It’s A Long Way To Tipperary

Archive for the ‘Africa’ Category

Having had more than enough of Maputo after only 2 days we head off early in the morning after stocking up on some food supplies. Read the rest of this entry »

My first day in Maputo was mostly spent trekking around looking for a replacement wing mirror which was stolen from the car which I left parked on the street for less than five minutes! Read the rest of this entry »

Luckily i’d managed to find two people who were travelling to Maputo on the same day as me and had agreed to share diesel. Unfortunately i’d lost my phone the night before (another Tofo party!) and spent a good two hours driving around the near by town where they lived looking for them. Eventually I ran into one of them purely by chance and we were soon on our way. Read the rest of this entry »

Due to a very tragic death of a friend of our family in Kenya Dara was going to be in East Africa on very short notice to attend the funeral and decided to pop down and visit me while she was in the neighborhood. She was flying into Maputo for the 17th (Day 432) and I thought, what better place to hold up for her than the highly recommended Tofo? Only 450km from Maputo so I would just head down the day before she arrived Read the rest of this entry »

The talk of the town in Vilanculos was the storm that was due to arrived sometime later in the day. Myself and the two chefs decided that we didn’t fancy hanging around Vilanculos so the three of us headed off to Tofo, the next stop on the Mozambiquan backpackers circuit. Read the rest of this entry »

Vilanculos is the start of the backpacker circuit in Mozambique, most people coming straight from Malawi East and not bothering with Northern Mozambique. It’s also the start of the South African invasion from the South. This means that the town is very built up, the beach very busy and also very dirty especially compared to the pristine Pebane beach. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d asked around, checked my guidebooks and looked at my maps but I couldn’t find anywhere worth stopping all the way south until a town called Vilanculos so it was another long day in the saddle. Read the rest of this entry »

I decided to spent the day in Caia in an efforto break up some long drives and try and catch up on the blog. (Un)Fortunately however I was rather distracted by the lovely forest. Read the rest of this entry »

As a bridge was down I had to take the long way around to get back on the main road heading south the next day and when I finally reached tarmac again it was very welcome after over 800km on dusty mostly corrugated roads. The fact that in those 800km i’d only passed one petrol station, selling diesel out of a barrel, was a  mark of how remote the route was.
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Over breakfast the next morning I had a very pleasent chat with my hotel mates – all Mozambiquan MPs!!! African politicians fascinate me – far too many living up to their awful reputation.
Not impressed with my accommodation, I had decided overnight to head on from Pebane the next morning if I couldn’t find somewhere nicer to stay. After searching town and finding nothing I headed down to the beach to go for a swim before leaving. Read the rest of this entry »