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...