Nomad's Chris du Preez tours Mozambique!

By Chris | July 19, 2010

Day 1: 05 July 2010

Had an early morning wake up to drive from Pretoria to the Lakes Hotel where Nomad’s Johannesburg departures start from. It was nice to see my parents again the night before, as I hardly see them now that I am based in Cape Town. I waited for a few minutes for the Nomad Overland trucks to arrive. This morning there was a double departure, one truck doing a 4 day Kruger tour, and then our truck – Elvis – Doing the 14 day Discover Mozambique tour.

We had a small group of about 7 people, the Guide and driver and also a trainee from Lesotho. After meeting everyone and introducing one another, we left for the long drive to the small Kingdom of Swaziland.

We had a few bathroom stops along the way, and then also had lunch just outside Nelspruit. I was amazed to see the new football stadium here, specially built for the Football World Cup that was hosted in South Africa and at this time still going on.


After crossing the Swaziland Border we had about an hour drive left and arrived at the Royal Hlane National Park. This park is situated in the North Eastern Side of Swaziland, no electricity at all at this park.

Back in the day that I was a guide, the group I was leading used to be the only campers for three or four days at a time, and it is very nice to see how popular this reserve has became, with more overland companies using it, as well as a lot of private South African tours.

We went to sleep with the real African sounds of Insects, and later on Hyenas and Lions in the distance. What a great feeling.

Day 2: 06 July 2010

We woke up early to do a game walk. Here we experienced some of the closest encounters to a Rhino that you will ever have – outside a zoo. We were about 5 meters away from a white rhino and her calf. We all had adrenalin pumping through our veins. It was so lovely to be back in nature… Nature = Happiness.

After the walk we had a relaxing time for more optional activities, some of the people in the group decided to do a mountain bike trip with a ranger. I just stayed at camp and took in Nature. After lunch we went to a small town just outside the Parks borders, the town is called Simunye, and houses mostly sugar cane workers. Bought more supplies and wondered around a few shops and restaurants.

Tonight we viewed some traditional Swazi dances after dinner, and then decided to go watch the Football Semi Final between Netherlands and Uruguay at the Simunye Golf Club.

Day 3: 07 July 2010

Today we had an early wake up, before sunrise. Packed up our tents and had breakfast. We headed to the Swaziland / Mozambique border.

We had to wait a little for one of the group members that needed to arrange a visa, and this took some time, but it gave the rest of us the opportunity to explore the duty free shop on the border. A Must if you are a smoker. We picked up a carton of Lucky Strikes for ONLY R122…… SOLD!!!!

Once the visas were arranged and everyone was good to go, we had a very long day of driving to Praja de Tofo, just outside Inhambane.

In Tofo we stayed at a lovely place called Bamboozi Lodge. After we witnessed Spain Kick Germany out of the World Cup, We had our first group party on the beach this night, even the Germans joined in.

I think every tour needs a party night, this makes everyone break the tension and get to know the other travelers. We went to bed after midnight.

Day4: 08 July 2010

We had a late start this day, up at 8 am and had breakfast, then strolled on the beach and took in the amazing sceneries; this is so close to paradise.

After a lazy morning with lots of headaches from the night before we had lunch and went for our first snorkeling experience, and hopefully have a view of some whale sharks. We cruised around looking for whale sharks and after about 25 minutes, we spotted our first one. We all jumped over board and swam next to the shark. Wow. This felt amazing, the whale shark moves with a great speed, and it looks like it is using absolutely no effort, us in the other hand had to work hard to keep up with this silent giant of the Oceans.

We went back into the boat, and then we saw whale sharks everywhere. We snorkeled a few more times, some of us got stung by jelly fish.
On our way back to the mainland we spotted two Manta Rays.

This snorkeling experience was really something to remember, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone that plans on going to Mozambique.

After getting back to land, some of us decided that we wanted to try the local sea food in a small little pub style restaurant, what a good decision. We had some of the tastiest seafood ever, and after having these as starters, we went back to camp for dinner.

After diving and a hot day, I decided to have an early night, at 22:00 I was in my bed and ready to sleep while the rest of the group still partied.

Day 5: 09 July 2010

Today was another early morning. We got up at 06:30, packed up camp and had coffee and breakfast. This was the longest day n the truck of the whole tour, just because the road conditions were terrible.

First we stopped in the Town of Inhambane, and visited the local market; there was a lot of wheeling and dealing here, but a lot of bargains. The kids sell roasted cashew nuts and coconut bread. I love the coconut bread, it has a great taste.

After this market experience, we headed towards Vilanculo, and we got onto the worse road that I have seen in Southern Africa, I called the road “a road infested Pothole” as there were a little bit of tar patches here and there and the rest was just potholes, some bigger than Elvis the truck. At one point we only travelled 20 kilometers in 1 hour, due to oncoming traffic, all of us using the same small drivable road.

