Day 2 in Beira

Day two in Beira my friend Christian took me around the city.  We started by heading to the central business district to exchange money.  The city has many beautiful buildings which have fallen into disrepair.  One can almost imagine the grand city that was.  After touring around the central city, we visited the informal port where fishing boats operate.  We also stopped by the famous Grande Hotel which was billed as the ‘pride of Africa’ when first built.  The hotel now apparently houses thousands of squatters and apparently informal structures of governance exist within the complex.  More on the hotel and its history here.

We encountered a number of shipwrecks along the coast and I began to question Namibia’s title of ‘Skeleton Coast’.  Some of the ships had been run aground to prevent the erosion of the beach.  Speaking of the beach; it was amazing!  The country of Mozambique has a beach which stretches along its entire coast!  This particular section of the beach was interesting as it faces south.  The sun therefor rises on one end of the beach and sets on the other, and so we experienced some glorious sunsets which one would expect only on the west coast of Africa.

In the evening we caught some local music as a group of expats got together with some Mozambicans to jam.  The video above is a little taste of the evening music.