Essaouira, a historical port town on the south coast of Morocco isn’t only serving up the freshly just-caught fish of the day. For those of you who prefer your plate to be laden with something off the land, then Essaouira’s food options will also provide you with quite a bountiful choice for a small town.Read More
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Sri Lanka – The South in Twelve Days
I’ve written up some helpful tips and suggestions for tripping around the southern part of the magic isle of Sri Lanka. It includes transport options, such as train times, places to eat, sleep, shop and activities to keep you occupied in between along with prices as at November 2017.
It covers in order: Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Ella, Yala National Park, Unawatuna, Galle Fort and Colombo.
This is a beautifully picturesque country, alive with nature and full of welcoming locals. Check it out.
Dugongs in the waters off Mozambique
Question:
What do you get when you have two Kiwi’s, a Canadian and an Irishman on a dhow (boat) looking for Dugongs in the waters off Mozambique?
Answer:
A failed mission but a lovely day all the same.
Through the clearest of clear waters, you can see the bottom of the bay beneath the dhow as you make the hour long trip out to Magaruque Island. Magaruque is the third largest of the six islands that make up the Barazuto Archipelago. It can be walked around in about two hours and your feet will tread on the cleanest white sand that feels like velvet.Read More
Vilanculos – A Change of Scene
For a change of scene, I head off on another “interesting” Chapa ride. Check out the experience of my first Chapa ride. It took me north from Inhambane at six in the morning and deposited me into Vilanculos seven hours later. We had a million stop-starts, a few of them for police, the majority for the acquisition and forfeit of passengers. We even stopped once so a lady could buy a large wooden vessel the purpose of which I have no idea. We sat and waited while she hummed and harred and having settled on what was to her the best one, it somehow got loaded under the back seat of the van. Brilliant! There’s not enough can be said about shopping en route, I was very envious.
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Traveling Without Trust – Up The Garden Path?
A local guy had been friendly, showing me the right place to catch a bus to Tofo and then offering to take me to Tofinho. I want to believe, had to believe that he was genuine and his motives weren’t leading me “up the garden path”.
There were many thoughts flashing through my head as we headed along the beach. Older woman with a younger guy, “oh what a cliché we must look like”, “why is he doing this?”, “is he thinking I am his chance to gain some money?” “does he think I’m his ticket out of poverty?”Read More
Flitting About Inhambane Province
It’s definitely worth flitting about Inhambane (pronoun. Inyambarn) province. Inhambane, the provincial capital is situated in the south along with the beautiful beaches; Tofo and Barra. All are characteristic of the gentle, easygoing Mozambican way of life, a lovely level of no hurry.
Inhambane Town
The oldest city in Mozambique, Inhambane is such a quaint historical town and because I had only breezed through after getting the ferry across from Maxixe (the provinces financial capital) I made sure to go back and have another look. The history is wonderfully portrayed in the architecture. There’s also an awesome second-hand clothing market where you can pick up designer labels for a few dollars. You might even be lucky enough to get the expats to tell you the location of this cherished, closely guarded secret if you ask nicely.Read More
Chapas And Capulanas
Chapas and capulanas, casitas and cervejas, what the? I had no idea and it’s fair to say I am no linguist. After 7 years in Cambodia, I still struggled to pull a sentence together. And I would like to say that there is definitely a lot to be said for learning at least a few words of the local language before embarking on a trip to a new country. But, in my own defense the country I landed in first (South Africa) has 11 official languages and although Mozambique has only one official language (Portuguese) there are another 43 languages spoken.
I had no hope but here are a few words you can get on top of by reading up on my experience behind the words.Read More
Night Out – Tofo
It’s Friday night in a small beach side community and the girls are heading to where the action is. Tofo, and there’s no stopping them!
Well not a stop really, more a pause in the proceedings as we indulged in a few Savanna’s and vodkas at the local Shebeen while waiting for the taxi to come pick us up from Tofo.
There had been a few signs, a constant whining noise and the electronically written message on the dashboard. It had told us the car was overdue for its maintenance check.
Apparently the cars warning signs had not been in jest, our transport was now unmovable on the side of the road. Three of the wheels were facing forward while the front left was facing at a severe 90-degree angle towards the bushes. When looked at with a smartphones torch, all its ball bearings were exposed in their casing to the world – oops!Read More
The Simple Joy Of Travel
This blog is about a simple trip from A to B which has some insight into the simple joy of travel. It’s a basic representation of why I love traveling, the people you meet, the experience you have – even rewriting the experience makes me sparkle on the inside.
We arrived in Maxixe (pronounced Ma’sheesh) at 1.30 in the morning and further to South African charm, my driver had offered me a spare room for the night. Maxixe is on the other side of the lagoon from Inhambane township which was where I would catch my next mode of transport to Barra, my final destination. Me and my backpack were dropped off at the pier where I bought a ferry ticket for 10 Mt (5c). My ticket was collected half way along the pier along with another 10 Mt (5c) for my backpack. All the ferries, large and small head to the one place so I got on the next one filling up with people. As more people, goods and boxes arrived my backpack was tossed up on the canvas roof, the weight of it and lack of waves on the lagoon had me unconcerned about its ability to end up in the drink.Read More
Travelers Facebook Community
A Travelers Facebook community, like all Facebook communities, are set up to function as help networks for the communities they support, be it travelers, expats, surfers, knitters the list is endless. Unfortunately, what tends to end up happening is it becomes a platform for idle people. People seeking to share with a captive audience their opinions which are in the main part are rarely positive. It provides a safety net of invisibility for people to say anything and everything that enters their head. Things which would never be uttered in the social life we’ve been used to.Read More
