Eventually we crawled into Mocimboa De Praia just as the sun was dipping behind the sea in the distance and we headed straight to the only campsite in town where we suddenly discovered that we spoke NO Portugese and that the Mozambiquans spoke no English. Thankfully we found a common language (Swahili)so we managed to get ourselves a camping spot and at least get shown the way to the showers where we enjoyed them cold under a star studded night sky.
From Mocimboa, the road thankfully became a graded dirt road which made our going slightly faster - a life saver given the sheer distances between towns in this very remote part of this very lengthy country. The roads weren't exactly even however and we spent much of our time enjoying the sensation of driving on an indoor cycling track as we tilted either left or right depending on which side of the road had less potholes. Thankfully Shaun decided to glance up at the tent from his side mirror only to find himself glancing at the cloudless sky with the tent nowhere in sight. We screetched to a stop in a dust cloud and clambered out frantically to find that the bolts that held our tent to the roof racks had come loose and the tent, althought thankfully still on the car, was now leening precariously off to the one side and would probably have slid right off on the next tilt. So the toolbox came out and Shaun and I set about trying to fix the situation with the mid afternoon sun beating down on our exposed skin. It didn't take long before a group of Mozambiquan men had appeared out of nowhere and had assembled to assess the situation, chattering seriously amongst themselves and thankfully staying out of our hot and frustrated way. 2 hours later, we determined that there was not much we could do other than to strap the tent on and sort it out when we got to camp, so while Shaun swore and sweated, I turned to the group of assembled men and tried to communicate what had happened with ridiculously over-the-top hand signals. The group had by this time chosen a spokesperson who with a wide toothy grin nodded his head vigourously and using the same ridiculous sign language confirmed that after much deliberation, they had come to the same conclusion. They then wanted cigarettes for their effort of sitting on the side of the road, which we could obviously not give them. After much deliberation, we decided to sacrifice our highly anticipated afternoon biscuits to which we got ungrateful and disgruntled looks, so Shaun hastily whisked me back into the car before I could take my precious biscuits back...
Late that afternoon as we drove along a palm fringed sand track with a cold beer in hand, we were reminded of the sheer untouched beauty of Northern Mozambique and we arrived at the best campsite of our entire trip just as the sun was setting over the returning fishing dows, white sails puffed out by the gentle evening breeze. Praia de Pongane is a tiny fishing village on a spit of land jutting out into the Indian Ocean on the tip of which, a Mozambiquan by the name of Hassim opened a campsite situated on the edge of the gently lapping waves, on soft white sand and shaded only by tall palm trees. As we drove in however, we were greeted by our most favourite sight: a massive overland truck with tents dotted all over the campsite. Thankfully it was an older group of Spanish tourists who were more interested in diving out shells and buying undersized crayfish than partying so we got along alright and when they left 2 nights later, we had the whole place to ourselves. We spent the days lounging in the warm water with cold vodka-tonics, feasting on massive fresh crayfish and generally avoiding falling coconuts - oh, and we spent an entire day trying to fix our tent.
Thinking we still had many such wonders awaiting us in the rest of Mozambique, we packed up after four days and headed south to Pemba. Unfortunately the road got even better and gradually upgraded to tar, which meant that every GP registered beer and boerewors brigade member had either opened a campsite/hotel or was there entering a fishing competition of some sort. We stayed at a really nice campsite on the lagoon side of Pemba but the overwhelming phyto plankton that made swimming through the mangroves feel like electric shock therapy made us pack up after 2 days and head off in search of greener pastures..
Chocos just north of Ilha de Mozambique had come highly recommended so we headed to the remote village with great anticipation. It was on the dirt road travelling at 50km's per hour however that our luck with animals came to an abrupt halt when a suicidal chicken, clearly fed up with the life of pecking at scraps, decided to make a mad dash from 50m off the side of the road to right under our right back tyre where her run came to an ubrupt halt in a cloud of white feathers that would have made Mardi Gras participants proud. Shaun was at the wheel and still in the process of claiming the point when a pigeon flew into his closed window and dropped dead on the road. And then, just as we turned our attention back on the road after looking at each incredulously, killer Shaun drove over a tortoise which had mistakenly thought it was having a fast day. Needless to say, given our current run of luck, Choccos was a dissapointment as we camped in the middle of nowhere surrounded by dense bush having to listen to the waves in the very far off distance through shells held to our ears
Ilha de Mozambique was a welcome historic interlude to our beach and animal carnage as we spent the day firstly trying to ge our monstrous car over the 2km long ridiculously narrow bridge, then trying to navigate it through the ridiculously narrow streets, and then avoiding the ridiculously abundant touts while taking in the old buildings and streets of what used to be Mozambique's capital way back when the Portugese still had more influence than just the name of the local steak roll.
