July 21st, 2018.  It’s hard to imagine that in two weeks we’d be home.  Leaving Tofo was starting to feel a lot like the end of our trip.  There is an inevitability to all the packing and stowing and cleaning out that loomed ahead and it began to dominate my thoughts.

We were missing the wildlife we had seen so much of earlier in the trip.  To shake off the pending finality we resolved to make one last visit to a national park and do some game viewing.  We had bypassed the parks in Malawi and Mozambique’s Gorongosa, so set our sights on Limpopo National Park, and to take advantage of the relatively new (opened in 2006?) Giriyondo border crossing that allows passage directly between Limpopo and Kruger National Parks.

We got a late start and didn’t leave Tofo until 10 in the morning, but we were warming up to the leisurely start plan, a change from our predawn wake ups while we were in the parks, or when making long dashes across Tanzania.  Limpopo is too far to drive in a day so we set off aiming to find a place somewhere near Xai Xai to spend the night.

Road conditions were excellent, and being a Saturday traffic was light.  Driving along we were again confronted by brave vendors, staring the cruiser down from the middle of the road, willing us to stop.  Overpriced cashews, peri-peri and papayas were the products of the day, by zone, as always.  We bought some peri-peri from very nearly the last vendor in an unusually long length of peri-peri vendors.  We felt like giving a sale to the last person was a good thing, and it’s never bad to have some fiery red chili paste.

As we closed in on Xai Xai we consulted iOverlander and T4A for a place to stay, and settled on the Sunset Beach Resort, which was said to offer camping as well as rooms and a restaurant.  A few kilometers down a sandy track and you creep up on the place from the back side of a hill.  After parking we walked through to the office and were treated to an incredible panoramic view of the ocean.  Perched fairly high on the hill, it’s a spectacular vista, and there is a huge deck where we sat and gazed out on the sea.

We checked in, and were shown to our site.  The camp sites are adequate but relatively uninspiring.  Clearly geared to groups who plan to stay for the week and fish, the campsite is not the attraction, just a place to base activities.  You are given a key to a private ablution, but it’s a cement block house sort of thing without much ventilation, and in the humid Mozambique climate fungus had grown and had a strong moldy odor.

Campsite aside, we headed back to the deck to enjoy the wonderful view.  Sipping on beers, we watched humpback whales breaching from horizon to horizon, it was incredible.  I work on a ship on the California coast and we see humpbacks whales often.  Breaching is always a special behavior to see, but I had never seen such a continual display of jumping whales, and never with such a panoramic vista.  It was particularly enjoyable.

To Limpopo National Park

The next day we were off to the Limpopo National Park.  Just out of Xai Xai we crossed the “great grey-green greasy Limpopo river”, as described by Rudyard Kipling, though just outside of Xai Xai it is not “all set about with fever trees”, nor teeming with crocodiles and hippos, more like farmland and cows, but nonetheless it conjured romantic notions of our few days ahead in the wilderness.

There are a few routes up to Limpopo National Park from the coast.  We continued along the N1 and turned inland on the N101, transitioning to the N221 at Chokwe, to the R445 which took us all the way to Massingir, the last outpost outside the park.

This series of roads winds through flattish farmland and low but persistent density population.  We stopped at the market in Chokwe and Jenny loaded up on more of the beautiful boldly patterned bolts of cloth for sale in the market.  Not sure what it’s destined to be, but she couldn’t pass up those striking colors and prints.

There is fuel in Massingir, but cash only, and we had to try several bank machines to find some cash to top up before heading into the park.

The park itself has a wonderful entrance, parking area, toilets, and office to pay the fee.  Everything was looking very tidy and professional, we were the only ones there.  $8USD per person entrance fee paid, (take that Serengeti!) we headed into the park.

Limpopo National Park was formerly known as Coutade 16, a hunting concession, until 2001 when it was gazzeted as the Limpopo National Park.  It lies adjacent to the famous Kruger National Park of South Africa, and is now part of a 35,000 km2 transfrontier park. Plans are underway for an enormous, nearly 100,000 km2, conservation area called the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA).

There is a broad effort to create transfrontier conservation areas in the Southern African region, to preserve freedom of movement for animals across borders and restore some level of migration patterns in the wildlife populations.  This also allows animals to move as the environment requires, leaving areas of drought, for example.  There is another spectacularly large project underway in Kavango Zambezi region that will be over half a million square kilometers.  Truly amazing work.

The Limpopo NP area has been over hunted and poached and game numbers are low.  Efforts are being made to translocate animals from other parks, to reintroduce species, and build populations.  Anti poaching units are working in the park, and the fence between Kruger and Limpopo is not being repaired when damaged, allowing animals from Kruger to move into the Limpopo portion of the park.

For now though, the Limpopo National Park is in its infancy, and our guidebook lead us to have low expectations.  Since visiting I’ve been watching the area on windy.com (the most excellent weather website) and the Limpopo region is routinely the hottest part of southern Africa.  So beware if you plan a visit in the summer, when temperatures are routinely 40°C+.

We found the roads in the park are in pretty good shape, with some corrugations along the main routes but nothing too extreme.  Vegetation seemed very dry, and though we didn’t see any game as we went along we were enjoying being back in the bush.

In a particularly sandy part of the road it looked like a great heard of something had been through and we wondered what it was.  The hot sand was too loose for our inexperienced tracking skill to make out the spoor.  Rounding a corner, our question was answered.  Cows.  A lot of cows.  The herders cracked their sticks and pitched a few rocks and kindly moved the cows out of the way for us, and we inched through the herd.

