An idyllic trip from Eswatini to Inhambane in Mozambique over the Easter Weekend.
The itinerary was for four nights, one day up, two days on the beach at Inhambane and the fourth day at Xai-Xai on the return, and then back to Eswatini. We found out about the trip on a WhatsApp advert, and it looked great. Idyllic even. Long white beaches and blue sea and sky as you might expect. The accommodation was shown to be of excellent standard, so we went out on a limb and booked, especially since we had not been further North than Belene and were very curious as to what those other magical places might offer on a comfortable bus with aircon and a background of soothing music.
There were warning signs from the start of the trip that it was going to be a long drive, but being in holiday mode the signs were ignored and expectations remained high.
Woken at 4:30 am to catch the bus, which arrived late, to head for the Lomahasha Border into Mozambique. We were a little surprised to find that we were to drive up in a nine-seater VW and not in the spacious bus we had envisaged. Two ladies went up front with the Tour Guide and owner of the vehicle, a friendly amiable man who made the trip bearable through his calm demeanour and good humour. Middle row were two large ladies behind huge sunglasses and sun hats, who were in huge support of Savannah at 6:30am which they were sipping, through straws, throughout the trip. They were certainly in tune with the expectation of the beach and pool area, not to speak of the disco’s which they were to frequent till early mornings. My 197 cm tall husband was left with half a seat and the need to curl his long legs up, leaving him looking a little bit like a wingless grasshopper. The back seat was the fun seat with my daughter-in-law tucked up in the right-hand corner trying her best to put on a show of complacency, which left me weak with hidden laughter. My 193 cm son was squashed in the middle of us sucking nonstop on his vape while watching umpteen downloaded movies on his cell, head pressed hard against the seat in front of him. His comment throughout the trip when we were starting to suffer either from the heat or from fear and desperation was, ‘It’s all part of the adventure’. I had the left corner which turned out to be the second worst seat as my husband, David, had collared the right to the worst seat.
Five kilometres from the border to Mozambique the turbo on the bus failed, resulting in us going up the hill at 10 kph. We believed he was showing us the surrounding countryside, as he explained about the bush. It was, overgrown due to influence from illegal introduction of seed into the country and had taken up all the grazing areas. Believable input until we later worked out that it was not quite the reason for going slowly. On arrival at the border the bus was surrounded by mechanics that materialized out of nowhere, bearing little pieces of electrical wire and poking and prodding at anything in the engine bay that would spark, and disappearing under the car for long intervals, all in the effort to ensure our safe travel.
To add a little further interest to the first two hours of our journey my husband had a problem with his Visa documents, which had been incorrectly confirmed as clear but weren’t, and the printer at the border was not working and they now required copies of all documentation previously declared confirmed as correct. Our fifteen-minute border stop turned into one and a half hours while we braved up to the scary toilet facilities and ate our half-shared sandwiches and stinky onion crisps in the scorching sun. Those sandwiches had been prepared for our trip up and we were a little despairing that they were already gone.
At this point we had started mentally working out what time we would arrive at our destination and one and a half hours late already seemed quite a worry. Little did we know! Repeatedly we were stopped by police and had to endure waiting in a hot bus while the driver clearly had deep meaningful discussions.
The seat that David was sitting in was next to a not so ‘sliding door’. Five weeks at the gym might have come in useful here. Once in the night the largest of the Savanah ladies had reached Defcon 3 and had no time left to get out of the car. All in five seconds the car plunged off the road while David fought with that door while the ladies dived towards him shouting ‘it’s coming’. He lost his reading glasses there by jumping out into the night with the two ladies hard on his heels and had none for the rest of the trip. A short while later in the deep, dark of night we hit a huge cut out in the tar. We were thrown about and lucky to not roll the bus. The road had disintegrated so badly that we nearly had a head on collision from swerving left and right at high speed. ‘Slow down’ we all shouted. Too late! Goodbye to the tire and the rim and now with hardly enough time to reach Tofo for dinner before 10pm when they close. The last meal had been hours back at a roadside stop. We were facing a bleak and hungry end to the day.
An interesting observation was that when we smashed into that hole in the almost non-existent tar road late at night, with no sign of settlement nearby, suddenly we had assistance to change the tyre. The side of the road was beach sand, and a jack could not be used but, lo and behold, out of the bush came a saviour with tools and a hard plank just right for what we needed. Not a far along was a Taxi in the same predicament with a saviour as well. How amazingly fortunate.
This was now around 9pm and we hit so hard that the sliding window on the not so sliding door landed in David’s lap. David was a funny sight with his window on his lap and was a centre of much humour from then on, as every time we got out for a stop, he got out holding his window. This continued through the next two days when he eventually, in desperation at being sand blasted by the high-speed wind in his face and with some considerable force, banged it back in. However, having no window had been our salvation as since the Turbo broke, we had not had any air con, and it was very hot weather.
Our timing was bad, and we would not make it to Tofo in time to get food. I was figuring out in my mind how to share my fruit bar and cough sweets for dinner. We made it just five minutes after closing time with only one more nervous breakdown on the way when the car entered a deep dark, misty riverbed, and the lights went down, and the bus cut out. He had stalled the vehicle while moving along at a good speed. How do you do that, I thought, while my son took an extra long drag on his vape and reannounced how it was ‘all in the adventure’ while, with head on seat, he returned to his eighth movie of the day. Sam rolled into a ball of blanket and despair in her safe corner. David pulled his shirt top as far up as he could as by now the cool air had turned into a not so cool chill. The Savannah ladies had stopped all partying and were shrivelled into silence.
Luckily for us, now very quiet and sullen passengers, our cheerful driver arranged for us to be served a good after-hours meal. I still have my cough sweets. The day had taken 16 hours of travel, three passport checks, eleven police stops and two or three resting stops.
The day was nearly over at approximately 11pm as we went to book into our lovely units. But wait! they had been fully booked, so we were not actually in those lovely ones as seen on the pamphlet, but the overflow units further from the sea front. Luckily for the driver, our tour manager, we no longer cared where we slept if there was a bed.
It was regardless, a lovely unit which we enjoyed very much for the next two days where we too received straws in our coconuts, which had been collected from high up in the coconut palms within the forest of Coconut trees. We walked up to Mango Beach where we enjoyed the well-known R & R (Rum and Raspberry) and a great dinner on the deck overlooking the ocean with a setting sun. On the way to Mango Beach, I had my work cut out stopping my son from climbing the Coconut tree. I think it is an art which I am sure I had not heard that he had been schooled in. We walked back at night along the beach. Not for the feint hearted. I screamed the whole way surrounded by hundreds of crabs running around my feet. Never again. We made up for our stress by enjoying a night of dancing and cooling off in the exceptionally lovely pool, framed by a stunning sight of the moon over the sea. We were treated to a traditional meal of Cassava, rice, and crab. Delicious!
We also walked along the beach to Tofo stopping for lunch along the way and took a longer walk back around the edge of the village, which was a magnificent walk of interest if exhausting in the heat of the day.
The only thing unplanned after that was that the bus could not make it up the hill to our accommodation at Xai-Xai and we had to walk up an incredible incline for a long distance and once there we couldn’t see the sea, but we drove down to a roadside pub next to it for a while.
The bus boiled 20 kms from the border on our return journey which gave us some leg stretching time while we allowed it to cool. We made it back home safely after what was a lovely, fun holiday. Well, some of it.
I can’t wait to go back! By air.
You see, ‘It’s all part of the adventure’.
