So after South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, here I was, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. I'm showing below a little map of all I had been travelling so far:
The vibe in Mozambique is very chill and nice, a bit more relaxed than the sometimes a bit tensed South Africa. The official language in Mozambique is Portuguese, although like in South Africa people mostly speak their own local african language. People are also very friendly and welcoming there, and often randomly say hello and smile at you in the street!
Maputo isn't all that interesting, and like most african big cities, it is extremely noisy, dirty and chaotic. So I only stayed a couple of nights there, and then headed north towards Tofo (top right on the map), a nice beach destination. I had decided to take some holidays within my holidays! Constantly travelling from place to place can get quite exhausting, and I was looking forward to having somewhere to just relax for a a week or two.
Tofo is a quite popular destination (although Mozambique isn't a very touristy country), and in my hostel at Maputo I actually met two other guys, an Austrian and an Iranian from Qatar, who were both going to Tofo as well! We all went on different days but eventually met there, they were really nice. The trip to Tofo was a bit tough... 10 hours stuck in a crowded minibus, the same kind as in South Africa! Except they call them "Chapas" there. 10 hours with almost no break and barely enough space to breathe, that was a bit extreme! As per usual the chapa was driving like crazy on a small road, in a pretty terrible state. Roads in South Africa were actually pretty new and well maintained, in Mozambique there are potholes everywhere, sometimes so big that you have to drive on the opposite side to avoid damaging your car... Quite an adventure! Also, in Mozambique the police is everywhere and stops random cars (and almost systematically every chapa) about every 20 kilometers or so, it's crazy! The reason of course is that they are asking for bribes as soon as anything is slightly wrong with the car... And there's everything wrong with chapas! So you have to get used to being pulled over all the time, which is not making the trip any shorter...
After an enduring trip, I finally made it in Tofo... and it was worth the suffering!
I enjoyed some nice time at the beach, with my two newly met friends, Tofo really had a nice relaxed vibe. The weather was nice and warm during the day (slightly cool in the evening), enjoyable for a swim, and I drank some nice coconuts there too!
We went on an ocean safari on a boat, to see whales! They were everywhere... quite difficult to catch on camera because they only come out of the water for a couple seconds, but I did manage to get one partially:
And even more impressive, I got to see whales sharks... We had to jump into the water quickly with mask and snorkel when the skipper would see one, and I saw one whale shark swimming towards me and pass right one or two meters below me, that was unbelievable! And a bit scary... Whale sharks are the biggest shark species (up to 18 meters size!), but fortunately they are harmless to humans.
Pretty massive!
I stayed about two weeks in Tofo and did loads of activities, while relaxing as well. I had a nice little apartment with a super cute kitty:
I went on a nice little visit of local villages and of the estuary of a big river nearby:
The estuary Got to see some nice fishes in the estuary:
But I came out of the water with some big rash on my back that took over a week to go away... I guess the water wasn't that clean, or I just got unlucky.
Then, following one of my friends recommendation, I decided to try scuba diving for the first time. Going through the whole diving license courses wasn't exactly cheap, but after he told me how he was swimming together with whales in Tofo I thought that could be a nice investment! Unfortunately I didn't get to do the full 3 day formation because the weather changed to pretty windy for a few days, cancelling all diving excursions. I still got to do one dive in the sea though, after some training in a swimming pool. And that was amazing!
I was alone with two instructors, we went to about 10 meters deep, saw some nice corals and loads of fishes! Really loved being able to stay so long underwater (almost an hour!), and swimming with the full diving equipment really is something else, as you are not constantly pushed to the surface thanks to the weights. I also found the theory with the pressure and the air being compressed in your lungs really interesting... didn't know that your whole body adapts to more dense air and more oxygen in your blood as you go deeper. That's also why it's so dangerous to go back to the surface too quickly. But it all went really well, and now I'm eager to do some more diving in Madagascar to get my license!
Unfortunately my camera did not survive that dive... Although it is a waterproof camera that can theoretically go down to 18 meters depths, I guess it was too old and not up to the task anymore. Some water got inside and quickly killed it completely.
RIP little camera, thank you for 6 years of pretty pictures around the world! From now on the pictures quality will not be that good anymore unfortunately, because my phone's camera is not the best.
Oh and the sunsets are just amazingly gorgeous here, it's like the whole sky is illuminating with crazy colors... I had never seen anything like it before:
After a wonderful relaxing time in Tofo, I headed back to Maputo (in 10 more hours of chapa!) as my mum was coming to visit! More about it in the next post.
Hi Nico! We are waiting for next pictures from Madagascar and Mauritius! Take care and enjoy Your travel. Interesting to See Helenka on Your way👍
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