Remember how I said this was a new park?  We came to learn that it is so new that there are still small villages and cattle kraals inside the park.  I have no idea what the plans are, to allow a multi use park, or to eventually relocate the village, which always brings up the moral questions of these sorts of endeavors.  

Moving along we saw one antelope sprinting away from us into the brush, and no other game before arriving at our destination for the night, Campismo Aguia Pesqueira, a campsite run by the park.  There is a small tidy office and we checked in, paying our USD $5 camping fee, a total bargain.

There are a series of eight or ten sites perched high above the waters of Lago Massingir, the lake created by the dam.  Each site has an excellent view, braai stand and spot for a fire, and is tucked tightly in the trees.  The only other visitors we saw in the park were camped a few sites down, in a smallish big rig.  

After a few beers celebrating our last night in Mozambique, as dusk fell, we decided it was time for a haircut.  I was looking pretty feral, my last hair cut being quite some time ago, I was long overdue.  We had a battery (under)powered set of trimmers, and Jenny set to work on her first ever haircut.  Maybe not the best strategy, but I think it came out pretty good.  Come daylight, she said maybe she would approach it differently next time.

Being in game viewing mode, the following morning we got an early start,.  We were headed for the border post inside the park, and we thought that maybe as we got closer to the Kruger boundary we might get lucky and see some animals.  

Again we saw a glimpse of a steenbok (maybe, it was fast), but not much else.  We did see elephant spoor and some other unidentified dung, so animals are certainly around.  It did seem like conditions were very dry and many animals had moved into a different part of the park.  

We explored one of the side tracks labeled 4×4 only.  In this park so empty of visitors it really felt like exploring the wild wilderness all on our own.  We wound through the bush, brush scraping down the sides of the cruiser on the narrow track, eyes peeled for wildlife.  Even though we didn’t see anything, it felt special to see a park so early in its life.  We fantasized about an alternate life where we joined the team bringing this park back to life*.

Even with its sparse wildlife I think Limpopo NP deserved more than the one night we gave it.  There are more roads to explore, including one that parallels the Rio Singuedxi for a while.  I understand there are some more difficult 4×4 tracks in the park as well, so if you are seeking out that sort of thing that could be fun too.  We really hope to come back to this park and see how it’s changed.

Eventually we arrived at the Giriyondo border post.  Checking out of Mozambique was quick and efficient.  We drove the short distance to the South African side, and ran into a surprise.  When we confidently handed over our passports the immigration official informed us that we would only be given seven day transit visas.  What, what?  Seven days?

We had been to South Africa several times before and always been given 90 day visas on arrival, so we asked what the issue was.  He replied that yes, we were eligible for a 90 day visa on arrival, but since we hadn’t returned to our country of origin we were still traveling on the original 90 day visa, which runs out in 3 days.  He could give us a 7 day transit visa, but no longer.  He wasn’t rude, but was firm in his position.  We ran through numerous options, and he even said we could try at another border post and they might not know the rules as well, but it was also a risk that we would waste a lot of time driving and get the same answer. 

We had talked about possibly entering South Africa, but then going into eSwatini (Swaziland changed their name to eSwatini in April 2018) and trying to reset our 7 day visa, but the immigration official said that there was a risk that when looking up our passport in the system that the officials there would not allow issuing a second 7 day transit visa, and we could be stuck in eSwatini.  After pondering our options we resigned ourselves to returning home about a week early.  So, seven days to enjoy a bit of Kruger, reschedule flights, race back to the farm to store the cruiser and make it to the airport.  

After sorting all that out we chatted with one of the park staff who managed to book us some last minute camp sites in Kruger.  We ended up with one night at Shingwedzi, another at Tsendze, and the last night at Satara.  Driving into Kruger was another world, the roads immediately become better, and we started the last leg of our adventure.

*Since our visit I read White Man’s Game, an illuminating look into the difficulties of conservation.  The book mostly uses Gorongosa National Park as an example of how complex conservation work is, and why conservation frequently has unintended negative consequences.  Certainly something to ponder, and also frustrating that is seems so hard to help, that helping one worthy thing can impede or hurt another very important thing.

 Logistical notes

• Fuel, food or anything else you need is readily available along the coast.  Be stocked up before you head inland, including on cash, as other than Chokwe availability of most things will be limited.
• Tofo to Sunset Beach Resort, (near Xai Xai), 233 Km, 5h 15m
• Sunset Beach Resort to Campismo Aguia Pesqueira, 352km, 8h 15m

• Limpopo NP fees – $8pppd, I forgot to note if there is also a vehicle fee.  It seemed very inexpensive to us.  Camping $5pppn, a steal. 
• Campismo Águia Pesqueira to Giriyondo Border Post, 64km, 3h

We had been told the road south from Inhassoro had something like 20-30 kilometers of lousy EN1 road to traverse, but after that it was smooth sailing. And so it was, after a bit of weaving around pot holes and islands of pavement we were on a beautiful road and rolling south. We gather that the government is working on resurfacing the EN1 from south to north, so from here on out we’re told the road is very good.

We had about 380km to travel today, and it took us around 6 hours with some stopping and traffic. So far we’d found Mozambique to have much lower population density than countries to the north, but once we were south of Vilanculos things thickened up. More villages, more farming and people on the road. More traffic. Nothing as dense as parts of Kenya and Tanzania, but persistent. It also got a lot greener, so perhaps this is better farmland as well.

