Mozambique: Day 1

Mozambique is unlike any city I have been to in a really long time....its quiet, its organized, its "clean" (for African standards) and full of character.  It doesn't look like a capital or port of a desperately poor country that is in dire need of a properly functioning government, nor a country that only 20 some odd years ago recovered from one of the bloodiest civil wars in world history.  Your first impression as you land is the beautiful airport that must have been built with the mining and oil money from the northern districts near Tete.  The second is the flag....the only flag in the world that has the AK47 on it.  From there, a large port city with old Portuguese architecture and sprawling avenues, with "skyscrapers" dotting the skyline, flash by as you drive through the city past corrupt police barricades (who get very nervous when they realize that two white guys are sitting in the back seat).  

I sit here now dazed with jet-lag watching South African rugby with a full stomach....oh yeah, let me tell you about the food.  Piri piri sauce is possibly the best chili sauce ever created by man, and somehow it comes from Mozambique...who would have thunk.  With this drizzled over fresh prawns the size of your hand that were sauteed in garlic butter (yes, mom, I ate prawns), I can't wait to have more.  Tomorrow we are having dinner on the beach of grilled piri-piri chicken.  If you live in DC, I'm bringing back about a gallon of homemade piri-piri sauce and may share if you are lucky.