The coast of Mozambique

There is nothing more beautiful or more spectacular as the coast of Mozambique. Endless clean beaches with palm trees, sand dunes, crystal clear water and nobody around!

Driving north from Maputo we did a couple of stops, and every camp we visited was fantastic. End of November / beginning of December seems to be a great time. The tourist season with the SA school holiday had not started jet, but everything was prepared. We had fantastic weather with blue skies and around 30 degrees. During the night, the wind from the ocean made it comfortable to sleep.

Our first stop was at Praia Do Bilene, which lies at a lagoon and not directly at the sea. We stayed at Laguna Camp, which is well organised by Louis and Fatima. To get there, a tar road with a toll of 200,- Metical led to the village, but then, we had a bumpy sand track with some deep sand sections to navigate. The restaurant at the campsite was not open, but we got a lovely dinner of prawns brought to our camper.

Louis organised for us a trip to the seaside, to look for turtles. We were picked up by 2 motorbikes and rode through the deep sand to the village. And then it happened: Cordy ‘s leg got in contact with the exhaust pipe of the motorbike, which left a deep open wound. After a short visit to the pharmacy, we had a bandage on the wound and continued our excursion. A young man drove us across the lagoon and from there we crossed the sand to the sea shore. We didn’t have far to walk, until we spotted the first turtles in the water. We always only got a short glimpse of them, but we were happy to watch them. And the beach was just spectacular! There was nobody beside of us as far as we could see!

We made it back home with the boat and motorbikes without another incident. Sadly, from now on the fun was over: no swimming, no relaxing in the pool, not walking around – it was the worst possible timing for such a serious injury.

Our next stop was at Praia de Zavora. A good sand road with some bridges led us to the coast, where we could camp on top of the dune with great views. They have a protected campsite behind the dune and another one on top. Luckily nobody else was there, and we could choose the best spot. There is also a restaurant overlooking the bay and we had dinner there with fish, fries and salad.

Next, we drove to Paindane, south of Inhambane, which was our biggest adventure so far. After we had left the tar road, the sand track was easy to drive at first. We followed the signs for the Paindane Beach Resort and soon we were driving on a track through deep sand, with some low hanging trees, where we had to power through, that we wouldn’t get stuck in the sand. The first climb up a small hill in deep sand stopped us. We had to deflate the tyres. We tried this hill a couple of times and every time we got a little bit further until we finally made it. But that was just the beginning! We continued through the deep sand, while the sun was already very low and soon enough we had another long climb up a dune in front of us. Again we needed a couple of tries to get up. We were now close to the camp but finally completely stuck. Edi walked the rest of the way to get help. There was nobody at the campsite, but he found South Africans from next door, who came with their tractor to pull us out. We finally deflated the tyres to 1 bar, which was the only way to make it to the campsite and out again.

We were the only guests and had a fantastic campsite with our own ablutions, a big “barraca” for shade and a great view. In front of the resort is a small riff, which should be great for snorkelling during low tide.

Our next beach camping was at Morrungulo, another long sandy road to get there, but then we had a nearly empty campsite, directly at the beach, with lovely shade and many palm trees.

Further north, we stopped at Vilanculos. There are two campsites on IOverlander, we had decided on Ocean Pearl on the outskirts of town. In front of the campsite was a mangrove forest, and on the beach many dhows were going out or coming in, depending of the time of the day. From Vilanculos, you can make day trips to the Bazaruto Islands for snorkelling, something we could not do due to Cordys injury. As we had no view or access to the beach from the campsite, we left the next day and continued to Inhassoro.

In Inhassoro, the Goody Villa campsite was recommended by many travellers and here we met other overlanders again, including Dolly and Herbert, whom we had met at the Drakensberg in South Africa before. Inhassoro is a smaller village than Vilanculos, but also here, one lodge lies next to the other along the white sand beach and the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean.

We spent our last days at the beautiful coast of Mozambique here and celebrated Cordys birthday together with Dolly & Herbert, before we left the coast and had to drive inland to continue in direction of Malawi.

Which was our favourite place at the coast? Hard to tell, every beach and campsite was a little different. If we would have to pick one, it would be Paindane, despite the difficult access. We had the best experience there, but much depends on the weather and the number of tourists around. The South African holidays started this weekend and things will be very different during the next weeks we suppose.

We are ready for new experiences now, lets see what comes next!