Along the way we found the Mozambican street vendor sales technique a bit disconcerting. Whatever they are selling, cashews or pineapples or whatever, they stand in the middle of the lane waving it at you trying to get you to slow down and stop. If you do stop they run up to the window to make their pitch, if you don’t stop they display quite a lot of bravery before dodging out of the way at the last possible second. We settled on something in between, slowing down but not stopping, but on the highway with other traffic around we weren’t really appreciating their dedication.

As everywhere we’ve been in Africa, whatever is on sale is by region. For a while you will drive past kilometer after kilometer of people selling pineapples, to the point where you think all the world’s pineapples must come from here and there is no case where you wouldn’t be able to get a pineapple at a moments notice anywhere in Mozambique. Then, bang, nary a pineapple to be seen, but oranges, oranges, oranges forever. Then, bang again, we’re on the cashews. No more pineapples, no more oranges. After that, ta-da, no more food, we’re on to brooms. Brooms brooms brooms, a lifetime of brooms. And so on. How the last guy along the Pineapple/orange/cashew/broom section of road ever makes a sale, I don’t know.

At some point in time we made it to the giant mortar (as in mortar and pestle) zone. Along the side of the road there were these mortars 2 and 3 feet high, with pestles that are 4 feet long that I think are used for making maize meal. We thought this was great and eventually succumbed to our temptations and bought a giant mortar for about 12 US dollars. We weren’t sure it would make it through customs getting home, but it was too cool to pass up. It seems pretty durable, you’d think the problem with being in the mortar supply business is once you’ve sold one that particular family won’t need another for 30 more years, but none the less, if you’re in the market for a giant mortar, a bit north of Inhambane you can buy for a bargain price.

The weather continued to be a bit overcast with intermittent light rain. We are spoiled and kept our fingers crossed that the weather would improve once we got to Tofo.

We made it to Tofo in the afternoon with plenty of time to figure out our camping scene. We decided to try Turtle Cove, ironically not on the water or near a cove at all, at the suggestion of someone online. We figured we could start here, and then in our wanderings if we found somewhere better we could move the next day.

Turtle Cove is a sort of yoga themed eco type place, with bungalows around a sloped center lawn with come camp sites near the bottom of the lawn near the back. It wasn’t really ideal for roof top tent vehicles, there aren’t many flat places to park, and since your camping in the center lawn you sort of feel like you’re in a fishbowl and everyone is staring at you. It’s plenty big and there are trees, so it’s not too bad, but camping was clearly an afterthought. The ablutions for the camp sites were also not great, clearly not having been cleaned in some time. Which is sort of odd, it didn’t seem like it lined up with the excursions and health smoothies and yoga on offer at the front. We weren’t put off though and we settled in.

Later on a group of teenagers and chaperones from an international school in Maputo showed up to camp, and clearly the area lends itself more to small tents and a group camping than our set up. The staff also rushed out and cleaned the ablutions thoroughly after the group showed up, which was nice.

That night proved to be pretty rainy, so we set up the awning, made a fire and did the best we could to enjoy ourselves. It wasn’t so bad, but at the same time we thought we might spend four or so nights here trying to go surfing and scuba diving, and if the days were all like this it wasn’t looking the best. We resolved to find somewhere else more suited to a longer stay the next day.

We also checked out the other frequently recommended camp spot, Fatima’s Nest Backpackers. Fatima’s is right on the beach just on the north side of town. The camping area isn’t on the beach, it’s back a bit, surrounded by a quite tall fence on 3 of four sides, with Fatima’s making the fourth boundary. In the camp area are a few trees, and a lot of very deep sand and otherwise just a large open area. It was cheap, well located and had a bustling bar & restaurant with good views of the ocean, but the actual camp area was pretty lacking in character. In the end we never found camping that really ticked all the boxes in Tofu, which is a shame.

We did make a day trip up to Barra later on, and the old, now dilapidated, lighthouse campground in Barra looks like it really must have been great in it’s heyday. I don’t know what happened to it, but now it’s pretty much in ruins. I did read about people just camping there anyway, as it does have a great view, with the long beach and ocean views right at your doorstep.

Tofo is a fun town. It’s the first tourist town we’ve been to for quite a while, and the frequent refrain we heard is that people come to stay for a few days and end up staying for weeks. The roads are all sand, but for the first time in quite a while there are tourist shops, simple bars and cafes, trinkets and hawkers of t-shirts and bracelets and all the rest. In a way it was sort of sad, marking the end of the wilder parts of our journey, and a beginning of the influence of South Africa and the associated infrastructure.

But I wasn’t lamenting the loss of wild Africa at dinner, that I can say for sure. We had the best food we’d eaten in ages there. We spoiled ourselves going out to eat, and I highly recommend the sushi place (I think there is only one) and there is a tiny pizza place (possibly called Branko’s?) that also serves hot rock seared steak. Both the steak and the pizza are to die for, we went back a second time.

At the pizza place it’s a crowded little place and the tables are close together. One night we were sitting inches from two French brothers, and somewhere along the line we chatted and shared our stories. Once they learned we were American this lead to a long line of questioning about Donald Trump (it took about two hours, but I will summarize: “how could you!?”), a general harangue about democracy and America’s influence in the world, and many more beers. It was all good natured and we enjoyed talking with them about Mozambique, Tofo, politics and the rest. It was pretty funny, they also bemoaned the state of the roads, but they had come from the south. When we went south later on and found the roads to more or less perfect we thought it was a good thing their trip wasn’t taking them further north!

We ended up spending four nights in Tofo and really relaxing. After our dissatisfying Turtle Cove experience, partially due to weather and no fault of theirs, we asked around and stumbled into a little beach bungalow for $60 USD a night. We had planned on camping, but with no camping that did it for us we splurged on our little casa. It was a fantastic deal, right on the beach, a two bedroom little house, kitchen and everything, just really great.

