Fernando

My body will take a few days to adjust timezones, so I woke up very early. I decided to be wholesome and do some Portuguese practice, which went well until one of the local radio stations decided to play an ABBA medley.

Concentration was lost and I went down a YouTube rabbit hole of ABBA songs, including the magnificent Cher performing Fernando in the recent Mamma Mia! sequel. For those who have seen it and get the reference, due to the wonders of modern facial technology, Cher is perhaps the only person Andy Garcia could have last met in 1959 and in 2018 could still recognise across a dimly lit crowded courtyard. Whatever the status of plastic surgery, that film is a riot, and Cher is da bomb.

I went walking around Maputo to check out gyms and yoga places, determined to halt the slow slide into middle aged spread. As is the case 75% of the time on such occasions, Google Maps thwarted me often and had me wandering in dicey neighbourhoods. I found an established yoga and wellness place called Kosmoz, and chatted to the owner Elisangela, who was as captivating as any person with that name should be. It's likely I'll become a yoga bore again like during this phase in Phnom Penh. Maputo seems to teem with awesome women who own boutiques, run yoga studios and work in social justice, and I want to meet more of them.

The temperature passed 40 degrees and I envied all the people carrying a dedicated sweat rag. I lost count of the number of cooling beverages I consumed: peach juice, coke, lager, tropical fruit juice, ice cream (the latter not strictly a beverage but it all ends up in the same place). Along the beachfront the wind was strong and sand whipped up and clung to my glistening limbs and face.

I am told that the hotter the weather, the more partytastic become the residents of Maputo, regardless of the day of the week. I have never seen anything like the scenes in the early evening along the several kilometres of the city's main beach, with insanely heavy traffic and thousands of drunken revellers. Traffic police were on standby to apprehend anybody driving over the limit, which was everybody.

These sun-bleached posters on a wall personified how everyone in Maputo has been feeling today.