Okay, so this one is a little bit late (six months). This was mid July, but better late than never! Incidentally, it’s world pangolin day, so go hug a pangolin, or lacking access to one at least google it.
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.
