New Years

Our New Year, against Pat's better judgment, was spent at Vilanculos, he in all honesty, would have preferred to stay at home in the Bvumba and watch TV. The gorgeous Kate insisted that Vilanculos was the venue where you had to be seen and as we are indulgent parents and in my case anything is better than watching TV at New Year, so we of course obliged. The only accommodation available was Smugglers, which is in the very centre of town. Now Vilanculos town is not my favourite place and December must be one of the very worst times to go, as it is so unbearably hot. I can't understand either, why the gateway to the islands, should have so much filthy rubbish littering the streets and beaches. If I was the mayor and I believe there is one, I would get everyone involved in a massive clean up operation and perhaps stick up a few signs, guiding residents and locals on where to dispose of their litter, along the same sort of lines as Quelimane in the north. In Quelimane its not rubbish they worry about, they have interesting signs placed in strategic positions, depicting that the public should not defecate in the street. I noted with some approval that the posters were very explicit, specially the facial expressions so that there was no confusion as to what was expected of them.

Smugglers is a little oasis tucked away behind the Donna Anna Hotel, I remember the Donna Anna hotel well as we used to holiday there when we were children, my parents would drive all the way from South Africa in their Rover 90, luggage piled on the roof over the most unbelievable roads. They would have to stay for six weeks because it took you that long to recover and prepare yourself for the return journey. We staggered into Smugglers reception area with our baggage, sweat dripping from our faces into our eyes, as the temperatures soared. We received a warm and friendly welcome but rather apologetically we were told our rooms were not ready, as a huge party of Indians from South Africa had booked in the night before and were causing the receptionist severe anxiety, as they were taking their time vacating. She didn't want to rush them as they had spent oodles of money and this we could understand.

We ambled into the bar fanning ourselves with paper napkins and ordered drinks while we waited. After an hour, I decided to go and check on the Indians progress and estimate for myself their time of departure. They didn't appear to be in a hurry, in fact it seemed they were cooking up a lunch, wonderful, aromatic curry smells wafted deliciously in the air. The men folk lounged elegantly round the beautiful pool area chatting, while the women slapped and pounded what looked like chapatis on the concrete tables in the gazebo. I was beginning to feel anxious myself, they certainly didn't appear to be vacating immediately and I was on the verge of expiring.

I rushed back to the bar to fortify myself with an ice cold drink and to stand underneath the fan. I was enormously relieved to see the rest of the family were occupied playing snooker. Our rooms were finally ready, and with great relief we flopped on our beds, faces beaded with perspiration and sucked on ice cubes. It seemed Smugglers was the only place in Vilanculos that had ice. So if there is any aspiring ice entrepreneurs out there your services are desperately needed in Vilanculos.

New Year's Eve found Pat and I perched at the bar at Smugglers. The gorgeous Kate and friends had taken our car to Baobab Lodge with promises that they would come back and check on us and that was the last we saw of them. We were delighted to see that Fraser Mackay was putting on the music at Smugglers that night and there he was strumming away, getting ready to pump up the party. We socked back another cold beer in wild expectation of a good night ahead. At 10.30 PM I looked round the bar rather nervously, besides Pat (who was thoroughly enjoying himself) and I there were only two more couples. Fraser was now giving us everything he had, but the venue wasn't filling up fast. At the end of Jailhouse Rock, Pat and I applauded encouragingly, hooting for more. Fraser smiled his thanks, holding up two fingers with the peace sign as though he was playing for a record crowd at Wembley Stadium.

He seemed totally unfazed by the lack of an audience. At 11.30PM. there were only four of us left in the bar, I took matters into my own hands, I dug Pat in the ribs making him spill his beer and whispered, "I think we are at the wrong party there is nobody here. I want to be with lots of people for New Year". It took some persuading, but I was firm, I found us a lift in the back of Allan Donald's truck to Baobab Lodge and dragged a very reluctant Pat behind me, who was still singing lustily and out of tune to Fraser's guitar. We managed to retrieve our car and made a hasty exit, we headed off to Blue Waters as there was absolutely nobody at Baobab our age and we didn't want to embarrass ourselves or immediate family with our out of date disco dancing.

We drove like maniacs to Blue Waters which was on the other side of town so we could be there for the count down and fireworks. On our way we passed large groups of drunk locals reveling in the streets, as the crowd parted to make way for us to drive through, I wound down my window to wave at them jovially, but I hastily had to withdraw my hand and wind the window up as they hurled abuse at us with clenched fists. I looked at Pat in wide-eyed shock "Did you hear what they said", I thought the Mozambicans liked us I sighed!!! It appears that some of them do and some of them don't, well certainly at New Year when they have no inhibitions, some definitely don't. We screeched into Blue Waters, tyres burning and made a mad dash for the bar to bring in the New Year. Guess what, we were fifteen minutes late, can you believe that, it was all over. We had missed New Year completely.!! Still we had an absolutely wonderful time and with the help of Murray Dawson raised our glasses to the dawn off 2005.

Well done to the kind and very thoughtful Lynne Joshua who arrived in her PJ's to pick Murray up and I believe gave up her bed for him and slept in the car. I hope the Rockingham Gills managed to retrieve all their snorkel equipment back from the Mozambican authorities. Thank you to all at Smugglers for looking after us so well and we wish all our friends and family a wonderful New Year. A big thank you to The Beautiful Paul's Guardian Angel who made sure the Tsunami didn't sweep him away in Thailand as his mother would have never recovered. This email is once again dedicated to Roy and Heather Bennet who will keep strong with all our support and lets hope the 2005 will be kinder to us all. A big thank you to all the lovely people who write to me telling me how my emails make them smile thats why I write them!

Mandy Retzlaff
Bvumba
Zimbabwe