Fun in the Sun . . . and in the Rain

While Laurel was back in the States to go to Matt Enquist’s wedding and to receive the Burton award, I was lazing on the beaches of Mozambique. From Maputo, I went up the coast, first to Inhambane, a small town about five hours north of Maputo. While Inhambane is one of Mozambique’s oldest towns and was an Arab trading post even before the Portuguese arrived here, these days it is a sleepy little town that serves primarily as a jumping off point for nearby beaches. And arriving on a Sunday afternoon, it was particularly sleepy. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant place to wander around, chat with people, take pictures of kids doing flips on the beach, and admire the colonial architecture.

The next day, Dennis, the owner of Pensao Pachica, took me out to Tofo, a beach town not too far from Inhambane. With long stretches of white sand and crystal clear water, Tofo is the kind of place that’s hard to leave. Even though I don’t dive (the primary activity in the area), it was easy to let the days slip away walking on the beach, reading, snoozing -- three days turns into four and then to five and you wonder where the time has gone. I did manage to get in a horseback ride on the beach and through the local villages, and I went on the “snorkeling safari” offered by the local dive shop to see the whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, measuring eight to eleven meters on average. Unfortunately, though we never saw the sharks. Despite hearing about successful excursions every day, when I got on the boat, the South African guy next to me told me it was his third time out; he had gone twice before but had not seen any. It was his last day in Mozambique and he was determined to see the whale sharks before he went back to Johannesburg the next day. At that point, I knew we were doomed for failure – the pressure was too great, and he was, to put it mildly, disappointed.

Eventually, I managed to pry myself away from Tofo and head further north to Vilankulos. The trip entailed a chapa (mini-bus) ride from Tofo to Inhambane, then a short (but very crowded) ferry ride from Inhambane to Maxixe, and then another chapa ride to Vilankulos. While Tofo has a bit of a “you could be in Thailand eating banana pancakes backpacker” feeling to it, Vilankulos feels more like a place where people would live even without a tourist industry. Hit fairly hard by the cyclone earlier this year, Vilankulos is recovering quickly and open for business, despite persistent rumors to the contrary.

While I made plans to go on an excursion to Magaruque Island in the Bazaruto Archipelago the next day, the weather was bad and instead spent a lazy Sunday wandering along the water and around town with Noel from Ireland and Mia from Denmark. The highlight of the day was back at the hostel (Zombie Cucumber), sitting under the lapa (open-air, thatch-roofed building), drinking beer and enjoying the thunder and lightening storm before a delicious dinner of stuffed crab.

The next day, the weather cleared and we headed out to the island with Dolphin Dhow. We spent the day lazing on the beach, snorkeling along the reef that runs right along the shore, and eating a very tasty lunch of grilled fish, crab, rice, and a tomato-onion-potato sauce. After lunch, we wandered down to the other end of the island as the tide was coming in. Apparently, we lost track of time a bit, and when we looked up, the other dhows had all taken off; our boat came down to find us and we scrambled back on and headed off.

Unfortunately, my time at the beach had to come to an end and I had to make my way back to Maputo. The only real drawback to Mozambique is that all transport leaves really early in the morning (or really late at night depending on how you look at it), and the longer the trip, the earlier it leaves. The bus back to Maputo was scheduled to leave at 3:30 a.m., so I was up at 2:45; at 3:00, the night watchman walked me into town to catch the bus; and, amazingly, we were on the road by 3:50. After 11 hours and one bathroom break (the driver stopped the bus, yelled “baño,” and the guys took off for the bush on the left and the women for the bush on the right), we were back in Maputo.

Today, my last day in Mozambique, I decided I should have some culture, so I went to the Natural History Museum. Housed in a beautiful old building, it has an aging collection of taxidermy and a strange, but interesting, set of elephant fetuses, ranging from one to nineteen months, in jars of formaldehyde. By afternoon, it started to cloud up, so I treated myself to a long lunch of prawn curry followed by ice cream (although I subscribe to Laura Goldblum’s theory that the after-breakfast nap is the ultimate sign of vacation, Mia – the Danish girl—made a good argument that you’re not really on vacation unless you have two ice creams a day, so I’m trying her theory out for a while). Luckily, I made it back to the guesthouse before the rain started in earnest, and hopefully, it will stop before tomorrow’s 7:00 a.m. flight back to Johannesburg.