Days 9-14 Tofo and whale sharks

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I was going to spend the whole of the next day and night and the following day on the road and so I wanted an early night but due to the heat and the mozzies I got around an hour’s kip!. The next day I caught the Pathfinder bus to Bulawayo at 07:00 which arrived at 13:00. The journey commenced with a prayer and then a song about God!! It seems religion is a big thing over here and they are intent on ramming it down the throats of everyone else!! I couldn’t complain too much though as Chris Brown followed at full blast.

I then had a wander round Bulawayo for a couple of hours and I never saw another whitey and everybody was staring at me, it was interesting!

After lunch I headed off to the intercape offices to catch the overnight bus to Joburg, there was no other backpackers or white people for that matter on the bus, but I had two seats to myself which was a great relief as I could stretch out. We got to the border at 20:30 and which I thought would be a formality but Gawd was I wrong. First of all we had to wait around 1 hour to get the passport stamped to exit the Zimbabwe side, then another hour at the South African side and then another queue to take the bags through customs, all told a mere 3 hours to get across the border!!! Then I could relax and finally get some sleep, around 5 hours in total until we reached Pretoria when I was awoken by more Christian lecturing. The videos consisted of a lecture by some pastors and then a crappy religious western film. The problem was every time the bus stalled and had to be restarted the power went off and when it came back on the video restarted which meant I’ve listened to the same damn pastor spouting his stuff around 20 times!!! I know his sermon off my heart by now - Mark Chapter 11 verse 13 – “you will have faith in God” aye if you say it oft enough it becomes true!!.

The only relief I had was putting in some ear plugs and reading Irvine Welsh’s new novel Skagboys ( a prequel to Trainspotting) which was as far removed from the religious videos that was possible, a fab book but not one for the lassies or easily offended:-).

The bus surprisingly arrived early at 07:15 (24 hours after setting off ) which meant that I could catch the Intercape bus for Maputo in Mozambique, On the bus were a couple of gadges from Mozambiques so I hung out with them on the bus ride to Maputo, forgive my vernacular but the book is affecting my dictation:-) One of the guys proceeded to have 5 beers on the journey which took a mere 9 hours, I was made up as I sought out a veggie burger and chips at a Wimpy at the rest stop – result!. At the border I as usual got into a bit of trouble, having an AK47 pointed at me again. This is a regular feature on my travels, this time for taking a photo of the welcome to Mozambique sign, which was next to the border guard who took exception to this and demanded to look through my pics and delete the pic!! I finally arrived at Maputo after my 36 hour journey and checked into Fatimas nest, which was OK but has no internet. That night I was chatting with the first officer of a sea shepherd boat which was docked in South Africa, they are on a secret mission protecting marine life, I’m a member of sea shepherd so I was in my element trying to get the details, mainly they try to protect whales from the ghastly Japanese whaling ships in Antartica but this time they must have been on a different mission.

I had booked the so-called shuttle from Fatimas Nest to Fatimas in Tofo, this involved greeting the minibus at 05:00 in the morning from the hostel and then waiting for 2 hours in the bus at the bus station for it to fill up and then after it departed, 15 mins later the bus stopped at a rest stop so the locals could go the loo, it was endless, at 10:30 after 5 and a half hours we had covered 80Kms!!. We were all crammed in with loads of luggage so there was We got some speed up after then and finally arrived in Tofo at 13:30 a mere 10 hours after setting off, in car direct, the journey could be done in 5 hours I reckon. I had a headache all day despite taking painkillers due to lack of sleep and on arrival I had to walk for 20 mins with my gear to my destination Bamboozi Lodge, which is a great place but deserted as it’s not the season. Worse of all the weather on arrival was pretty poor and the boats had not been out. I was worried if it stayed like that the journey will be all in vain as the boats will not be going out to see the whale sharks and Manta rays. Hopefully it will all clear up.

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I had a great night’s sleep at last the first for 3 nights, I didn’t even get bit by the mossies which was a first, good job I’m taking my malarone I guess. I had booked an ocean safari tour for 10:30 with Tofo Scuba, the boats hadn’t been out all week due to the wind but I was told it was definitely on. However when I got to the dive centre they said the safari had been cancelled due to the winds!! As there isn’t much else to do here but go out in the sea but sunbathe I wasn’t having any of that so I wandered into town to see if I could get on another boat so I went to another dive shop who told me that a boat had just gone out and I had missed it!! So that left me with 1 place left Peri-Peri divers. So I rolled up and they said that the boat had just got fully booked!! But then they checked with the Divemaster who said that he could squeeze me in, he was from Manchester so he took pity on my as a neighbouring northerner.



I wandered about then for a couple of hours taking pics and then we headed for the inflatable for our safari, it was great fun getting the boat into the water a s we had to push it in the water as it was beached and then we made our way deeper into the ocean. The swell was between 1-2 metres so it was a hell of a ride, I was clinging on for dear life and on countless occasions was flung up in the air as the boat crashed into the waves. I’m glad I had my Fleetwood sea legs but despite that felt myself going green, thankfully I didn’t barf unlike a few of the occupants. The boat was out for an hour and unfortunately all we saw was a green turtle and two pods of dolphins – no whale shark and no manta rays s we didn’t even get in the water – I’ve not had much look on this trip so far! The safari lasted 2 hours and as we were headed back to the beach the boat accelerated and we hit the beach at quite a pace and were immediately thrown back as it ground to a halt, what a ride, it took a while to get my land leg backs afterwards!

The next day I’d be out tomorrow to see if I can find the whale sharks again.

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The weather was so much better today, the wind had dies down, the sun was out and the swell had subsided, the omens were looking good for my second and last Ocean Safari to try and see a whale shark. There are only around a 1000 whale sharks in the world and 300 are in Mozambique so they are firmly on the endangered list. This time I went with Tofo Scuba which is the nearest dive centre to the lodge, once we were out on the water we were all scannning the waves to see if we could find the elusive whale shark, after 30 mins I was starting to feel that I had come all the way out here in vain but then the captain shouted whale shark and point over to the distance, this was it at last and everyone rushed to put on their masks and slowly ease into the water (not) there was a fight to get in the water first and we were all diving on top of each other, it was a proper mêlée. After elbowing a few girls in the ribs and pulling back some of my competitors:-) I finally got to see the magnificent creature close up at some points within touching distance. As whale sharks go it wasn’t huge, I’d say 4-5 metres long, but the graceful way it moved through the water was a joyous sight. It was really friendly and put up with us for around 40 mins in total, when it sped too far in the distance to see the boat picked us up again and dropped us off in its path, at one point its inquisitiveness brought it up to the boat, it must have wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The whale shark wasn’t the only thing I encountered though, the water was full of stinging jellyfish and all my face, arms and legs were covered in stings, they weren’t too bad though and after a couple of hours they had dissipated completely, I was surprised they didn’t have any vinegar on the boat though for eventualities such as this and I didn’t know the ladies that well to ask then to micturate on me and I certainly wasn’t going to ask any of the men!!

The visibility wasn’t great so the pictures could have been better but nethertheless, I’m very happy with the pics I got. One of the occupants had this fancy waterproof cover for her camera and it fogged up so she lost everything so my cheapo Nikon served me well.

Later on I went to a talk by one of the marine biologists on the whale sharks which will be interesting and then I will need to get ready for my 03:30 wake up call for my nightmare 10 hour journey back to Maputo and then straight away another bus to Nelspruitt in South Africa.

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