On our arrival in SA, Mary and I set ourselves a mini Phileas Fogg challenge. It involved seeing all the countries of Southern Africa by the end of July. We set our goal knowing it should be achievable without high drama. Indeed we built in lots of cheats. For example, we visited several countries (Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya) in a previous trip to Africa. We gave ourselves a year instead of 80 days. And we excluded three countries Angola, Congo (both too dangerous) and Madagascar. All this means our escapades are unlikely to become the basis for a great work of fact or fiction. But what does that matter!
Up to last weekend, we had visited SA, Swaziland and Lesotho. Mozambique became our fourth ‘conquest’. Conquest in this context means that we travelled 10 kms into the country travelling up from the southernmost tip to the nearest beach – at a place called Ponto D’Ouro. (Before we receive complaints about the legitimacy of claiming this constitutes ‘seeing a country’, please know that it does. Particularly in the case of Mozambique. As there isn’t much to visit other than the beautiful beaches. And these are all very similar.)
There are three main obstacles to visiting Mozambique. Firstly, they like to shut the border at 1700. For us this meant a race after Mary had finished work. Secondly, they charge lots to enter the country. Unless you are South African. Or you are friends with the men at the border post. As we weren’t able to prove we were actually mates with Carlos, we paid £40 each (but felt less aggrieved when we got a big visa stuck into our passport). Thirdly, we needed a 4x4. Fortunately, our weekend away had been arranged by a friend. And he drove us in his big car. Once past the border post, there are no roads for us to use (there are some in other parts of the country). So anything without 4 wheel drive gets stuck in the sand.
The relatively recent civil war in Mozambique means that the infrastructure of the country is very basic. And signs of the war are still visible through the bodies of the locals and their missing limbs. However, it is one of Africa’s fastest growing economies (albeit largely because it is starting from such a low base and is up against a weak field). And there is a great sense of freedom to the place.
Our main aim for the weekend was to swim with dolphins. We organised this for Sunday morning. On Saturday, we arranged a dive. The reef at Ponto is a continuation of the one we dive at Sodwana. And the experience was quite similar. We had worse visibility but saw an amazing amount of life – moray eels, octopuses, turtles, scorpion fish, sting rays. Unfortunately, Mary felt particularly sick during the dive. Bringing an 80% vomit success (or perhaps failure) rate into the dive, this had crept up to 83.3% after we had finished.
Our diving with dolphins experience did not start well. After an hour driving up and down the coast looking for flipper, we had not seen one. This had though, been plenty enough time for Mary to vomit again (now 85.7%). Obviously fearful that we wouldn’t see anything, we were encouraged out of the motor boat to enjoy some snorkelling. Seeing any sea life was utterly impossible, given the depth of the water and the visibility. It did though give us ample opportunity to be stung by the very abundant jelly fish. So began an experience equivalent to running scantily clad through a field of stinging nettles. After ten minutes we got back in the boat.
Having almost given up hope, some flippered friends turned up. And our experience was transformed. Into the water we went. And for the next ten minutes bottlenose dolphins (the most intelligent and playful) swum round us. Swimming extremely close, we followed previous instructions not to try and touch them. Instead we gawped as they swam round and round us. Thankfully, the cost, the jellyfish and the vomit had all been worthwhile. Eventually the dolphins swam off. We caught up with a second larger pod ten minutes later. But they were less curious.
And so ended another weekend in SA. Mary is on call this Friday and Sunday. So we are unlikely to get away. We will spend some of the time planning our trip to the last target on our Southern African hit list – Namibia.
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