We had lunch along the road, and only got to Vilanculo at about 18:00. We stayed in rooms tonight. Once we settled into our rooms we started preparing for the dhow excursion the next day. We also made an “Island Punch” with fresh fruit we got along the road, and obviously we used the local Paradise rum, at R17 a bottle it was very hard to ignore. Here we became “the pirates of the Bazarutos”, with a lot of “Aargh”

Day 6: 10 July 2010

Woke up at 7, had breakfast and got everything together for our Dhow excursion. Once we got handed our diving boots, fins and snorkel goggles etc. we left for the Dhow.

This is an instant relaxant, calm and peace. This is definitely the highlight of the tour. We headed directly for the Magaruque Island that was the closest island to the town of Vilanculo. On our way our chef for the tour made a fire in the specially made fireplace on the dhow, we had coffee and popcorn, what a luxury. We saw some dolphins jumping around.

We got to the island and directly to an amazing reef with lots of tropical fish swimming around, some odd looking ones and also a lot of pretty ones.

We had a real island style lunch of fish and potato salad and lots of fruit. After lunch we had free time to either snorkel more or just sun bathe as most of us did.
We then headed back to the mainland, and ended at a camp in the middle of nowhere. This was a very nice little camp with all the necessities. We got our tents and then waited for supper while reminiscing about the dhow trip.

We couldn’t wait and started straight away with the Island juice.

Amazing dinner was served. We braaied some Angel fish and chips.

We then finished off the Island Punch with a lot of pirate style “Aarghs” and went to sleep after.

Day 7: 11 July 2010

Today we had another early wake up, and after breakfast we went to 2 mile reef, this reef is situated between the islands of Benguerra and Bazaruto. The reef is about 2 miles in length, but there is a really large area covered by reef. This was probably my best snorkeling experience; we saw a lot of tropical fish and sea stars.

After an hour snorkeling, we left for the Bazaruto Island, this island has large sand dunes that we climbed and from here we had a brilliant view over the Bazaruto archipelago.

While we went exploring, our cook Alfredo made us some of the best calamari and chicken for lunch, he baught the calamari fresh from the beach, and these calamaris was definitely the largest ones I have ever seen.

We had another sun bathe session after lunch and then started going back to the mainland.

Once we got back to the mainland we bought a Barracuda and some prawns. This is exactly what we were here to eat, I can really live off these meals forever.
Today was the big day, the final of the Football world cup, so we all went to Smugglers’ bar and supported our own teams, the group was split between supporting Netherlands and Spain, and I must say just because I supported Spain the Spanish supporters were much louder, we cheered “Espania” the whole time. After the game it was time to go to bed.

Day 8: 12 July 2010

This morning I woke up at 4 am with a massive cramp in my right calf, I think the sun and a bit of dehydration was the cause of this. Afterwards I went back to sleep, and woke up again at 06:30, to pack and get things ready before having breakfast, here we were waiting for two of our group members and discovered that they had a case of sunstroke.

We made sure that they got a lot of water and rehydration salts so they could recuperate a bit. I kept on thinking that this is winter, and still people get sunstroke out here.

We had another long drive to Barra, also close to the town of Inhambane. The drive was a bit shorter, or so it felt, than the day we drove up to Vilanculo.

Once we arrived in Barra, at Palm Grove Lodge, we took in the beauty of this place, and I could easily see me living here, the only thing is to get our office moved here, or maybe set up a winter office there.

We had a chicken potjie for dinner, a potjie is a traditional dish made in a big cast iron pot that is placed directly on the coals. You mix everything together and make it cook slowly. Yum, I love all kind of potjies :)
We went for a few drinks in the bar, situated on the beach so we had good sun downers.

Day 9: 13 July 2010

Today is shopping day, we went to Inhambane to the market where we stocked up with boxes of local rum, palm leaf mats and all other interesting things. After the shopping we had a stroll through the town of Inhambane. There are still a lot of Portuguese influenced buildings, broken down by the civil war.

Around every corner there are kids trying to sell bracelets or bread to us, even if we didn’t buy anything from them they still had some of the biggest smiles on their faces, and they are so eager to communicate.

After strolling around town we went back to the lodge and got some more sun in, and some more beach time. Had some pants sellers approaching us with some of the nicest looking and comfortable “funky pants”, it seems like these became known as “Mozambique Pants”.

I bought a pair for me and two for my girlfriend who I had to leave at home, daily I wished that she came with me.

I went for my last swim in the Indian Ocean, and afterwards went for a few beers while watching the sun go down.

Had dinner and went to bed, another good sleep.

Day 10: 14 July 2010

We woke up very early this morning to see sunrise on the beach. We were about 30 minutes early so had coffee on the beach while waiting for the sun to make its appearance. Another great view and again made us realized that we were so fortunate to be here.

After sunrise we had breakfast and finished packing.

Today we drive to Maputo, the capitol of Mozambique.

