Whale Sharks and Mozambique

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Waiting in the car park that doubles up as a bus stop in Manzini, Swaziland, I passed an entertaining hour watching a master class in packing, with the luggage destined for Mozambique slowly, and seemingly quite precariously, being piled higher and higher. We'd left the hostel around 6.30am, catching a minibus that took us as far as the next main minibus stop, and from there we'd squeezed into another van heading for Manzini. There the van driver waved us off with instructions to 'head for the old KFC' - of course life would have been far to easy if the bus to Mozambique actually left from the bus station we'd been dropped of at! And that's where, having been astounded when those directions actually got us to the bus, we watched the packing spectacle. In addition to our comparatively small and insignificant rucksacks, the trailer was loaded to three times its height with chairs, buckets, baskets, oil drums, bags of grain, potatoes, cloths and god knows what else.... and with the exception of the odd potato making a bid for freedom I don't think we lost any of it on the journey.

Mozambique hadn't been part of my original plan, but having decided to save Botswana and Namibia for another time and not wanting to spend any more time in South Africa it seemed like a good idea.... which kind of explains how I found myself on the bus from Swaziland to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, with a nice blue visa in my passport but no real idea about where to go when I got there - if I'd planned it at all I probably would have armed myself with something useful like a Portuguese phrase book. Despite a rather disorganised start though I had an amazing 10 days here.

The main draw of Maputo is its old colonial architecture - its one of the few places I've been where guide books list the railway station as one of the tourist highlights!! I spent a relaxed day here, taking in the art museum, the white cathedral and nearby city hall and then the market with its mix of brightly coloured fruit and veg, fish waiting to be gutted and endless rows of wooden trinkets to tempt the passing tourist. The next day I headed north along the coast to Tofo - for someone who's not a great beach person I found I'd developed a keen desire to end my trip on the beach. So 5.30am saw me up and waiting for the bus.... by 8am, having stopped once to pick up more passengers and then again and again and again to fill every centimetre of remaining space with sacks of potatoes, bread, clothes, chickens and god knows what else, we were just about leaving the city.

Normally I prefer to take local transport but on this occasion the thought of a bus that would pick me up from the hostel rather than having to get myself down to the bus station at some ungodly hour was all just too tempting. Which is how I came to be on a bus filled with other westerners - Brits, Irish, Americans, Israelis and South Africans - and where the first beer stop happened by 10am and a haze of smoke that left the drivers assistant slumped happily against the door shortly followed.... We stopped a couple more times, to carefully navigate a flooded stretch of road or buy bread, fruit or meat on a stick from locals who crowded round the bus and jostled each other to push their wares through the open windows whenever we stopped, and again in pretty Inhambane for an ATM run (there are no banks or ATMs in Tofo).

Tofo itself is a small town with few streets - it's popular with South Africa holidaymakers though so there's a few dive schools here, a couple of hostels and a small market selling almost exclusively tourist trinkets. I opted to stay at Bamboozi, a backpackers place a few km out of town and for the next week the most challenging decision I faced each day was whether to have dinner in the bar at the hostel or walk 10 mins along the beach to Dino's, the other restaurant. I met up with a great group of people here, a group of South African and Norwegian guys and a Danish girl and spent the week with them doing not very much at all - breakfast on the veranda of the bar with its stunning views along the long empty beach 10m below, days spent reading on the beach or cooling off in the sea and evenings either in the bar at the hostel or at another bar back along the beach.

My last morning here, which I spent snorkeling with Whale Sharks, was easily the highlight of my week. These huge fish are filter feeders - with mouths up to 1.5 metres wide and containing 300 to 350 rows of tiny teeth they feed on the small stuff - phytoplankton, krill and small vertebrates. One of three types of filter-feeding sharks, the largest grow up to 12m long. The boat ride out to look for them was rough - bouncing through the surf was entertaining enough to being with but as the queasiness set in the laughter in the boat soon petered out, replaced instead by tight smiles and the noise of the engine. The first sighting of a whale shark soon livened the atmosphere though, with all sea sickness quickly forgotten as we battled to get our masks on. Unfortunately the first one dived almost as soon as we hit the water, but ten minutes later we spotted another which, not at all bothered by all the snorkelers desperately trying to keep up, swam close to the surface for maybe 15 mins. This gentle creature was both huge and beautiful, predominately grey in colour but covered in lighter lines of spots. Eventually, perhaps boring of us, it dove down to deeper depths but the whole experience was really amazing and a great way to finish this trip!

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