easy
opening in the high
fene ahead
two weeks to process. And my ight
from Maputo to Cape Town was booked
for only 11 days later.
“Never mind,” said Rachel.
“Everyone knows there’s a smugglers’
path over the mountains. You can cross
before dawn and we’ll pick you up
beyond the two customs posts. Just
remember the landmines and stay on
the path, even to pee.”
From Harare we took the night train
to Mutare, then spent several hours
sussing out where this path began.
Viewed through binoculars, it seemed
more of a scramble than a walk. At one
point it ascended a high escarpment
and Rachel wondered: “Should we
rethink?” Her hesitation came too late;
by then that path had hooked me.
At sunset Andrew arrived after an
exhausting drive only to be told that at
four o’clock the next morning he must
deposit his mother-in-law-to-be a mile
or so from the start of the path. For
security reasons, a noisy motor vehicle
could go no closer. Observing the ease
with which he adjusted to this situation,
I recognised a suitable son-in-law.
My trek began on a ridgetop two
miles from the invisible Zimbabwean
border. For a moment I stood still, while
my eyes adjusted to starlight—a magical
moment that was, the silence broken
only by busy little stirrings in the bush.
Soon after came the dawn, quiet pastel
light seeping through tangles of dwarf
acacia and euphorbia.
From afar this had looked like a fairly
distinct path across a narrowish valley.
Close up, it wandered to and fro, this
way and that, up and down, too often
meeting other paths. At each junction I
hesitated and soon enough began to feel
twitchy. Would a wrong turning expose
me to the full fury of some vigilant
border patrol? Rachel had anticipated
this scenario; after a lifetime of shared
travels she lacked illusions about her
mother’s sense of direction. On her
advice I was carrying only a walking
stick. No camera, no binoculars, no
passport, no notebook, no food nor
water. If detected, I would seem an
innocent expat granny who enjoyed
walking in the cool of the morning and
foolishly strayed into a border area.
I relaxed when I glimpsed a high
wire-mesh fence ahead, and discovered
the smugglers had wire-cut an easy
opening. Thirty yards beyond cameanother fence, lower and semi-
collapsed. Then I was in a new country
where the path climbed steeply towards
the base of the escarpment. Here I had
to discard my walking-stick; both hands
were needed to pull myself up with the
aid of strong, ancient tree roots,
polished by the hands and feet of
generations of smugglers. In colonial
times, trade was quite brisk between
Portugal’s Mozambique and Britain’s
Rhodesia. On the attish cli-top,
gigantic water-smoothed boulders lay
between a few tall conifer trees. Coca-
Cola cans, condoms and cigarette
packets littered the short brown grass of
this rest area. I was recovering from the
testing climb when voices drew me back
to the cli edge. Below, ve men were
setting down formidable head-loads:
boxes square and round and oblong,
wrapped in blankets. Swiftly their
leader ascended, let down a rope andshouted advice to each man as he
guided his load upwards. The quintet
greeted me politely, apparently
unsurprised to nd an elderly white
woman sharing their path. “You have
lost your passport?” suggested one, in
sympathetic tones. “Yes,” said I.
I longed to ask what were they
smuggling but tact must be two-way so
instead we talked about the weather. As
my companions generously shared their
Cokes, they lamented their crop and
cattle losses during the 1992 drought.
Then, before reloading each other, they
sought to provide me with a substitute
for my discarded stick—while warning
me never to put a foot o the path. One
man’s cousin had been blown up nearby.
Slowly I followed them, down and
down, through thin forest or bushy scrub
between cultivated slopes where clusters
of round thatched huts replaced the
Westernised dwellings around Mutare.
At intervals, in the distance, both
border posts were visible on my left butwhere the path joined the motor road
those hazards were far behind me. No
one took any notice of the illegal
immigrant on her way to Manika, the
rst little town in Mozambique. At noon
my accomplices collected me from the
ramshackle hotel’s verandah—Rachel
looking unsurprised to nd me where I
was supposed to be.
This jolly little episode had a squalid
sequel. Entering Mozambique illegally
was easy but how to depart by air
without an exit visa? During a happy
10-day Beira interlude I made several
anxious enquires. Had the promised
regional bureaucracy been established?
If so, where were its oces, who were
its ocers? I was advised to consult two
senior policemen who assured me: “For
going on to South Africa you need no
chits or documents. You have a ticket?
OK, just nd your plane, no problem”.
At Maputo airport the few visible
ocials thought otherwise. Near the
check-in desk a friendly trio approached
me. They were intrigued by my
passport’s record of sub-Saharan
wanderings; then came the standard
questions. Why was I travelling alone?
Where was my family? And where,
amid so many colourful stamps and
seals and illegible signatures, was my
visa for Mozambique?
All three nodded knowingly when I
confessed that a sta shortage at their
Harare consulate had forced me to
break the law. Yes, such delays were
very usual and annoying and they
wished they could help. But alas! I must
buy a new air ticket, return to Beira and
there apply to the relevant regional
oce for a facsimile of the visa that
should have been issued in Harare.
I begged for mercy, explaining that
crucially important appointments had
to be kept in Cape Town. Could I not
contact some Maputo oce?
Then wordless communications took
place, impossible to describe but silently
eloquent. Even for a newcomer to this
game, its rules seemed not complicated.
Slinking into the loo, I opened my
money-belt to withdraw a $50 bill. And
so it came about that, on September 14,
1994, my copybook was blotted after
four decades of bribe-free travelling.
I wonder, in our increasingly cashless
society, how such delicate transactions
at border crossings might be conducted
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