The Adventures of Mozam Kam....: The place Im calling paradise....

Im back, it feels like its been a while since my last chat! In fact its been nearly one month but Ive felt I have really had anything eventful to say. I think Im settling into life here and so I have a little bit more of a routine now. Ive found my feet and am just getting on with each of the projects at hand.

This blog is a little bit of a mish mash of things although I might create a few seprate blogs as there are a few topics I wanted to disscuss that have come up over the last week or so. I start with our little big adventure to Tofo (pronounced Tofu like that veggie dish) last weekend….

Last weekend was the magical trip to Tofo. I fell in love with the place and when I retire Im going to live there forever in a beautiful house made from wood. Im going to kick the man that currently resides in it out or we could share it….I dunno its something I’ll have to negotiate with him. We left on Thursday as it was a public holiday in Mozambique celebrating Women, ‘Dia de Mulher’, so I took Friday off from magical Mozarte (hmmm) and stayed at Nastasia’s house in Opica with her host Mum who is 75. Apparently she had made a cake for us but decided that because we had arrived home far too late, 9pm, she was not cutting it for us which was heart breaking because I could see it on the table and the cakes here are sooooo good however on the flip side you know how the saying goes ‘a minute on the lips a lifetime on those old hips’so I just let it go.We woke up on Thursday at 3.30am to start the 8hr bus journey to Tofo. We arrived at the chappa station at 4.45am in order to catch the chappa at 5. It was still dark and Jan and Salome arrived shortly after. We hopped on the bus with all ourtravellers rusacks….mine was sooooo heavy and it had nothing it. I think it was giving some breathing issues but noneless Ive not yet learnt to pack light and so I guess that’s the price I have to pay! Joing us on the bus journey was a man that looked about 65 years old if not older and he looked like he had been drinking non-stop from the night before. He was singing, whistling and talking so loudly with the Coprador and the people at the front (poor them) along with his wife who he called Mama who sat behind him. From 5am when we entered the bus till 12pm when he exited at his paragem this guy did not stop…. I thought he was very entertaining and him dancing to Rihanna ‘Whats my name’ using his mobile phone after removing his shirt at around 10am was probably one of the highlights. During the journey all passangers were asked to write their full name and end destination on a sheet of paper along with a contact name in case of an accident. I laughed so hard because if there was an accident I think that piece of paper would be lost amongst all the bags of rice, clothes, live chickens and people so I just found it very strange that driver would bother with something like this. I was willing to believe that if you entered a chappa you are putting your life into the hands of the driver so if something ‘happens’….well…..you shouldn’t have got on a clapped out, overloaded, 40 year old bus in the first place.

Anyway, we arrived in Tofo at about 2pm and checked into Fatima’s Nest which is a backpackers ‘resort’ on the beach. I really wasn’t looking forward to staying in a hostel BUT this was no ordinary hostel people! It was sooooo nice and Ive attached pictures of our lodgings below including views from inside my mosquito net….woooo. The room slept 8 people and we paid 500 metical’s per night which is about £10. The showers were magical as I haven’t had a shower since I arrived in Mozambique as Ive been doing the manual bucket shower for the last 3 months….the shower even pushed out hot water (actually lukewarm but It felt hot to me) It was heaven! The toilet flushed and there was toilet paper in each cubical no drip drying required at the place…eeeekkkkk! The bar area was really nice with deckchairs everywhere and the whole place was like sand village. The restaurant menu was written on a chalkboard and featured pancakes, yoghurt with fruits, curries, noodles and the list goes on it was marvellous! I couldn’t wait for breakfast in the morning! The view from the bar/restaurant was brilliant with white sand and blue sea everywhere. We chilled out at the beach for a few hours before it got dark and I really felt like I was on holiday. I felt asleep on a table in the bar at about 10.30pm so Nastasia sent me to bed.

