Having got instruction to check out a sugar factory in the town of Luabo on the banks of Zambezi(doesnt that sount cool?), I sat down with my globetrotter maps to see the best way of reaching there.
And if you look long and hard, how far can the road be....so well, there it was....We had two possible routes....take the highway to Beira and turn off at Zero on to the bush road to Mopeia and from there to Zero. The last bit proved particularly treacherous for around 60 kms or so(My odometer and speedometer gave up their ghosts)....was a real back breaker....On the way I did search around for an old portugese fort which the map mentioned, but to no avail. The road was quite scenic and afforded views of some great scenery, some sarus cranes and a monkey which looked like a macaque from the distance. We also passed a large number of waterbodies before limping into Luabo.
Luabo was mostly a let down initially. For a town that had once played host to the second largest sugar factory in the world, there was really very little to see. The factory had been bombed somewhere in 1985 during the destructive civil war. The state of the factory(no walls and a lot of grand rusted machinery which was falling apart) seemed an accurate reflection and statement on the state of the town. Trees sprouted from the many dilapidated building while at other places, the old lans and gardens still retained their daintiness.
We took a drive around to see the old jetty/port on the river(Zambezi) which used to be the lifeline of the once prosperous city......and then turned back.
Snaps to the put up soon
