Post 20: Help is on its way to Quelimane. Alpha Charlie in the footsteps of Vasco de Gama and Dr Livingstone



Dr Livingstone: " Alpha Charlie I presume"
"

Vasco de Gama: "Is that a PA 28 I see?" 

 Quelimane (pronounced "Ke-lee-ma-ne") has the feel of a ramshackle tropical Marxist town before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its streets are named after Karl Marx and other fallen, communist idols. It's people are cheerful and sensual. The shops are bare. There are long queues to get into the two banks and their ATMs. The Flamingo hotel, run by the chaming and helpful Italian Roberto, has a pool where local kids come after school, a guard at the gate armed with a pump-action shotgun and does a nice lasagna. Quelimane stands 25 km from the mouth of the Rio dos Bons Sinais - "River of the Good Signs"-. named when the great exploring seafarer, on his way to India, reached it and saw "good signs" that he was on the right path. The town was also the end point of David Livingstones famous west-to-east crossing of south-central Africa in 1856.

The authorities in Mozambique have cleared the Cessna 207 carrying fuel for Alpha Charlie from South Africa and a safety pilot for me who knows this neck of the woods. They are airborne and due to reach here tomorrow (Tuesday March 1st). I shall push on to Kruger (game park) international airport tomorrow and hopefully be in Johannesburg on Wednesday, thunderstorms permitting. Steve has finally got on a flight to Maputo from Quelimane to connect with his flight home to the UK on Wednesday. We are on the home stretch of this remarkable southbound journey.