Day 7- Bilene

Woke up early- went to Holiday Inn on the beach front to catch sunrise- really stunning sunrise over the ocean! The Maputo Holiday Inn is a very smart building but is actually not very big; apparently the original Holiday Inn building has an interesting history to it: you can still see this massive multi story, high rise building on the beach front- the concrete skeleton looks like a new building under construction. However, the building was put up many years ago by the Portuguese- before leaving the country after independence, the Portuguese sabotaged it by pouring concrete down the pipes, thus rendering the building useless and virtually impossible to complete! They also took whatever they could move (machinery and equipment) and damaged whatever they couldn’t! That could have had something to do with why Mozambique was until recently the poorest country in the world!We picked up the keys and headed for Bilene- it is a natural lagoon; looks like a huge lake! Really beautiful place, spent the day on the beach- the water is very shallow and because it’s a lagoon there are no waves. We tried swimming across but were famished half way across! Had a braai and went to sleep- nice soft beds in the three bedroom house with hot water and a shower that was ours for the night!