And then came 2 days of solid driving. 2150km's over 2 days meant that we were up at 4:30am and only stopped 13hrs later. It was on one of these days that I won the points game as a goat decided to Asafa Powell his way to under my front right tyre, prematurely ending his days with a barely discernable thump. Our two hideous days of driving were thankfully broken up by a gem of a find in the form of a new lodge and campsite on the banks of the mighty Zambezi (yes, it was the second time we had crossed it on our travels) and we managed to watch the sun set while washing off the dust and goat guilt in the cool swimming pool.
Right, so Vilankulos was going to be our final Eden before the whole adventure came to an end. That is, until we actually got there. The first campsite we didn't even bother to stop at as we were greeted by 2 massive overland trucks taking up the entire campsite, so we made a turn around the tree and continued right back out of the gate, much to the guard's amusement. Next stop was a campsite owned by South Africans who must obviously not have been at their own place to have noticed that each campsite was on a slope that would have excited snowboarders had there been snow, that the staff could not be bothered to light the donkeys for hot water showers or that half of the toilets didn't even flush. And this being the most expensive campsite we had experienced on our entire trip, of course there would be no toilet paper. But there was an awesome rim-flow pool so we stayed for 2 nights . . .
In utter desperation to end our trip on a high and relaxing note, we headed to the tiny village of Morrungula because our GPS said that there were 3 campsites, so at least we had choice. We drove to each one and eventually headed 7km's out of town to a place which the GPS said was still under construction - desperate times call for desperate measures. When we arrived, we headed to the inviting dive centre with its colourful flags, posters and boats since we were dying to get some dives under our belts before the cold Cape Town water sucked the scuba love right out of us. We got to chatting to the South Africans (But they were from Richard's Bay!!!) who owned the dive shop. It turned out that there was no camping, but Dave quickly got onto the phone to the owner who was in SA and who promptly gave us a chalet for half the price we would have paid for camping at the other resorts. So we stayed for 5 days thinking that we would dive to our heart's content. . .
That was until the South Easter reared its ugly head and made heading out on a boat a definite lunch regurgitator, so each morning we would wake up, walk to the dune to look at the sea, only to find it on it's head and not dive friendly. We still got to enjoy the company of the staff at Bonito Bay Resort over a few braais, and even had the resident dogs camped out on our veranda for our entire stay excluding feeding time. On our second last day, just around lunch, the tide was low and the sea looked like it could welcome a couple of desperate divers, so we hastily got the boat down to the sea, launched it into the pounding surf with the help of a few of the nearby villagers who decided to rather jump onto the boat instead of holding it in the water each time a wave came, and headed out to the dive site with only one working motor. Just as we stopped over the site and I started staring back at the inviting dunes to ward off the queaziness the huge waves were inducing, we all heard a slow hissing sound emanating from somewhere it wasn't supposed to be coming from. It was then that the skipper realised that in his haste to get us out, he had forgotten to put the bungs in place, so we were slowly sinking. Thankfully he got us safely back to shore before we scuba dived on the boat and we were left with only our last day to possibly do a dive.
We were joined the next morning by two guys from yes, you guessed it: JHB, who were on a boys holiday. They were both well travelled and generally pretty awesome guys who actually listened to me without laughing when I talked about the mechanics of our car though, so they were rated pretty highly in my books anyway. The sea was much better so we were in with a chance of finally being able to eat the home made muffins that accompanied divers. We headed off in high spirits and were soon over the dive site putting on our gear. Shaun and I were both pretty nervous as we hadn't dived in a while but before we knew it, Dave was telling us it was time to go under and I was still trying to de-mist my mask! Shaun and I had bragged to Dave about what good buddies we were but by the time I made it to the bottom, Shaun was nowhere to be seen. The visibility was about 1m so I frantically started singing the "Wide open spaces" song and signalled to dave that my buddy was gone. To cut a dramatically long story short, it was a nightmare of a dive as everyone lost each other in the current, the non-existant viz making relocation of lost buddies impossible but which proved to be highly entertaining for the skipper who could clearly see everyone's bubbles barely 2m's away from each other but kept having to drop resurfacing lost divers back on the buoy line. The dive only lasted 30 minutes but at least Shaun and I avoided having to do a refresher course and we were allowed to tuck into the muffins on the ride back in to shore!!
And then it was all over. It ended with a last stop at the same campsite we stopped at on our first Mozambique trip just north of Maputo, a portugese chicken meal from the restaurant, a final chat with fellow travellers and the final boiling of the kettle on our gas stove for our final flask of coffee for the early start the next day. When I had my first fight with the spade on the roof that hot night on the Orage River in Namibia, I was ready to call it quits even before it started. 6 months later I wanted to do it all over again! If I could change anything however, it would be to add a bigger variety of music to my i-pod, because 24 668km's later, even Dire Straights get a bit monotonous.