The drive was very smooth till about 20 kilometers away from Maputo where we hit after work traffic. This was quite a shock to everyone, as we were all used to be the only people at the places we were, and all of a sudden there are thousands of cars and millions of people walking in all directions. A true big African city. One lane becomes 3 and because they see we are foreigners, they all try to push in front of us on the road. Hats off to Jaco our brilliant driver, completely calm and cool headed.

Eventually after 1 and half hour of traffic, we arrived at our back Packers – Fatimas. We checked in and dropped our bags, had a drink and left for dinner in town.
We went to the Pirates cove restaurant, and had some amazing pizzas.

After a good dinner we went back to the backpackers and had a few drinks, made jokes and then went to sleep, thinking back at our time in this amazing country. This was the last night in Mozambique for us.

Day 11: 15 July 2010

For some reason we all had breakfast 30 minutes earlier than planned, I think its because we were not used to sleeping in a dormitory room all together.

After breakfast we left for the Komatipoort border about 100 kilometers from Maputo to get back to South Africa. Komatipoort is a small farming town just before the Mozambique border. Here we did some shopping for supplies, and then we left for Kruger National Park, we entered through Crocodile bridge that was our camp for tonight.

After checking in we build up camp and had lunch. Went for a game drive after lunch where we saw a lot of elephants and Impalas.

I realized that I miss being in Kruger so much, as I was based in the greater Limpopo transfrontier park for about 2 years. You don’t seem to realize this until you get back. It was good to be back and I immediately felt at home.

We saw one big breading herd of elephants with a lot of babies, they are so cute. Afterwards we saw some Hippos outside of the water and also a nice snake eagle.

We went back to our camp and most of the group went on a night drive, while us boys had some man time while preparing dinner. This was lots of fun.

The rest of the group came back after 3 hours, and had a brilliant drive spotting Cheetah, Leopard and a few Rhino’s.

We had dinner and then as per usual sat next to the fire telling wildlife stories and making jokes.

Day 12: 16 July 2010

Today we had yet another early wake up, and I thought I was on holiday :

This is quite good to wake up early in Kruger as a lot of the predators are still active in the early morning, they normally wonder around the tar roads to get warm in the cold part of the morning.

We had breakfast after breaking down camp and then headed off towards Skukuza, the capitol of the Kruger park. We had a brilliant drive along the Sabie River, spotting some Lion, Rhinos, Buffalo, Giraffe and a lot of antelopes.

At lunch time we arrived at the campsite and put up our tents. It was good to be back a Skukuza, especially because I have a few friends that still stay and work there. After lunch we decided to go for a beer at the restaurant that has a nice viewing platform over the Sabie River. We saw a lot of elephants and buffalos here, and to our surprise there was a leopard relaxing in the long grass. The leopard was very calm, but just the fact that he was sitting there annoyed the Elephants a lot, the Buffalo seemed unfazed and they knew that they were too big for the leopard to do anything to it.

Later on the leopard hunted some guinea fowl. This was probably the longest time I have seen one individual leopard, as they tend to run away at the sight of humans. What a great experience.

Tonight we had another Braai, the corner stone of a South African meal. Yummy. After the braai we roasted some marshmallows on the fire.

We all went to bed early, as we had a long day behind us, and also an early wake up again.

Day 13: 17 July 2010

Today we woke up before day break, and started packing up camp before having breakfast. After packing up, we left for the Paul Kruger Gate, about 15 Kilometers fromSkukuza.

We the headed towards Graskop, a small town on the Mpumalanga escarpment and also the starting point to the famous panorama route. We stopped at God’s Window, Bourke’s Luck Potholes and the Blyde River Canyon.

Normally there is a lot of fog along this route, but we had very clear views. We could see as far as the Indian ocean – the other side of Mozambique.

We had lunch at the Blyde River Canyon, and then left for the Moholoholo rehabilitation centre for animals. This place have not changed, and the good work they do there is still very well done, they really get the message across, that we are developing too much and taking over animal territories and forcing them out. It is always a harsh wake up call, and to be honest, things are definitely looking worse in that area since I was there 5 years ago.

We did a tour through moholoholo, seeing their eagles and vultures. They also have two lions, a leopard, some African Wild dogs, cheetahs, Hyenas, servals and African Lynx (rooikat).

We left the rehab centre for our last campsite, Ilkleys lodge in the greater Timbavati area close to Hoedspruit. Here we had a welcoming ceremony of a few traditional dances, and they welcomed us by offering us some traditional food as starters, Chicken head and feet, we call them walkie talkies. The one vegetarian was not impressed by how it looked, and needless to say she did not try it.

Tonight we had our last group gathering around the fire, had a late night, but lots of fun. Every now and then we had a hyena howling in the distance, just to remind us that we were in nature.

Day 14: 18 July 2010

Today was probably the saddest day of the tour, as we all knew we were heading for Johannesburg and the tour was finished.

We tried to convince the driver to take us back to Mozambique, but like all good things, it would come to an end.

I had an amazing time, a very good tour, and I will always remember this experience.

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