Day 3...

Dwayne (I kid you not), the son of the owner, told us when we checked in, that he’d been living here for 5 years and had NEVER seen weather like this in July. 3 straight weeks of rain did not bode well. But it was set to start clearing from the south on Monday, and when we woke it looked promising.

Indian ocean sunrise

We had to head back to Xai-Xai (the closest shops, with a Shoprite U-Save) since I hadn’t thought to pack dishcloths or loo paper. It also became clear that the “braai rooster” in the information pack referred to the actual braai (barbecue) grid (rather than a fowl of some sort) and none of the units has them. Unfortunately neither does the Shoprite U-Save in Xai-Xai. It does stock alcohol, however, and lots of imported (extremely expensive) South African products. There was very little fresh produce – but an informal fresh produce market at the beginning of town certainly had more than enough fruit and veg should we need more than we brought (Hint: Peel whatever fresh produce you buy, or at the very least wash it in a solution of bleach to kill any bugs. Some very nasty bugs). We also bought 2 tins of Portuguese sardines piri-piri which were delicious, a fat red chilli packed into the tin alongside the sardines. A young boy offered to watch our car for 100Ms (R25!) while we shopped and became quite pushy when we told him he could have 80Ms. Eventually I resorted to “cross mother” mode and told him “that’s quite enough!”  and he slunk off up the road, for all the world looking just like the teenagers walking home from school in any suburb, with shoulders slumped, kicking the stones on the pavement. Dwayne told us later it is entirely unnecessary to have a car guard, but they’ve learned that the South Africans are used to paying someone to watch their cars (certainly not R25)

The lack of a grid required some re-thinking on our part – our intention had been to braai. But there is a gas stove in each unit and once we had reassured ourselves that it wouldn’t blow up I did manage to produce an excellent lemon and herb roast flattie chicken(even if I say so myself) with baked potatoes, fresh mielies and a tomato/onion/avo salad.

We also took the Jimny onto the beach for the first time ever, after checking we were allowed to (yes, within 150m each side of the track onto the beach) and secondly letting the tyres down to 1 bar, then 0.8 when we dug in. If you go further than the stipulated 150m there is a potential fine of R25,000. The Mozambican government is taking this seriously – when South Africa banned beach driving apparently all the 4x4 owners rushed here to carry on with it, and the beaches were being damaged. I have no idea how they police this, we certainly never saw any official-looking types on the beach, but were happy to stick to the rules in any event.

Checking the tyre pressure

After some dithering about, walking the dune to find the best angle, reversing and so on I asked Walter “Should I do it?” at which stage he grumbled something, leaped into the Jimny and drove over the dune onto the beach. “This car can go anywhere” he declared, “I’m very impressed with it, never doubted it for a minute” 

Success

We drove back to the Casita, fetched a beer and the Vino Tinto (bought at the Shoprite U-Save) and drove back to the beach for a sundowner

I had a turn too. 

Note the high-water mark next to the car.

Later I discovered that the iPhone’s SkyView app works without signal or data, so sitting on the verandah at night looking at the stars we could point the phone at the sky and name the stars. The night sky is unbelievable here, with no light pollution and on our first clear night we were quite awe-struck by the sheer number of stars we could see.