The only catch with our bungalow was there was nowhere to park the Land Cruiser. We figured we’d just ask around and pay one of the hotels some fee to park it in their lot/zone. To our surprise no one would take our money. Every place we went, and we tried quite a few, said “Why bother? No one will break into your car, just park it near the roundabout and you’ll be fine.” We asked multiple times and everyone assured us this was perfectly safe. This really went against the grain of our general security practices, but eventually we relented. With everything of value stripped out of the Cruiser or hidden from sight, we left it just parked on the street. We moved it each day to a new spot near by to make it look like it was getting used and sure enough, no problems.

Diving is a big thing in Tofo. For a tiny beach town with sand roads there are still something like five SCUBA operators here. Tofo is one of the few areas in the world that has whale sharks and manta rays year round, or nearly so. They do swell in numbers at certain times of the year, but they can also be found year round. We weren’t at the peak time, but we thought we’d give it a try anyway.

It turned out that the poor weather had, unsurprisingly, made for poor dive conditions. They had suspended diving for over a week and just resumed. Jenny is an advanced diver, but I am not, so they insisted we do a check out dive first. The area potential sightings of the larger pelagic animals are in advanced conditions, with strong surface currents and up to 30m deep, so a check out dive is perfectly reasonable. I won’t dwell on our diving experience too much, as it’s probably a whole blog post on it’s own, other than to say that it was quite rough and we didn’t see anything. Also, if you go, make sure you’re comfortable with the gear they provide. I, frankly, was not, as it was in pretty shabby condition, no depth gauge and there was some general disorganization on the dive. I think this had more to do with the dive master than the company, but Africa or not, SCUBA is potentially dangerous and “it’s Africa” is not a good excuse for gear in bad condition and poor organization. I’m sure the owner of the dive company would have been horrified if they had heard what we were told.

Dive not withstanding, I will say that the boating to go diving was great fun. Beach launching and landing a 10 meter RHIB into surf is no joke, and they did an excellent job. The captain of that boat was very good at maneuvering the boat in rough weather and really did his best to keep the ride as comfortable as one could expect in those conditions. It was almost worth going diving just for the boating mayhem. Hitting the beach at full speed in a boat that big is quite something, and they pulled it off very smoothly. And my favorite was the magnum condom used as a waterproofing bag for his hand held GPS.

Eventually it was time to leave. Sadly the weather never really got better, but we did get our fill of grilled prawns, some marginal surfing (conditions were blown out at the good spots), sandy beach walks, good food and nice wandering around town.

Maybe it was the weather, but also leaving Tofo seemed like the beginning of the end of our trip. We felt this sort of inevitability of the end, gravity pulling us to South Africa and the inevitable plane home. That gravity filled me with some apprehension, and I confess that I think I didn’t stop to enjoy as many things as I should have on those last days on the road south. I kept thinking about our trip, where we’d been and how much more there was to see and do.

Of course what I should have been doing was seeing and doing some of those things, not lamenting not having the time to do so. Also I felt at sort of nostalgia for earlier parts of the trip when each day seemed a bit less known, a bit more to figure out. There there were more options open and we didn’t yet know how the trip would play out. The closer we got to the end the less options there were and the path remaining would have few detours.

I am still having trouble untangling this. It seems that part of the magic of this trip is not just elephants and clear starry nights and welcoming people with big smiles. What makes it unique compared to a week off from work at some tropical beach to relax, is the freedom to be uncertain, to make a mistake or be delayed a day and to just not know. I think a whole lot of our lives is spent knowing, striving to pin down our plans and schedules, when and where we’ll be at each portion of the day. In life at home, either by necessity or choice, we make sure that we are at the right place at the right time, commute to work, work, drive home, make dinner, exercise from this time to that, need to go to bed to get enough sleep to get up and do it again. Maybe we shake things up every once in a while, a weekend away, or dinner with friends. And these are all good things! I am looking forward to all those things, to seeing our friends and family, to getting back to work and to chip away at projects on our house. Being domestic and cooking dinners and watching a show at night, being settled in seems like it will be quite wonderful at times. But our lives get filled up and we end up without the freedom to change very much.

This trip has given us the freedom of uncertainty, to wonder what will happen next instead of to know, and to be okay with that.

Next time, onto Limpopo National Park, Kruger, and some visa issues.

We had a few goals in Mozambique.  We were running a little short on time we wanted to continue to make tracks south, to not get stuck in a series of marathon days at the end of the trip.  For this reason, with some reservations, we struck Pemba and Ilha De Mozambique from our itinerary, which is a shame.  We’ll save them for another visit I suppose.  We also considered wandering down to the coast via Zinave National Park, having got some great tips on some unmarked routes from Mike at DriveMoz, who’s eternal persistent support for exploring the wilds of Mozambique is an inspiration.  However we were having some moderate stomach malaise and our appetite for that sort of thing was low for the moment.  Instead we decided to pretty much bee line it to the coast, to the salt water and sea level with which we are the most comfortable.  

First stop was Tete, of the infamous Tete corridor.  The Tete corridor is the N7 (aka R103 depending on your map), a stretch of road that bridges Malawi and Zimbabwe, some 280 or so kilometers.  The road is in pretty good shape, some potholes but there aren’t many villages along the way, and we easily achieved a comfortable speed, up to 100kph or 80 through the villages.  The roads have been set up with a little more separation from the villages than the other places we’ve driven, so it’s safer to go through town at the higher speeds, at least in this area.  I presume this is an effort to protect people from the truck drivers barreling through town at top speed, and it seems to work.

