Coconut Bay Inhambane

... learn from our previous mistakes and bought a ticket for the trip to Vilankulos - a beach village/resort in Southern Moz.<br><br>The bus was leaving at 3am and so we got the early night again and duly arrived at half past 2, tickets in hand, to find it already full and, although there was room for us, there was no space for our bags - so were were faced with the prospect of the 9 hour bus ride with 20kg of luggage on our laps. As it was the only option we ...

... photos though sillouettes against the fire, will try my best to pop them up but I make no promises.<br><br>I've had a quiet week generally, and one stressful dive on tuesday, but I suppose I was due one as all my others have been wonderful, and have had two wonderful Ocean Safaris yesterday and today. Now occasionally we see humpback whales and dolphins and I've seen one manta ray, but its mostly whale sharks, which are so amazing I still ...

... with 2 other girls and 6 guys all aged 18-65 though most (25-35) which is great i was worried I'd be and oldie here but I'm actually one of the youngest! Everyone seems nice but we're all still getting go know each other. Today we have a football match sheduled with some local guys from the village (though I think i'll just cheer lead) and we're going to try and build a BBQ.<br><br>We're getting to know the village ...

... shore were 3 or 4 humpback whales blowing and playing about.<br><br>Off to inhambane for supplies.<br><br>Porte De Tofo 11th Sep<br><br>We sat in an open restaurant (well that's what the sign said) and watched more whales jumping and playing about. I think it was a mother and baby humpback as the mother would expose nearly half of her length straight up and splash down and the little one would try to match.. not nearly as spectacular however it was cute.<br>

... but we soon started bargaining and agreed on paying about 30 NOK / &#8364;3,40 for the small scratch on his bumper.<br><br>We handed our bakkie in after about 8000km, feeling sorry for the guys that had to clean and fix it. Kilo&#8217;s of dust, boxes of juice and milk, wine, washing-up liquid and all sorts of other ranz had accumulated over the 37 days we had been driving around with it, and it sure needed some new tyres and new locks (they were full of dust). We guessed ...

... we bought tones of seafood and braaied almost every night, as a price estimate for R50-R70 (£4-£5) you get a massive platter of anything you want, I did hear from others that they had been at the right time, right place and had got even cheaper than that, but I wasnt too bothered<br><br>quite a few restaurants in town, offering mainly seafood, pizza amongst others, not much red meat on offer, restaurants were fairly pricey, I would say on par with SA prices<br><br>beach was amazing ...

... amount of hassel and lots of laughs. Just down the beach there is a dive shop that also does snorkelling trips to see the whale sharks. I decided to do a snorkelling trip as I had no idea you could see the whale sharks here, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity! Nine of us climbed into the "boat", which was more like a dingy with a hard bottom, foot straps, and two very big motors at the back. We set out from the beach into the ...

... and absolute awesome diving. We checked in with Fatimas Backpackers, where we got a bungalow for 600 metacais. The bungalow was nothing more than 4 poles, covered with bamboo and a thatched roof. The floor was just the sand, and we had to wipe off the bed every night for sand. Very cosy though you would not want to be there if it was windy or rainy. At Fatimas we met four nice medical students (Jit, John, Rob, Andy) from Leeds, who had been working for 2 months in Cape ...

... bags were taken out of the undercarriage and left on the ground for staff to carry one by one into a tiny room where we were all queued to get through "immigration". There was a guy sat at an old desk with a rubber stamp. I think the same room was used for arrivals as you had to walk through a metal detector gate on the way out, although it wasn't turned on. Adriana picked us up from the airport. She's the marine biologist looking after the project in ...

... a couple of people I met on the bus from Nelspruit that were staying at the same place as me. We ended up bumping into some other people that we knew and some people that they knew so there were about 12 of us out for a meal and then to the local club House On Fire - which is the most amazing venue ever! I had a great night, and even managed to get my new friend Chris (from Australia) to agree to come to ...