Having A Whale Of A Time

11^th October-16^th October – Days 375-378 – Tofo and Inhambane, Mozambique

And so we returned to Tofo.

Bamboozi Guest House

As good tourists sometimes do, we'd sorted out a few day activities from Tofu. Firstly, we arranged to go snorkelling with whale sharks. This is something that M wanted to do as far back as Djibouti. It was whale shark season in Mozambique, Bamboozi offered a snorkelling, and we were ready to go. We'd have to be up early and hop onto an inflatable boat to a place called "whale shark alley", quite an ominous sounding name although these creatures are docile and don't ruthless rip humans limb from limb. In short, unless we had an unexpected visitor in the form of a more carnivorous shark (which we were told was possible), we'd live to see another day. It seemed worth the risk. As Inna was swooning over one of the guides, we were fed stats about the creatures we were hopefully about to see. They could easily grow to 7 or 8 metres long and would swim around feeding on plankton (which seemed to me a bit of a contradiction as I've only grown to 1m86 despite eating rather more than plankton in my lifetime). We were sat on the edge of the speedboat, snorkel and mask at the ready, waiting for the shout to fall backwards into the water and marvel at these enormous animals.

Divers at the ready

"WHALE SHARK! GO!" came the call. I did just like on TV, fell backwards into the water and felt my mask and snorkel both slip off. I rose to the surface coughing seawater out of my lungs, readjusted my equipment and went under again just in time to see a hazy shadow disappearing off into the distance. The girls managed not to have a salty drink but didn't really see much either. A rather poor start by anyone's standards. The second shout came and I was careful to hold onto my mask and snorkel this time and ended up slightly disorientated, finding that I was looking straight into the faces of everyone else in the ground. I turned around to see what they were looking at only to see an enormous tail coming straight towards me, and that thing was BIG! Thankfully the tail didn't quite hit me (and if it had I think I'd have sent the next post from Madagascar) and we managed to follow the guy for quite a while as he went on his plankton hunting mission. The silence of the sea was a nice change from the group on the speedboat, as you just float smoothly to keep up with this animal that could probably beat you in a fight if it tried, but you somehow just don't think of that. The spectacle was just so impressive. A few more sightings occurred before we went back to shore happy. Inna invited the guide for a drink of course and took a bit of a niggling from us in the afternoon about it...

She must have been a bit shaken up by her lack of a holiday romance as, as few days later, she went out for a morning swim while M and I were struggling to get up and came back wailing. "Did he turn her down again?" I wondered. Actually it seemed that she had an unfortunate collision with a parasol and had ended up with a gash in her head. The ups and downs of travel.

The patient recovers courtesy of amateur First Aid

Our great return to Inhambane was for the dhow trip that we had lined up. We waded into the sea, hopped aboard and got poled out deep enough to rig up the sails and with the wind rippling against them we sailed off to and island offshore. As I'm writing this many months later I don't remember the name of the island or of the extremely friendly guide but I hope I'll be forgiven for that... Our boat contained a barbeque and some fish and the guide and captain whipped up a tasty grill for us at lunch after which we went wandering around the island which seemed to contain nothing but an old abandoned hotel and, bizarrely, a homeless guy who asked us for the leftover fish. Homeless isn't anything I've really considered as a career before although if it's in this setting, abandoning European standards of living may not seem such a bad idea. It's on the "to think about" list. Our guide told us tales ranging from the ecology of the island to his first experience driving a car ("I got in, reversed into a coconut tree and the car wouldn't work any more") and we had a delightful afternoon.

Pole man featuring playful local kids

La bella fa'niente

Dhow/Island

This was, naturally, followed by a return to Tofo for beer and piri-piri calamari on the beach, and a total failure to spend the night in Inhambane (for the second or third night in a row). But who cares, really? Finally, the next day, we were set to leave back to Maputo en route for Johannesburg Airport. The home leg of the trip was beginning.

We have survived!

The long walk back to the bus station

Big City Trip

11^th October – Day 375 – Inhambane, Mozambique

Less than an hour's minibus ride from Tofo is the Portuguese colonial town of Inhambane, maybe one of the most attractive towns that we've seen on the whole trip! History leaks out of its buildings, and the upkeep of the town is mixed with a laissez-faire African attitude that sees paint stripping from the walls and results in a very charming little place. In the centre are the market and bus stop, the centres of activity in Inhambane. Surrounding them are the old streets, a real pleasure to walk around.

Old street.

Another old street (pic. Inna)

Another old street... (pic. Inna)

Inhambane isn't the kind of town you'd spend several weeks in, mainly due to its small size, but it's a great place to spend a day or two. I know how small it is as I walked around it several times waiting for the girls to finish their interminable haggling sessions at the market for various souvenirs and also a huge pile of textiles, some of which were destined to become shirts and some of which were doubtless destined to sit in a pile for ages while the owner wonders what to do with them. Some of the most tourist-orientated vendors spoke English to cater to the majority tourist market of South Africans but with others we ended up speaking Spanish while we were replied to in Portuguese. It wasn't always easy but everyone eventually ended up understanding and with smiles and repeated utterances of "Tá bom" (which I suppose roughly means "that's good" but stand corrected by anyone who knows better...), business was concluded. Over dinner at a small place by the seafront, we thought it might be a nice idea to spend some more time here and we reserved a set of dorm beds in the attached hostel. We'd be back tomorrow, we said, although our hospice syndrome may well lead us to just staying in Tofo instead.