A (very) short primer on Mozambique.  There was a brutal civil war from 1977 to 1992 that devastated the country, leaving it strewn with land mines, with huge challenges to the people of food security, high unemployment and a host of other problems.  The two main entities, the ruling Frelimo party and the Renamo opposition, have had subsequent flare ups of violence since then, the last of which I believe was in 2017.  Back in the day Renamo was sponsored by the South African Intelligence service as a way to combat the Marxist leaning Frelimo government, to keep Frelimo busy and as a check to anti-apartheid support building within Mozambique.  This plan (seemed like a good idea at the time I suppose) has had long lasting implications for Mozambique that they are still wrestling with.  Apologies if I have over simplified things, but suffice to say, Mozambique has some issues.

To traverse the corridor, a finger of Mozambique that separates Malawi and Zimbabwe, the military set up protected convoys that leave at an established time, travel at high speed and stop for no one.  As I understand it, when the convoys are running traffic is one way only, so you wait at your respective end till a convoy sets out in your direction and you can join the pack.  If you have mechanical problems or drive too slow then you’re left behind to manage on your own.  Some have suggested this might be preferable, as one view considers the convoys targets running on a convenient schedule for the opposition, no safer than if you’re on your own.  At some point the Mozambican military was transporting troops on chartered passenger busses, which resulted in the unfortunate side effect of making passenger busses targets for Renamo, so one is advised to not take up station near busses if you are in a convoy and of course to avoid taking the bus for that particular stretch.    

Fortunately for us Renamo and Frelimo are on good terms for the moment, so the convoys are not running and the area is considered safe.  In other good news, the country was declared mine free in 2015, so no worrying where you can and can step when we pull over on the side of the road to pee.  Unlike Angola, where in parts of the country I’ve read about travelers camping literally in the middle of the road to avoid stepping onto the shoulder and the potential mine risk that carries.  Not to mention the obvious problems that poses if you’re one of the local population that lives there.

As we drove into Mozambique we almost immediately began to see wonderful batholith rock formations in the distance, looking really fantastic.  These are reminiscent of the the famous formations in the Yosemite Valley, though here they stand out more, only surrounded by rolling plains of dry open woodland, and then with these huge rocks jutting up out of the earth scattered all over, with layers of granite peeling like the skin of an onion.  It’s really fantastic scenery and I wish we had camped or hiked up some of them.

Tete is something like a 125 kilometers or so from the border so we didn’t have far to travel.  We sped along and appreciated the rocks and also started seeing charcoal for sale.  Lots of it.  Huge bags heaped high on the side of the road by the dozens.  It is obviously a local industry here, making charcoal, and this reminds us of yet another challenge being faced in Africa.

Charcoal, used for cooking, is made by hand here, by chopping down small trees and building a fire with it, and then burying that fire under dirt.  The fire smolders and eventually extinguishers and, voila!, charcoal.  This is hard labor but a way that people living in rural areas can make something to sell with almost no tools or equipment and it takes almost no training.  This charcoal then gets purchased by individuals or sometimes flat bed trucks buy up whole lots to bring into larger population centers to sell or even export.  

Since so many people are cooking over charcoal trees are being cut down faster than they can regrow and deforestation is a mounting problem.  An extreme example of this is in Haiti (not Africa I grant you), where deforestation from charcoal production is so extreme that during the rainy season the good topsoil for farming is washed away and also makes those areas prone to land slides in areas that get a lot of rain.  On top of this there are of course major ecological impacts, but tell that to the guy who needs a way to make a living and it won’t be on the top of his list of concerns, he will be worried about how to feed his or her family.  

A great article about the African charcoal trade: https://www.safarious.com/article/14781-man-friday-crime-terror-and-instability-all-fueled-by-africas-illegal-charcoal-trade

In Zambia we asked and a bag of charcoal I can barely lift goes for a little over $2.50 USD.  Here the price was just shy of $8 USD, though the bags here were a bit bigger.  Unsure how easy it’d be to find charcoal or firewood later on we did our own small part to contribute to the deforestation of Africa, and bought one of these enormous bags.  It took me and the charcoal seller (Jenny wasn’t tall enough) to wrestle it onto the roof rack, and I am thankful that we didn’t anticipate any rough off roading in the near future with so much extra weight on the roof.  It turns out that we could find charcoal and firewood throughout Mozambique, pretty much everywhere, but we didn’t know that at the time.  

Continuing on we starting making our way into the outskirts of Tete.  Our guidebook hilariously describes Tete as having a climate that is “both dusty and almost intolerably muggy,” but on the day we arrived it was warm, sunny and pretty nice all around.  With the rainy season recently passed the dust had not taken over yet, and the countryside and foliage in town was pleasantly green.  

Tete turned out to be a lot bigger than we imagined.  Town proper lies on the Southwest side of the Zambezi river, but on the Northwest side from which we were approaching there was plenty of industry.  

Traffic thickened as we made our way into town and we really felt like we were in a proper city.  There is a big new shopping mall being built on the right side of the road, just before the Shopright center marked on the map.  We stopped at the Shopright to stock up on a couple supplies and pick up a SIM card for our phone.  I forget the price, but data for the phones was cheap here, and even though you do need to register your phone with you passport the process was relatively painless, unlike Tanzania (slow) or Kenya (near impossible).  

We had some concerns about our camp for the night, it is right in town and we had read one place that it wasn’t in a great part of town and to be careful.  But deciding it was far too late to push further on we were committed, so we went to check out the Jesus E. Bom campsite, right in town on the banks of the Zambezi river.

