Life's a Beach No. 20

We left the historic and quaint Ilha de Mozambique on 16^th April and started our long journey north along the Indian Ocean coast. After parting ways with our Swiss friends, we headed to our next port of call, a small town on the coast called Pemba. We were warned that Pemba was home to many bizarre and unusual characters so we were a little apprehensive when arriving as to what or whom we would encounter. Luckily when we arrived at the lodge we were staying at, we met some friendly fellow travellers who we soon swapped stories and travel tips with. One couple, Michael and Michal from France and Israel respectively, had been travelling by public transport all the way down from Egypt and had experienced the real rough side of African travel. This put our minds at ease about our ‘road less travelled’ route that we were undertaking. Our time in Pemba was spent exploring the town and cooling off in the ocean along with all the local children who had their own method of recycling by making toys out of rubbish and plastic. Another common sight on the beach was seeing men carrying their days catch slung over their shoulder on their way to the fish market.

For some reason in Mozambique they like to travel early so we were up at an ungodly hour of 3.30am again for our onward journey. We decided to head off the beaten track to a small fishing village, called Pangane so the route to get there was once again more challenging. The last 60km of our journey was in a pick-up truck on a bumpy road and took 3 hours, but luckily as we are Mzungus we were given the front seats, but I’m sure for this privilege we were charged double the price! Pangane is set on a long palm lined sandy beach and looks like a paradise getaway. Our so-called beach bungalow was a small room made of stones and bamboo and great air-conditioning (holes in the walls), with no running water or electricity. However, having an amazing sea view and being metres away from the sea made up for our basic standard of living. We thought we’d spend our days lying on the beach, however due to it being soooooo hot we couldn’t lye out for longer than 15 minutes so we spent most of our time in the water, which was more like a bath. One day whilst swimming we noticed one of the local men stroll along the waters edge to these caves, which were exposed at low tide. We could see him crouching down and after some time he exited the cave and we soon realised this was the local toilet! High tide was their version of flushing the toilet so whilst swimming we were constantly on the look out for floating brown objects!

Something commonly seen in the northern region of Mozambique is women with their faces painted white called musiro as a mask to beautify their skin, and there were lots of women with this mask on their face in Pangane. As you can see from the photo one woman was happy to pose for us. As we were the only tourists in the area people were very interested in us, including some smaller creatures (a mouse and a large crab) that would rustle around in our bags at night. The crab we suspect was a little lost, as all of its friends were scuttling along the shoreline.

We were apprehensive about the next leg of our journey as it was going to be two solid days of travelling to make our way over the border to Tanzania. Both days were filled with hair raising and bum bruising bus rides. On the 4x4 truck that took us to the Tanzanian border we were accompanied by lots of locals and all their belongings and produce. Including one lady who was moving house so we had to make room on the truck for her bed, pots and pans and her luggage (all we didn’t have was the kitchen sink)! We’d heard the Mozambican immigration officials could be awkward to deal with. Kim was soon called in by one official who asked for any Mozambique currency we had left as a gesture of kindness (this ladies and gentleman is what we refer to as a bribe!) Luckily we only had a few coins left over, which he seemed content with.

To get from Moz to Tanzania we had to get a small boat over the Ruvuma river, and due to being the only border crossing, the captains of the boats thought they could charge whatever they wanted. We eventually managed to barter down to a reasonable price and by this point we just wanted to get to the other side. We were pleased that we’d made it to the border as we were warned it was an adventurous route to take so we felt a sense of achievement. But we were happy to be going to a country where they could speak some English, and because of our limited Portuguese we found this the biggest challenge so far.

After standing on the back of a pick-up truck for 2 hours we finally made it to Mtwara in Tanzania. Our initial feelings about Tanzania were positive as on our first night we were assisted by a local guy who helped us to order a meal and give us some travel advice.

A local form of transport in Mtwara is a three-wheeled motorbike, and for those of you who have travelled to Asia, they are exactly like motorised rickshaws and a great, cheap way to get around.

So we have made our way to the second country of our Southern Africa adventure and we’re looking forward to experiencing what lies ahead of us.

We hope you are all well and please keep us updated with your news back home.

Love Nat and Kim xxx