Tic-tic restaurant

Dogs have the right of way...?

After a final wander through the Art-Deco streets of Inhambane we headed back on a minibus to Tofo, ready to come back tomorrow or, failing that, in a few days to have a dhow trip to the neighbouring islands. Life is hard indeed.

Generic sunset picture #8742387234 (subset:Inhambane)

Beach bums part 1

9^th October-11^th October – Days 375-378 – Tofo, Mozambique

Tofo (spelt in that way but pronounce Tofu, like the fake meat) is probably Mozambique's most touristy town, but it's surprisingly and pleasantly low key. As in Zanzibar, I arrived with a feeling that I may not enjoy it all that much but Tofo grew on me quite quickly. Its hot, dusty and sandy streets were great to walk around, local people would smile and wave. They'd definitely get tough on bargaining if you launched yourself into the process but there was no HEY MZUNGU!-style chasing as there are in some towns and somehow Tofo seemed to have character, which I find tourist towns are totally devoid of. We wandered up a long, sandy path through more huts and palm trees (getting deja vu yet?) to Bamboozi, an entirely natural backpackers which blended beautifully into the natural surroundings. A bar and restaurant overlooking the sea was another nice touch. It was a bit far out from the centre but Tofo is a small town and a 15 minute walk wasn't completely out of our capacities.

Tofo beach

...and Tofo town

We settled into a Mozambican lifestyle. Walking, beach, beer, piri-piri calamari. Unlike Mozambicans, though, we didn't respect the piri-piri enough and often ended up rushing for ice to stick onto our pained tongues. The days were languid, lazy and enjoyable although this had a real "end of the trip" feel to it. We would be back in Europe in a few weeks and our drive to push forever forward was quickly disappearing. I was happy sitting around watching people and time go past, thinking back over the year gone by, wishing another one was ahead of us. We'd have both jumped at the chance but our bank account was suffering dangerously by this point and we had stretched the trip probably as far as it could go. In the same way that a terminally ill person will spend his or her remaining days in as comfortable a setting as possible, so our trip's life was coming to an end and Tofo was our hospice.

Don't lose hope girls, there is still time to do things!

The path to Bamboozi

Still, there was a bit of life in us yet and we'd lined up a little visit to the close-by town of Inhambane and a trip around the surrounding islands on a dhow, a typical Arab-East African boat. It wasn't grand adventure but they were perfectly reasonable hospice activities.

Hospice activities #1

Sea, sand and sun

7^th October-9^th October – Days 371-373 – Závora, Mozambique

Our taxi eventually turned up and whisked us off in the direction of the Junta bus station. This being our first time in Maputo we had no idea what the Junta bus station looked like, although at some point we ended up on a roundabout next to a wasteland with loads of buses on and I predicted that this may be it. The taxi driver, however, had other ideas and shot off in another direction, talked on the phone for quite a while and then indicated that he was chasing our bus. When we eventually met up with it and got thrown onto it along with our bags, it trundled back to the Junta, sat there and waited. Eventually it moved northwards and the ticket man asked us for 3 times more than the bus was supposed to cost. This was the tourist bus to the beach town of Tofo, we were told. Hurrah ! After protracted arguments, we managed to get a price which was cheaper than was listed on the back of the ticket, but also more than we would have paid on a normal bus. Such is life.

Tired of Africa already

Our destination was Závora beach, a small cottage run by a South Africa we had met in Pretoria a short time ago. Scott was running a volunteer project in the area and had a few spare beds which he would rent to us for a decent price. There was no electricity and no town, just a hut on the beach. We'd already given up on our preferred idea of going to northern Mozambique - it seemed far more interesting than the beach-and-more-beach south but it was just too far away for the time we had left. We'd have to settle with what we had time for and so beach-hopping would be it. Inna was tired from work anyway and she didn't seem too put out by the prospect. It was the B option for all of us but we didn't mind all that much.

We met Scott in the small town of Inharrime on the main road, went to buy some food for the next few days and hopped into the back of a pick-up to squeals of delight from Inna, and bounced down a sandy road through small villages and palm trees towards the beach cottage. Here we would proceed to play games, read books, sit in the sun, wander on the beach, and chat with two volunteer girls who were working there for a while. Of course, we're still young and so the girls took us up the beach to a hotel one night where we had beer and playing pool, but in short, we enjoyed the nature, the sun, the company. And err.. that's it.

Splashin' around

Group photo (there wasn't much else to do, was there??)

But of course it wasn't all relaxing! After a year, T finally gets a picture taken to prove that he, too, did some work on this trip. It took Inna's arrival for this to happen. Thanks!

Not the most unpleasant bus stop in the world. The pick-up back to Inharrime is on its way..

After a few days of this, we upped sticks through Inharrime and Inhambane to Tofo, another beach town. I was spending my time fervently denying that I was abandoning my Somaliland-and-Burundi style travel preferences to become a beach-bum - let me clarify and state that I don't mind beaches from time to time but a) not for too long and b) not utterly surrounded by other tourists and tourist-hunters trying to rip you off. I was concerned that Tofo might be exactly that, and I was about to find out...