We took the very last turn before the formidable Tete bridge across the Zambezi and made our way into a somewhat scruffy neighborhood.  Not far down the road we saw the sign, and behind a tall wall with a steel gate was our campsite, right in the middle of town.  We used the universal “come to the gate” password, a couple short beeps of the car horn, and a minute later the gate slide open and we were beckoned in.  

What we found was a very pleasant surprise.  It’s a small spot with room for about five vehicles to camp on beautiful green lawn right on the banks of the Zambezi.  It had a wonderful view of the river, shade trees and we were happy.  There is an open boma where you can cook or wash-up in, a house were the caretaker seemed to be living in, a nice ablution block and even a clean swimming pool, all for about $10 pppn.  

When we arrived there were two other vehicles setting up camp.  We picked a spot on the lawn and set up.  It was exceedingly pleasant, and great to look out onto the Zambezi again, which we had last seen in Southern Zambia more than a month earlier.  We had our chairs out and we’re sipping a beer and we heard another honk at the gate.  The camp attendant let them in and it turned out to be our friends Gabby and Wolfgang that we hadn’t seen since Kapishya Hot Springs in Zambia.  Small world!  

They are a German couple who were spending 10 months driving around southern Africa.  We had met them at Wildlife Camp in South Luangwa National Park and subsequently saw them at Chifunda and Kapishya.  Amazing that we were now again in the same spot.  After they found a place to set up we happily swapped stories that evening of where each had been and what was next.  It turned out that they were had a similar plan to head to the coast and so we would probably see them again.

Another car showed up to camp that night, bringing the site pretty much up to full capacity, though I suppose in a pinch you could squeeze in another vehicle or two if you really had to.  Later on the owner showed up after we had all arrived and he was obviously surprised to see his camp so full.  He asked me if we were all traveling in a group and when I said no he couldn’t believe it.  It seems that Jesus E. Bom Camp is not routinely this busy, so if you’re headed this way I wouldn’t worry about booking ahead.

Like some of our favorite camps there is a camp dog roaming around, and we enjoyed his company while watching the waters of the Zambezi flow by.

We decided to adopt are more modest schedule the next day, and after getting up early I had a relaxing morning of coffee and reading while Jenny slept in.  We even made a hot breakfast and finally got around to breaking camp around nine o’clock, very civilized and a luxury we hadn’t had much of on the trip.  Paid up and ready to go we headed off.  We fueled up and after some getting turned around in downtown Tete we found a working ATM, and then we were off. 

Tete is the biggest city we’d been in for a while and it took a little time to make our way through the outskirts of town.  After that it was smooth sailing on good roads, rolling along.  We had been warned about how terrible the roads were in Mozambique and so far we were thinking the odd pothole here and there was pretty great.  Out of town we saw some industrious kids along the roads that are filling potholes with gravel and hoping for a few coins to be thrown out the window.  They did the same thing in Kacheliba when I was working there ten years ago, and the drivers explained they dig out the gravel every evening so they cans start back at it in the morning, but it’s not begging, even our drivers then would give a couple coins if they had them, and the roads are smoother for their efforts so I’m okay with that.  

As we made our way along we noticed that in some of the river beds they were farming.  We supposed that the rainy season must be totally over or they wouldn’t risk losing their crops, but in the sandy flats of the riverbeds there were bright green crops springing up out of the sand, with braids of river winding in and around the sand islands.  

We hemmed and hawed about what our destination was.  Originally I had wanted to duck into Zimbabwe for a few days, I had an interest in seeing the ruins at Great Zimbabwe.  But our visa was only a single entry visa and after talking to some other travelers and reading up it didn’t seem certain that we could reenter Mozambique even if we were willing to pay for an additional visa.  We decided not to try it and continue south.  We had heard about a place called Pink Papaya Overlanders, which was marked on our T4A atlas, but decided it wasn’t far enough south and would make the following day too long.  

Following a tip from Mike at DriveMoz on Facebook we decided to push on through Chimoio and head to Ndzou Lodge and Campsite further south.  We got turned east of the N7 onto the EN6, which must have just been resurfaced, it was probably the nicest road we’d driven yet on the trip.  Again the famed poor roads of Mozambique had yet to materialize, so we sped along easily.  We fueled up in Chimoio and pressed south onto an unnamed road, towards Sussundenga, Ndzou campsite and Dombe.  

The road was ours, and we enjoyed the freedom of a lonely road and watched the countryside, still with some wonderful big rocks (this is an understatement) here and there, and some dramatic looking mountains further south and west of us.  We started to rise out of the lowlands and wind up the spine of some foothills into greener foilage.  Making it to Ndzou ended up being a long day, including stops it was 9 hours, 480kms.

Ndzou ended up being a nice little stop.  On T4A it’s shown as a lodge, and it has some basic bungalows, but also a couple campsites.  The campsites are set up for tent campers, not so much for roof top tents, but we were the only ones there and found a place to squeeze in and settled in.  

It’s high up and you can tell it must rain a lot, it’s very green and jungle like, though cool.  Ndzou is community run.  We had a great conversation and sit down with Nelson, the camp manager, where topics ranged from the camp and how many of his staff have never met a tourist before working here and do not have much education, to the state of current politics in Mozambique, Renamo and Frelimo’s recent agreements and many more topics.  It was thoroughly enjoyable and Nelson was a pleasure to talk with.

