Learning to surf

  Tofo, Mozambique
Thursday, February 16, 2006

And so poor wee Hannah was all on her lonesome in big ol' Africa with a couple of weeks to spare. Down but not out, I caught a bus (no more hitching for me) up the coast to Durban, then through Swaziland (country #50 in Hannah's adventures) and onto Maputo, Mozambique.


A few nights were spent in Maputo exploring the city and markets and streets. Mozambique is cool - African with a distinct Brazilian-Portuguese flavour (being an old Portuguese colony and all). The music changed style (once again), this time having a Brazilian beat, the people on the streets had a little more attitude, and some of them reminded me tenderly of our great Brazilian mate Jun! It is great to be back in Africa-Africa again!

I made friends at the backpackers with loads of other travellers, coincidently all heading in the same direction - up to the surfing/hippy beach (as the Lonely Planet calls it) of Tofo. The others set off early morning in luxury express bus, but by this time I was missing the chaotic madness of African local transportation, so elected to try and make my own way up the coast. 12 hours later I arrived stranded late at night in the town of Inhambane, having to fight off the bus driver wanting me to share his bed and not quite knowing what to do. I made my own luck of course, forcing the bus driver to point out the local hotel, then getting a shop owner to take me in his car to a hotel that wasn't full. Another mad African adventure!

The next morning, I got in a minibus built for 12 with 29 other people and finally made it to the beach where I hooked up with the others at Fatima's Backpackers, a hostel right on the edge of a long stretch of gorgeous Mozambiquan beach.


The next 4 days were a great mixture of laziness and action. I lazed around in the day reading and enjoying the sounds of the waves (mostly not heard above the sound of the music blaring out of the bar, but thats another story) then met up with Laura and Brendan, some more lovely Americans, to walk up to the market to chose our veges and fish for dinner that night. We had barricuda, prawns, and even lobster :)


By day, Laura and I wanted to try out surfin', so down to the local surf shop we went for boards and a lesson. Laura was a natural, I was less so. But, after a lot of hard work battling the ENORMOUS waves a couple of days later, I made it! I got up on the board and surfed down a couple of waves. I think I might have just found myself a new sport to tackle!


Lots of surfin and suntan later, I had to regretably leave my knew-found paradise to head back to Maputo, and then onto J'burg. Alas, my African adventure too must come to an end :(