Bisou de partout: AFRICA - Part 3 Mozambique

We had a couple of days to sightsee around Johannesburg, including the hop-on-hop-off bus (my favourite way to see any city for the first time) and the Apartheid Museum. The former was very informative and the latter very depressing but both interesting and must-do in Johannesburg.

Next on the itinerary was a camping trip to Mozambique with Robin’s brother Nick, his wife Nancy and their son Jamie, who also brought along a schoolmate, Ollie. Nick has a very old Toyotoa Landcruiser which took his family from Cape Town to Cairo 10 years ago, and which has a rooftop tent. They also have a camping trailer which has a tent on top (which the kids used) and we slept in our own tent. Another family joined us (friends of Nick and Nancy’s with their daughter and her friends: Pat and Margot with Erina and Tessa) in their own vehicle so it was a merry party of 6 adults and 4 teens.

As an aside, I wanted to put in a piece about obtaining our visas for Mozambique: as there is no representation in Australia for Mozambique I investigated (using my former travel agent colleagues) how one can go about obtaining a visa. We were quoted AUD $1500 for the two of us as the passports have to be couriered to London, then the visa obtained, and couriered back again. Luckily Nancy enquired at the Mozambique Consulate in Johannesburg (they also needed visas for their family) and the Consulate was willing to issue our visas as well for a cost of USD 75 per person! Previously, visas were obtainable on arrival at the border crossing but Nancy was told this was no longer possible as the funds from the selling of the visas were being pocketed! In fact when we enquired at the border we were told that we could have purchased them there but at a cost of USD $80 per person! So we saved some money and did the right thing!

We left at the crack of dawn, and after 10 hours of travelling (super highways in South Africa but less than desirable roads in Mozambique) we arrived at our stopping place for the night – a lovely inn (Blue Anchor Inn) just north of Maputo. The campground we were headed to is located on a tidal island which requires a ferry crossing and it is too late by the time you reach the ferry to cross on the first day – Nick and Nancy have been doing this camping trip yearly for the past 8 years and have the routine down to a tee.

The next day we had a short drive to the ferry at Macaneta, crossed the river and made our way to the very basic campground on the shores of the Indian Ocean. We were the only people staying there and were blessed with sunny blue skies and warm ocean!

Jay’s Campground on Macaneta Island is truly a getaway – there are no shops, restaurants, nightclubs or ANYTHING of any intrusive nature and because we were staying there outside of school holidays, we had the beach to ourselves. Four wonderful days of swimming, reading, sunbathing, long walks down the beach in each direction, and then it was time to head back to South Africa. We overnighted at the Blue Anchor Inn once again on the return journey and once again had a 10 hour drive back to Jo’burg.

We barely had time to get laundry done , do a bit more sightseeing and then we were bidding farewell to our generous hosts: Nick and Nancy and Jamie and flying to Cape Town for our final 10 days in South Africa. It’s a short 2.5hr flight south and we had a beautifully clear arrival into the spectacular city. We had rented a car as we were staying at a friend’s house in Simon’s Town at some distance from the city of Cape Town.