One of the many things I’ve pondered while driving in Africa is why a road that seems perfectly good on one stretch changes, with no apparent change of geology or road type, to be a mess of potholes, crumbling away at the edges, and then some while later might resume it’s previous high quality.  Why is this?  I wondered if this was simply the b-team road crew working that stretch, or they had run short of road bed materials for a while or something like that.  In talking to Nelson he mentioned that parts of the road to Ndzou are bad (not that bad really) because when those parts of the road were being built there was fighting in the area and the road crews were hurrying to avoid being caught in the crossfire of occasional spates of violance, and thus were working as fast as they could.  Not surprisingly quality suffered.  I had certainly never thought of that, not a problem we have back home.

Ndzou can do meals, though I think only pre-booked, and they had nice ablutions but the water pump was solar powered and it had been overcast, so no running water for us today.  Never the less they insisted in carting in water by wheelbarrow and heating it so we could have a hot shower.  They also built us a fire and were generally very helpful.  I’d certainly recommend a stop.  They have an emphasis on conservation and can also arrange guided elephant tracking hikes, but I understand that elephants sightings are quite rare to actually see here.  It seems that their numbers are quite reduced from the civil war and I suppose they’re understandably wary of people. 

We had a pleasant evening camping amongst the trees in the forest, though a bit damp.  The trees are covered in moss and it cleared rains a lot, it was very green and lush.  The camp staff provided firewood and I spent a lot of time fussing with a damp fire, which is just fine with me.

The next morning we headed out and towards the sea, aiming for Inhassoro.  The road was in excellent shape, a winding decent through crops of bananas and forest and comes out fairly quickly to flatlands.  We had asked about water and Nelson said there was a good borehole in a village just after the road leveled out, and it was so.  We drove around this little village and after getting some mixed directions found the borehole outside the clinic, of course.  Mental note, the borehole is always by the clinic or school.  Except for when it isn’t.

There were a whole flock of kids at the borehole getting water in the ubiquitous yellow oil jugs and we were prepared to wait our turn.  The kids wouldn’t have it though and insisted on not only letting us cut the line but also on pumping for us.  

There was a significant language barrier here, but the general impression I got from the kids was, “I don’t know what your deal is, but I know my job is to pump the water.”  And so they filled us up.  It’s been interesting to observe that in some places we seem to be of great interest, where we can pull over to the side of the road in the seeming middle of nowhere and out pop a few people and some kids super interested in what we’re up to, and then other places we go and there is friendly indifference.  Regardless, with a few smiles and a wave we were filled up and on our way.  

On the way out of the village we noticed an old man in a formal military dress, a pressed uniform with all the trimmings.  Odd we thought, I wonder what his story is.  A little further down the road we saw two more older guys in military dress uniforms.  Hmm?  Making our way along we also noticed the usual number of people and bicycles along the side of the road, but interestingly they were all headed the same direction, nobody was coming towards us.  We hadn’t seen this yet, the only thing we could think of was it was market day.  

Driving further towards the village of Dombe we saw more and more people, all going the same direction.  Then trucks with the back full of people, all going the same direction we were going.  What is going on?!  Well, we were headed that way, so we supposed we would know soon enough.  Turning left into Dombe the road was getting pretty crowded with people, and finally in the village we saw a huge crowd was pretty much blocking the road and a police officer waved us down.  

Were were happy to oblige, hoping he could tell us what was going on.  We stopped and he told us we couldn’t go that way, which was going to be a problem for us because it was going to be a huge detour if we had to go around.  We asked what was going on and he said the President was giving a speech.  “The president of what?” I asked.  “Of Mozambique!”  What? We went around a couple times to make sure we were getting this right, that the president of Mozambique was in Dombe, a pretty small village, giving a political rally, today.  Yep, that was happening.  Looking past the Police officer I noticed two Sikorsky helicopters landed in the soccer field, and that pretty much convinced me this wasn’t some sort of misunderstanding.  

We hemmed and hawed on what to do and eventually the police officer said the rally hadn’t started yet, so we could go through the crowd as long as we went very slowly.  No problem, slowly is our middle name!  There was a lot of people here, Mozambique flags flying and Frelimo signs everywhere, more old men in military dress, police and armed guards all over the place.  If you read anything about traveling in less developed countries it won’t be long before you come across advice to never attend political rallies, protests and that sort of thing, particularly if you’re not familiar with the political context.  It is frequently the spark point of riots or they can be targets of violence.  

So here we find our selves, in a throng of people at a political rally with the president of Mozambique just a day or two after an agreement was signed between Frelimo and Renamo.  Oops!  Jenny was tempted to stay and watch, there was a great energy from the crowd, and what an opportunity to get to see a president speak.  We decided to creep our way through and continue onward and not risk it.  We took a couple side tracks through the village and on the parts we had to be on the main road we just snuck through at a crawl and people gave us room.  And after not too long we were through, heading east on a dirt road marked “good road” on T4A.  We were through.

And they were right, a good road indeed!  After all the dire warnings of the terrible roads in Mozambique we have found ourselves on our third day of making tracks and nary a bad road has been seen.  Knowing that we would probably be humbled soon we decided to enjoy it while it lasted.

On that note, I ask that you forgive my continual interest in roads.  Like a sailor upon the sea, the roads are the medium of the overlander.  The potholes, the texture, marram, dirt, sand, tarmac, drainage ditches, shoulders, markings or no, I have be come somewhat obsessed at the quality of roads.  We’re not so much a searching for the finest, but more marveling at the variance and how they change ones whole outlook on a day.  

