once again ola from mozambique. have had a great couple of days checking out the southern end of this country. spent a few nights at a place called tofo, actually pronounced tofu, which was just beautiful. really nice beaches and the most chilled out vibes, the kind of place you could easily get stuck in for weeks. luckily it started raining or i´d still be there! sitting on the beach a variety of people come up to you selling a variety of different things, necklaces, bracelets, fresh fish and the biggest prawns you´ve ever seen in your life, at the lowest prices you´ve ever seen in your life. perfect if you like prawns, which i don´t! i just started saying to them sorry i´m allergic to seafood! and cos it was right after new years, the place was full of vacationing south africans, i think there were more south africans in tofo that week than there were in south africa!
from there i headed a bit further north to a place called vilanculos, a sleepy little fishing village thats the gateway to the bazaruto islands. the weather was still pretty bad but i decided to brave it and do a boat trip out to the islands. turned out pretty good, beautiful white sand, lots of amazing colourful fish, i even saw 2 lion fish! as in the highly poisonous type. luckily i wasn´t in the water at the time, i was just walking along the water´s edge but the 2 german guys who did the trip with me were in the water. i was like oh wow check it out there´s 2 lion fish over here, actually maybe you guys should stay over where you are, a nice safe distance from the higly dangerous and potentially lethal lion fish! aside from being cut short because of the cyclonic weather, it was an awesome day, with an amazing lunch of fresh fish, curry and rice cooked right on the coals, its amazing what you can do with a pot and a heap of wood!
so now i´m back in maputo, but what a mission it was to get here. i was supposed to get a lift with some other people from the hostel to the bus station at 2am. why so early you ask? because for some crazy reason the buses leave from around 3am and there´s no reservation system so its first come, first serve. so i got up at 2am, went with my stuff out in the rain looking for these people, only to be told they´d already left! curse them!!!!! so i basically decided to go back to bed and take my chances at a more reasonable hour and possibly do the journey in stages. so i got a matatu at 7am that would take me to a town part of the way, and i planned to stay there for the night. so we´re driving along, i´m in the front seat next to the driver and we´re about half an hour down the road when we start veering off the road. i look across at the driver and the biatch has fallen asleep!! we´re going like 70kms and ploughing down the side of the road, so i start slapping him silly and after about 6 or 7 slaps he finally wakes up and steers us back on the road. meanwhile though i´ve simultaneously had a heart attack and shit my pants, and then everyone else on the matatu is having a good old laugh about it! easy for those guys who were in the back and couldn´t see our death coming!!!! so we finally made it to the next town safe, sound and most improtantly alive, and there was a bus going all the way to maputo. by this time it was around 11am and i didn´t put much thought into the fact that its another 10hours to maputo from this point anbd that would mean i´d be arriving at the dodgy bus station at 9pm, well after the safe time for lone white female tourists to be hanging around. luckily i spoke to the driver in very broken english and he agreed to drop me right near at the hostel. but its not all happily ever after, i got to the hostel thinking i had a booking, which i didn´t and the hostel is full. just lovely. but the friendly manager called another place and then gave me a lift there cos i had no local currency left at this stage for a taxi, so like i´d been telling myself over and over all day, everything will work out ok in the end. and what do you know, it did!! i´m starting to think i´m the luckiest person on the planet cos with all the dodgy situations i´ve been in on this trip, it always seems to work out fine, no matter how bad it seems. anywho, i´m heading to durban in south africa tomorrow so will be back in a few days no doubt with some more crazy shenanigans. take care!!!
