June 28 we were awake at dawn as usual and taking our last lingering view of the orange-red sun rising over the ocean, visible out our open window.  We set our leftover prawns and spaghetti out on our lanai table and made instant coffee from the kettle, and finished packing, waiting for people at Nordin's office to turn up and take our money after breakfast.  Heading out we found Nordin himself preparing to drive into Ilhambane and he offered us a lift so we went with him there.  He drove us around the pleasant town and showed us the two simple but old mosques he used there before dropping us at the ferry landing.  LPG had said the ferry would be precipitously overloaded, but we were shunted on one of the smaller passenger boats that spell the ferry on the short trip across the bay.  Someone was collecting 10 metacals for tickets and I presume counting out the tickets to control overloading, so the boat pulled away with still some potential bench space left, and the crossing to Maxixe was quite pleasant over a section of the bay protected from the wind, with placid water mid-morning.

Maxixe was on the road from Maputo heading north through Mozambique.  Walking off the boat we could not avoid a tout who fell into step with us at the ferry landing and who accompanied us to the bus station, as if he were guiding us, and he beat us to the matapa that we would take to Vilankulo that was filling with passengers, so he spoke to the driver on our behalf in the local language and then announced to us in basic English that we would pay 250 each and that we should pay on the spot.  That was irregular, no one else was paying at the start of the ride, so we refused.  The bus wasn't going anywhere for a while so the tout left us alone after a few minutes.  Later on the trip we asked a passenger what the fare was, and he said 175 each plus 20 charge for the bags.  So we realized we were being cheated out of 55 metacals each, and when all the passengers eventually paid their money on the bus, near the end of the trip, we tried to pay as well the same as the other passengers, but the bus 'boy' refused to take our money and insisted we pay the price the tout had quoted despite protests from all the passengers, who advised us to go to the police.  But in the end we decided to just pay it to avoid greater problems. 

We were just happy to get off the bus.  The ride had begun withan unpleasant wait in Maxixe for the bus to fill, and fill it did with 4 passengers to each 3 seats across.  This made the 4 hour trip worse than it could have been, with cramping compounding other discomforts, like the bus creeping and lurching over potholes.  It was a tedious trip, getting us to Vilankulo at about 4 that afternoon. 

We found one backpacker place recommended by LPG, the interestingly named Zombie Cucumber, on the beach road about 20 min. walk from the bus stand opposite the market.  They had a casita for us, very pleasant with a comfortable double bed, cooled with winter breezes through the screen windows.  The casitas and open air restaurant in a central rondavel were set in pleasant gardens, quiet despite the bar, where beer was dangerously priced at just $2 a big bottle (about a $1 a glass), and wine and shots were also available, as well as food prepared by Sabrina, wife of Denis who ran Odyssea divers, which was taking bookings for a trip next day to Bazaruto Island's 2-mile reef.  If you ordered your meals by 6 Sabrina would serve them at 7:30 and with it not entirely safe to be out walking on the sand road, which was unlit along the beach after dark, and there were not that many places to frequent anyway, this became our habit during our stay at Vilankulo, gravitate to the bar in the evening, order food, wash it down with wine, perhaps some Amarulla and rhum afterwards, and fall from there into bed just a few wobbly steps away. 

We spent two full days there.  The first day was taken up with diving on the reef and the second with changing money and arranging our escape from the place.  It wasn’t convenient to leave.  If going to Tofo, not so bad, just take a matapa to Maxixe and ferry over to Ilhambane and matapa from there to Tofo, easy.  But to go North you needed to buy a bus ticket the day before and then get on the bus at 4:30 next morning, and we were not looking forward to that. 

But meanwhile, June 29, the diving was not great but turned out to be a wild African adventure, the kind that makes travel on the continent unique.  We wandered down to the dive shop at 8 where 6 tanks were kitted and put on one of the South African style inflatables with the tanks lashed in the center, and we set off with two strong engines to the Bazaruto Islands to the north with the wind at our backs, so we didn’t really notice the high seas and strong wind till we reached our destination and needed to shelter inside a bit of exposed reef.  We dropped one passenger there who had just wanted to visit the island park, and set off again into the chill wind and against the seas which by this time were now wild with white horses and throwing cold spray onto the boat.  We cut through the waves between Bazaruto and the next island over and then headed for the reef still some distance off but marked by a distinct surf zone.  We found waves several meters high when we reached the reef but got through them to the relative calm at the other side.  Relative means just that and we were still dodging waves as we kitted up, but we soon had our gear on and dropped over the side of the rubber boat.  Once down it was calm apart from a bit of surge. 

Meanwhile up top the boat hands were having a rough time of it following Denis’s buoy and they complained of fearing to repeat the experience for us to do a second dive.  Denis was talking to them about the prospects in the small cove where we had again sheltered to eat our sandwiches and get out of the cold wind as best we could.  There was a huge dune there at this place called Ponta Dando which Bobbi and I climbed, sand peeling off to an improbable drop at the mounting edge. The view from the top was sauvage, rough seas all around between castaway island vistas, il n y a que du vent et de l’eau as the French had said on the last ride out. 

Denis managed to calm the fears of his boatmen and conditions had at least not worsened by the time we set out for our second dive, though two divers declined the return trip and opted to wait on the island.  The second was similar to the first.  On these dives we dropped over coral down to sand at 20 meters.  There were turtles in the rock outcrops and morays here and there, in particular some free swimming honeycomb ones, graceful.  There was also a bull ray or what they call here a marble ray, also graceful as it swam away.  We also found a blue spotted ray buried in the sand.  Bobbi remembers the trigger fish of all kinds, blue ones, mean looking tritons and white speckled picasos.  Surgeon fish looked tranquil in schools. Denis pointed out crabs in the anemones. These were not spectacular dives, just decent ones, requiring some competence in breathing to stay at depth for 45 minutes.  These conditions did not warrant our diving another day but back on dry land we felt we had earned our beer and meal for the coming evening.

The followng day we walked around Vilankulo looking for internet based on information on the notice boards at the Zombie Cucumber, but each place we found was either closed, or DID have Internet, but sorry, no longer working.  We went to look around the market and bought a bus ticket for Beira, the next town to the north.  That evening we had our last meal (prawns, delicious) and drinks at the Zombie Cucumber and went to bed early as usual in order to be up at 3:30 next morning.  At that early hour we were taken aback to find there was no electricity that morning and it was fairly black outside, with clouds, intermittent rain, and no moon. So getting out of there on flashlight was interesting, as was walking up to the road in the pitch dark in a place that was isolated and not particularly known for security.  And then at the bus stop there was the usual hassle getting all the passengers on (at least each passenger had a ticket, but still we were packed in with our baggage).  We had our stuff piled all around us and I was sitting on one of our bags.  But somehow we got comfortable and rode cozily despite the crush.  Still it was a nine hour ride, and we were in Beira only at around 3:30 p.m.