Will we sail through the soft sand of the Kalahari, an almost magic carpet like experience at times, or smash our way over the soul crushing corrugations of the Serengeti?  Will the potholes be, as one South African we met put it, “large enough to hide a giraffe in,” or will they just be enough to keep you focused?  And why the changes, why is a particularly satisfactory stretch of pavement suddenly descend into clifflike potholes capable of tearing out our suspension?  

I find myself pondering the pavement often, fascinated by the all the different types.  I remember in school being told that the Inuit in the Arctic have 200 different words for snow, to describe its various states of wet and dry, falling in thick blizzards or idyllic Christmas mornings.  I find myself thinking the same way about roads now.  When someone asks me how the road conditions are I feel the pressure of a sommelier, of tarmac, wanting to match the description of the road with the expectations and knowledge of the inquirer.  I want to accurately describe these ribbons of conveyance that stretch like veins across countries, to the capillaries of transport into some of the deepest stretches of the bush, descending from roads to tracks to bicycle paths, all connecting us together.  

As we have met travelers on this trip “how is the road” is a common question, and we each swap our knowledge, appreciating what we can learn from each other.   And it’s amazing to me that somehow the smallest village down a winding bush track is connected to the metropolis of Johannesburg or Cape Town.  Just take the right number of rights and lefts and spend enough time and you can make your way where you please.  

We sped along “good road” and not too long after arrived at the famed EN1, the main north/south highway in Mozambique.  Right at the junction in Chibamo there was a woman selling wonderful pao frito, a wonderful fried bread for a few cents apiece, so we loaded up on bread and turned south. 

Ah, so this is the famous bad roads everyone was talking about.  The EN1 was not in great shape.  What can I say, lots of potholes and slow going.  Lots of driving on the side of the highway on dirt, which other drivers have judged to be better than the actual road.  We wound our way south, on the side, on the highway, over and beside potholes and made our way along.  There wasn’t much traffic, so at least all the gyrations we went through searching for smooth road wasn’t also competing with everyone else.  

The road was fairly uneventful.  When we arrived at Save, and the Save River bridge, there was a phalanx of officials on the south side, I suppose police officers of each local and federal departments, as well as military, all represented in the different uniforms.  We were questioned by each, our paperwork inspected and other than the immigration officer who asked for a handout of some sort, which we politely declined, we were on our way.   

The weather was overcast and it was spitting a bit of rain here and there and it wasn’t really encouraging us to explore much so we just kept pressing on, hoping for better weather at the coast and looking forward to being on the beach.  

At the turnoff from the EN1 to Inhassoro there is a Total station which we figured we hit on the way out.  The branch road heading to Inhassoro is in excellent shape and was a nice break from the bumps of the EN1.  When we got to town we weren’t sure where we were going to stay, so we checked out a couple options.  We took a look at the Seta Lodge Campsite, which was pretty uninspiring.  It was sort of shabby, and the campsites were back from the beach and there is some buildings and a wall between you and the beach, not really a nice setting.

We continued on to the well recommended Goody Villas Campsite, a couple kilometers south of town down a sandy road.  Goodys has a huge flat grassy area with lots of trees around for shade and I assume in peak season you would see dozens of campers here.  Today there was one other vehicle, so we had our pick of spots.  We went pretty much as close to the water as we could get and settled in.  There are braai stands and each campsite gets a key to it’s own very clean toilet and shower, which is adjacent to a kitchen washing up area.  Pretty swank and a nice set up.  The only real detraction from the scene is the fence between you and the water, though I’m sure it’s there for good reason, while I was sitting in camp and staring at the ocean it did distract a little bit.

An hour or so later our friends Gabby and Wolfgang that we had reunited with in Tete also arrived, and after some hellos they settled in as well and we swapped stories again of our drive down.  They had left Tete after us and had intended to camp at Pink Papaya Overlanders Camp north of Chimoio, only to arrive and find it has been shutdown and turned into some sort of farm equipment depot.  Apparently they guy that worked there said he gets people stopping all the time trying to camp and he wished T4A would take it off the map.  He said even the entire Put Foot Rally had arrived planning to camp once, not knowing the place was no longer in operation.  So a note to others, Pink Papaya Overlanders is no longer in business.  Pink Papaya Backpackers in Chimoio is, but I don’t believe they offer camping.

We settled into to Goodys for a few days.  When the tide is out here there is a huge wide hard packed sand beach and we spent hours strolling along looking at traditional boats and enjoying the scene.  Prawns are on offer here and we frequently we were offered prawns for sale.  We finally caved and bought some huge prawns and cooked them on the grill and they were delicious, but they also made Jenny sick.  Fortunately it was short lived, but made us wary.  

The world cup was on still and we went down to the Brisa Mar Restaurant just south of us and watched the game and had some of the best fish I’ve ever eaten, it was fantastic.  

Inhassoro is one of the places you can access the famous Bazaruto Archipeligo National Park.  Unfortunately the weather continued to be pretty hit or miss, it was quite windy and rain squalls were blowing through from time to time.  To get out to the park you go in a powered wooden dhow for an all day excursion, and looking at the forecast we weren’t too keen on getting stuck out for a whole day in the questionable weather.  So I’m sad to say we gave it a pass.  Goodys offered pretty good protection from the wind, and the rain squalls were short enough, mostly, that we sheltered under our awning, and for the one longer one we made use of the larger thatched boma near the pool.

After a few days on the beach our itch to be on the move kicked in and it was time to go.  Highlights here were having morning coffee and watching the fishing vessels sail at sunrise, walking along the beautiful white sand beach, amazing fish dinner and generally hanging out in a nice tropical seaside campsite.  Bazaruto will have to wait for next time.