Ahh, Mozambique. I kind of wish we had stayed…. So, before the world turned upside down we had planned a family holiday to Mozambique. We had a school break from March 7-14 and decided we would spend it camping on the beach in Ponta Malongane, Mozambique. That is exactly what we did.

My Mom flew into Joburg on March 6th and we decided to leave that afternoon because we wanted to break up the nine hour drive. We spent the night at a half-way point and then got on the road early the next morning. We got to the border just after lunchtime and it only took us about 45 minutes to get through, easy peasy. I was super stressed about it, so I was relieved it went so smoothly! Mozambique is notorious for corruption and difficulties at the border…. We had one vehicle and our caravan for this trip. All went well until we had to go off-road driving into deep sand. It is the beach, and to reach our campground we had five miles of sand to drive through. It was worth it! We did get stuck initially but got out easily once we engaged four wheel drive and let the air out of the tires. It was an adventure! No, I did not take pictures of getting stuck. We made it to the campground and got everything set up by 5:30. Then we enjoyed the beach for a few minutes before setting off for dinner. The resort had a restaurant and the food was incredible.

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We were literally camping on the beach and the resort was much larger than we originally knew. The second day we went exploring and realized we should move to the more happening part of the resort with better access to the beach and the bar, so we moved. After that we had a great spot on the beach with a cabana. Every day at low tide, we had tidal pools that we could sit in and explore. The resort was not busy, so we didn’t have to share the beach or facilities with many people. It was really relaxing and the weather was perfect the entire break. We spent the week swimming, eating, and doing whatever we wanted.

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Once we switched campsites, we acquired some doggy friends who lived in the campground. They were really sweet and hung out with us, on and off, all week. Their names were Bonnie and Clyde. We were also much closer to the bar, so we had cold drinks and could order food from the restaurant. There were a couple of restaurants in town that we frequented. One was the Love Cafe, good for breakfast, and the other was the Sunset Shack. The Sunset Shack had the most amazing Portuguese style bbq chicken I’ve ever had in my life. We were too busy stuffing our faces with it to take pictures… All in all, the food in Mozambique was some of the best I’ve ever had on vacation. It was difficult to justify cooking ourselves because it was inexpensive and delicious!

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We had one day trip into Maputo. We didn’t really do much other than sightsee and have brunch in a hotel on the beach. There really wasn’t much to do, and I didn’t even take any pictures. On the way to Maputo, we drove through an elephant reserve. We saw lots of giraffes, but no elephants. Unfortunately, the reserve was closed so we couldn’t actually go for a game drive. We could only drive the main paved road that went through the reserve on the way to Maputo.

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The last couple of days we spent exploring the beach and being 100% lazy. Word was starting to get out that the virus had spread from China to other continents, and we seriously considered just staying on the beach. It was like being in a private paradise with everything we needed. In the end, we made the decision to come home and it was the right one. By the time Saturday rolled around and we were due to head home, they had already closed the Kosi Bay border to get back in to South Africa. We ended up having to go north past Maputo, crossing the border into Eswatini, and then crossing the border into South Africa. It was a real adventure, and not one I’ll repeat anytime soon. The journey took almost 12 hours and a massive amount of patience. The border crossings were fairly painless and efficient. My Mom did get screened at the border coming back into SA, where we were told we had to go into quarantine upon our arrival at home. She entered SA on March 6th from the US, which was then a level 3 country. However, when she left there were no cases in Florida. COVID-19 had yet to make it’s arrival in Africa, but already things were getting hectic here. We finished out the quarantine just in time to go to Kruger. Spoiler alert – next post! I’m happy to report we are all safe and healthy. We are very fortunate that Mom can stay and remain safe thanks to our wonderful family in Florida. Shout out to my sister and nieces for taking care of business!! I’ll leave you with a few more pictures of our last days in paradise. Mozambique, we will be back!

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