The next day it was sunny but a touch windy. Jan wanted to go diving and or snorkelling but the sea was really rough and the instructor didn’t think it was safe to go out to sea. He was a little gutted but we took the best walk ever along the beach. I haven’t seen anywhere in the world as beautiful Tofo beach, the white sand dunes, blue sea and clear skies were fantastic. We walked for about and 1.5hr and just took it all in. At some points of the walk we were the only four people strolling the day away. The waves were ridiculously strong so it wasn’t the nicest for swimming but the surfers were out in full force. We met a lady who looked about 50 who had been surfing for 30 years. We first saw her after we climbed a mountain of rocks which gave us a brilliant view of the sea and the surfing. The lady who looked 50 was brilliant….Ive never seen surfing in ‘real life’ so this was so really amazing to watch. She came and spoke to us after her wave gliding tricks and flips and we gave her a massive cheer and a very corny thumbs up. She then explained she had been surfing all over the world and let me hold her board which she told me was very special because it was so light and then she started to get a little technical.… it was light and I just nodded to the rest of the conversation like I knew what she was going on about. Anyway, she was a teacher is South Africa and was in Tofo for a short break. We told her that were were all volunteers working with children and she was very impressed. People always seem to be impressed when we say we are volunteers which is strange but I guess it’s a big deal for people.

I think Im getting more and more lazy these days. I want to go into more detail about the trip but I cant be bothered to type….sorry! I will do my best though to keep the momentum going….right. Overall the trip was fab. We ate at a restaurant called Tofo Tofo and food was DELICIOUS. We partied at Dino’s on Friday night and Turtle Cove had drumming around a log fire and then we went to Inno’s on Saturday night. Turtle Cove is another backpackers resort and it was LUSH! For an extra £2 -3 you could stay in one of these really lush cabins. It’s a surfing and Yoga resort so you can borrow boards at a good price and or do Yoga for about £4 a day for 1.5hrs. I think when I go back to Tofo I will stay there as it was soooooo nice. The beach is about a 15min walk away which is not far but I suppose it is really nice being on the beach like at Fatimas Nest. There was no sleep from Saturday through to Sunday as the bus back to Maputo was leaving at 4am. We got a little chappa from Tofo beach back to Inanbarne and it was one of the most funniest journey Ive had. This might fall into my ‘Chappa of the Week’ section as I havnet actually completed any Chappa of the week stories. Ok, so we got on the chappa with all our bags and the journey is about 30mins so along the way we picked up more passengers. I think at one point we had approximately 25 people in a 15 seater mini van with 3 people holding on to the outside as we speed along this long snady road. We had a man that we picked up from Inno’s who had been drinking Larintina Preta (local Beer) all night because we stopped twice along the way so he could through up. On the third stop we just left him at the sideof the road it because I think he was so drunk he really wouldn’t have been able to find his way back onto the chappa. Anyway then the driver loaded on a giant sack of something and had to move Nastasia ginormous travellers rucksack in order to squeeze it in. We heard him shout ‘Whooopppa’ and hand then hand us a bunch of Nastasia tampoons which had fallen out of her bag into the road. She was so embarrsed and we both laughed so hard for about 10mins….

Partying atv Innos.....the ceailing was a little weird but cool all at the same time

I can see a rainbow....

Drumming round the camp fire......sooooooooooo nice!

So many things happened so I’ll just break it down really quickly:

The bus from Inhanbarne to Tofo was a mess and the cobrador wanted to charge us and extra 10 meticals for our bags….I lost it as I was tired of people always thinking that we were made of money. He wasn’t charging all the people with onion and potato sacks extra for their enormous bags which filled the isles and were only passable my walking over them….I told him that all for off us would get off the bus along with our bags and the 375 meticals that it was already costing us if he even dared to add a single penny to the price…..

Arriving in Maputo I had to get on a little chapa with all my stuff. I actually had to fight to get on which Ive never done but after waiting a bout 40 mins I had to do what I had to do. I banged my head on the door and lost my favout=rite earrings in the process. I almost cried but im an African worrior so I kept it together

· Arriving home I had the longest sleep of my life…..it was bliss!