Indian Ocean beach life, continued...

Lots to catch up on, here we go...

Bazaruto Archipelago

Last week we were still in Vilankulo and we had just left Ricky's palace and checked back into a hostel. On our final day there, first thing in the morning we jumped into a 'dhow', a sail boat that has been used for 100s of years from Indonesia to India to Persia to Zanzibar, all the way down the coast of Africa. We were on our way to one of the biggest islands of the Bazaruto Archipelago, Ilha Benguerua (I think). As we got closer the water turned more and more blue and clear.

Landing on the island our guides told us just to walk the perimeter of the island. It seemed like a stupid idea at the time, but damn what a treat. The sand was white and powder-fine and stretched into the horizon. The dunes were peppered with low palm-like bushes, the green creating a really stunning contrast with the sand and sea. As we walked we came across washed up jellyfish, some white, some purple. The water was warm and shallow and on the side facing the mainland, barely disturbed by a ripple. On the ocean-facing side we came across what seemed like miles and miles of crabs running into the crashing surf, panicked by the vibrations of our footsteps. I felt like a kid chasing after them, laughing like a wild man. Les felt like a mother I'm sure ;) She was none too happy when I finally caught one, only to have its leg snap off. Sorry, crab. We came across sand dollar shells, which are very smooth white discs imprinted with a geometrical pattern on it. Never saw that before.

By the time we completed our circuit, the guides had cooked a very impressive meal, more so because they did it on an open fire in the boat. We sat on the beach eating bread, rice, salad, chicken, calamari, and whole crabs. Decent. After seconds we jumped in the water and did some snorkeling. I've tried this a few times in various places, but damn this was like nothing I'd ever seen. In the first 5 seconds I saw a stone/scorpion fish (the name is a matter of some debate), which is more regal looking than a peacock and will kill you with no regrets if you touch it. We saw schools of smaller fish, dozens of bigger, lone tuna-like fish, sea urchins, moray eels, blow fish and some big octopus. All in the span of about 20 minutes. We returned to the mainland before sunset, had dinner and went to bed in preparation for our onward journey.

Tofo Beach

The next morning we set out for Tofo, which involved another minibus ride to Maxixe (Ma-sheesh), crossing the strait by ferry to Inhambane, and another minibus to Tofo. What we found was a small town essentially entirely dependent on the tourist industry, which I didn't expect. Even in the low season there were a fair amount of 20-something backpackers. A great place to be if you have no purpose in the world, like me. Oddly enough we had dinner at a French restaurant where we spent way too much money - the story of our entire time in the country, come to think of it. Guess we were spoiled that way in Malawi.

Next morning we struck out for Tofinho, a 'suburb' of Tofo. In actual fact it was a 20 minute walk down the beach and consists of rich South Africans' beach homes. Incidentally, it's the unofficial surfing capital of Mozambique. I had a great time wandering down the dirt paths. At one point we climbed a hill to look at the 'Tofinho Monument', a broken-shackle-sporting-fist poking out of a concrete pyramid. Socialist Liberationists are not very original. Anyway I'm taking an obligatory photo of this when Les goes 'oh my God, look!' I turn around and what do I see, but a gigantic whale about 50 metres from the cliff we happen to be standing on. That was incredible. We spent the next 30 minutes or so watching them swim past, and in the distance Les could see one waving its tail for at least 20 minutes in the same spot. Mating ritual perhaps? WILD! On our way back we found a sushi restaurant (random?!) and had a bite and a beer watching whales in the blue yonder.

The next day we were absolutely determined to do some scuba diving. And that's exactly what we did because we are not people that mess around. In the morning we took a refresher course - it had been 12 years since I'd been diving and I have the picture on my diving license, which Les affectionately refers to as the 'little Mexican boy' picture to prove it. We both rocked it, obviously. In the afternoon we got into a speedboat and it immediately started raining, which meant we had to change dive sites from the 'chamber of secrets' to something else... 'chamber of fuck all' I think.

We had to push the boat out manually, against these metre and a half high waves. When the dive master shouted 'everyone' into the boat I took it seriously and ended up kicking Les in the head and coming down with all my weight on my finger, which to this day is now referred to as my 'sausage finger'. It only took 10 minutes to get out to the dive site, but the wind was kicking up a bit of a fuss and apparently that's all the time it takes for both Lesley and Mike to come to the brink of vomiting. We managed to avoid going over the edge by dropping into the water. At first I couldn't submerge - no clue why - then I couldn't equalize and very quickly my ear drums expanded to 100x their size. Pain. But we got sorted out and we managed to have a non-disastrous dive, despite being tossed around by the current like a ragdoll. We saw some interesting site, including some type of manta, but it was no Bazaruto.

After only about 25 minutes we had to come up because I was down to the 50 mark on my air tank. Somehow I had managed to use up my air twice as quickly as anyone else - probably because I'm huge - but I wasn't about to tell anyone that I was the reason for the short dive. We surfaced eventually, despite Les dropping like a stone into the murky depths at one point, with me watching (don't even do that to me again, hun). Oddly enough, I proceeded to puke my guts out with Les following suit momentarily. What a waste of a perfectly good lunch of bunny chow (half a loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with curry). In hindsight we probably should have had something lighter, like a hot pocket.

We finally managed to get into the boat, no mishaps this time, and although neither Les (who had the nausea worse) nor I were capable of arguing at this point, I was definitely not happy that we were going to crawl back to shore so the second dive shop person could do a few tests required for her dive master qualification, including a swim back to shore using only her legs. It took her 30 minutes total. But at least we were returning to a place that was reputed to have the hottest showers in town! AHA, foiled again! There was no water pressure! So looking like drowned rats, Captain Nemo and I hobbled back to the pad and changed into all our warmest clothes. The next day was a write off (the good kind), and the day after that we were on our way to Maputo, the nation's capital (Dun-dun dunhhhh)!!!