The Nampula TCO rep had guessed we'd get to Vilankulos by about 5PM but her estimate is conservative by 100%, a pleasant surprise. Sadly, we aren't actually dropped at Vilankulos but at the junction from which it's a 25 minute chapa ride distant, but the chapa - more like a Sudanese boksi - leaves immediately and we soon find ourselves on a street corner in the centre of Vilankulos. We've barely disembarked when a Portuguese woman offers us a lift to wherever we want to go. Our first choice, the delightfully-named Zombie Cucumber hostel, is full, as is the woman's sub [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately whale shark season finished several months back, and my interest in diving near Vilankulos wanes as soon as I hear that news. However S and I investigate an overnight dhow "safari" leaving the following day - it offers a night of camping on one of the islands of the Bazaruto Archipelago, plus snorkelling and walking, with transport being in a traditional dhow (with the main propulsion provided by a non-traditional outboard). It's expensive (not appreciably less than my land-based safaris in Kenya and Tanzania) but holds the promise of seeing interesting sealife including whale [View Full Entry]

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The TCO bus is an anomaly in African transport, like a readable passage in a Harry Potter book. Though not hitting Argentinian heights of comfort, it makes the 16.75 hours to Beira pass in a trauma-free fashion. The promised toilet and AC are present and correct, and the secret to reaching our destination in just one day lies in infrequent stops and certainly none for fruit and veg shopping. I wonder if the ripping sound I hear is the tearing apart of the very fabric of African travel. There is one cause for concern, however, and it unexpectedly revolves around Westlife. [View Full Entry]

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L has said he'll take me to the bus station the following morning but he gets up sufficiently late that I begin to wonder if I'll get out of Mocuba today. I'd been told that I should buy my ticket at least an hour in advance in order to ensure a seat, but we leave at a time where we'll barely make it to the station to catch the bus full stop, let alone get a seat on it. L realises this, and instead takes me to a pick-up spot in town where I should be able to flag down the [View Full Entry]

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I reach the chapa park at an awkward time. The chapa to Ilha is already nearly full, meaning the boon of an imminent departure, but the vehicle is one where the front row of seats and an uncomfortable backwards-facing bench share legroom that is only adequate for one or the other. It's to the disappointment of all that my long legs are added to this mix. A foreign couple comfortably settled on the back seat view me with undisguised contempt, marking them out as French. The journey to Ilha is fortunately on a decent road, meaning the battle to prevent my [View Full Entry]

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There's little useful info on the web about crossing into Mozambique from Blantyre and I've met no-one who's done it recently - in fact, the only thing I've been able to glean is that the transport in northern Mozambique is shocking, though one poster had cheered me up by noting it was better than in Ethiopia. The closest border crossing to Blantyre is about 30km past Mt Mulanje - I would have gone there from Mulanje if I hadn't been so sore, short of cash, and suffering from diarrhoea after my hike there. Now (almost) healthy and with some money, it's [View Full Entry]

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The Lilongwe-Blantyre run is clearly the flagship bus route in all of Africa, as I pay $20 for a journey that's not even 4.5 hours - more noteworthy and incongruous is that the bus has AC and a toilet. For free, we get views of various inselbergs rising out of the green countryside. The landscape here really doesn't end with Lake Malawi. Blantyre is as lacking in cheap accommodation as Lilongwe, and I gravitate to the only place anyone ever mentions - Doogles. The staff are unfriendly and the rooms are poor value for money, but its proximity to the bus [View Full Entry]

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One thing I forget to ask at Infomulanje is how to acquire an (obligatory) guide, and I wonder if I've made a booboo when I start chatting with a guy, B, on the street and agree to use his services. I've read that porters (which I won't need) are allocated on a rotation basis so they get cheesed off if you arrive at the trailhead with one already, and I'm not sure if the same applies to guides. I mention this and B says he's registered so it's not a problem. That isn't quite the question I asked but rephrasing it [View Full Entry]

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I decide that, having done nothing of interest so far in Malawi, I should hit Mt Mulanje on my way out to Mozambique. Mulange isn't a major mountaineering challenge (its highest point is about 3,000m) but its appeal lies in that it's more a massif than a mountain so there are opportunities for merely hiking among its dozen or so peaks as well as climbing them. I'd first heard of Mulanje soon after entering Malawi, when a newspaper article had mentioned the disappearance of a French-Brazilian hiker in the massif. The article had contained an interview with a local headman, who [View Full Entry]

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The morning I leave for Lilongwe, it's overcast and spitting with rain, the eight okta cloud cover greying out the pre-dawn light to the point where I am reminded of wintry teenage paper rounds. The AXA bus from Mzuzu to Lilongwe bears little resemblance to that from Karonga to Mzuzu. The latter's aisles were off limits to humans and cargo while the vehicle was moving, the former's aren't. I have babies' arses swiped across my face as their mothers force their way down the aisle, offspring secured to their backs by the ubiquitous chitenges. Half way through the journey I acquire [View Full Entry]

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