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From Goody’s we set off to Tofo. Pronounced “tofu”, like the food, we had heard that Tofo offered surfing, scuba diving and a nice beach. From the sounds of things it is an actual tourist town, and we were curious to see if we would find it nice to have some tourist infrastructure or if it would be too much for us after knocking around some parts of Africa that could care less if you’re a tourist.

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.