Day 15

Last day in South Africa. Nick gets up early to do the final game drive with the dutch family and Christina and her mother, but since I will be spending 6 hours driving today I give the game drive a miss and get some extra sleep. Breakfast at 9:30 is the usual 4-course affair, followed by a dash to check out by 11 so our tent can be cleaned for the next guests. The Gualaguala guide suggests that we tip a total of about £30 a day, which seems mightily excessive to us, so we go with about £10 a day, split between the ranger, tracker and general staff.

At breakfast Ann comes to say goodbye and we mention that Paul recommended Gualaguala to us. She says she's a regular visitor to the UK and was 'finished in Aylesbury'. As we're settling up, Nadia (the lodge manager) offers us some packed lunches for the journey, which seem a far better idea than our current plan of finding somewhere to stop on the way.

For the last hour, we sit by the pool and relax until we have to go - which Nick and I have negotiated to be 12:30, so that we don't miss the flight (Nick's worry) or get to the airport hours and hours before the flight (my worry). It's going to be a long journey, but should be relatively fast, as it's highway all the way, and we have now learned the art of overtaking, South African style.

The journey is scenic, particularly at the beginning, and mostly uneventful, but we do have to keep watching out for potholes. The high quality road surface tempts you to think you're fine then suddenly there's a big pothole seemingly at random, which are particularly dangerous if you're driving at the highway speed limit. We only hit one, but the jolt sends our front left hub cap spinning across the road. Nick spots it first and we pull over to walk back for it. The verges are overgrown, but we find the hub cap within a few minutes, along with several others. It seems sensible to keep the cap in the car rather than reattach it, in case we come across another pothole.

We stop for fuel and to eat our packed lunches late afternoon with a hundred or so kilometers to go. Arriving at Johannesburg airport at about 6:30pm, the car is handed back to Avis, and we're on our way home.

Day 14

The morning is cloudy and cold as we gather in the lounge at 5:30am. Our second drive is a 'big five' drive, which means visiting a neighboring reserve, the 15,000 hectare Thornybush Private Reserve. The extra size (it's 32 times bigger than Gualaguala) means they have space for all the big five animals (lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard), but in such a massive space they can sometimes be difficult to find.

Our Thornybush land rover and guide pick us up from Gualaguala at 6am. The drive lasts about 3 hours, and we see four out of five - no leopard, which is the most difficult to find. Whenever we find the game, there are always other vehicles there as well, so the reserve seems busy, but well managed. We stop briefly for some tea, and then head back to Gualaguala.

We pull into Gualaguala at about 9am, where the other game drive is already back. Breakfast is at 9:30 in the treehouse. It consists of cereal with milk, then scrambled eggs, bacon and grilled tomatoes, then a fruit salad, followed by toast, then a cheeseboard and finally chocolate muffins. We spend a few hours reading in the tent, and at about 12:40 we go on the 'self-guided walk' shown in the Gualaguala guest handbook. It's an hour-long walk around a series of numbered trees, with a guide explaining what each tree is and what it's useful for. Unfortunately after about half an hour we have seen no numbered trees, and are starting to get the impression that we're on the wrong path. Then the path opens out and there are paths leading off everywhere. Nick decides to adopt the "let's try this way" approach to navigation. I'm consoled by the thought that this is only a 500 hectare reserve, and it has no predators in it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have snakes, biting insects and ants though.

We get hopelessly lost. We see some game in the distance - a herd of wilderbeast and some impala. Eventually we find a road, and disagree on which direction to take to get to the lodge. Finally, the lodge is found, having located zero out of twenty eight numbered trees. An incomplete success.

We've got an hour before high tea, so to the bewilderment of the South Africans, we jump in the pool. It is still just as 'refreshing' as it was yesterday.

The afternoon game drive, after a high tea of nut cake and fruit, is another 'big five' drive. This time we're with a group of dutch who seem to be avid birdwatchers, and we have to stop incessantly to take photos of and wonder over tiny birds that we can barely see. We do eventually see some buffalo and black and white rhino, but no elephant or lions.

We arrive for pre-dinner drinks to meet several new guests, including a mother and daughter from the UK, who are at the start of a garden route holiday ending in Cape Town in a couple of weeks. Dinner is fish with creamed brocolli and stir fry vegetables, followed by bread and butter pudding, and is excellent.

Day 13

We're up at 7am, and the power is still off. It comes back in time for breakfast, and with everything packed into the car we head off to the border.

At the border crossing, we get stamped out of Swaziland, and stamped (again) back into South Africa for the third time. We drive through customs with nothing to declare except a lot of Swazi dirt which is now attached to the car.

On the highway, we have to run the toll gates again. This time I manage to stop the car at the booth without stalling, but the money Nick hands over includes some Mozambican coins. This causes much confusion and I end up almost driving away without our change. We don't seem to be very good at the toll thing.

The rest of the morning is spent driving to Gwala Gwala, a game reserve on the western fringes of the Kruger National Park. At one point we realize we're driving in the wrong direction, but we get there in the end. We sign in at the gate and drive 7km within the reserve area, past numerous other reserves, until we reach the big GwalaGwala gate. We sign in again, and follow a dirt track to the edge of the actual reserve, and enter it by driving over a cattle grid. It's difficult to make much further progress, as there is a giraffe standing in the middle of the road. It moves away eventually, and we continue (slowly!) to follow the signs to 'reception'. It's another 2km before we actually reach the car park, and we've seen numerous antelope and some zebra by the time we arrive.

First impressions of Gwalaguala are that we'll probably survive. Our tent is equipped with a wooden deck floor, power, a huge standlone bathtub and a veranda, all raised up on a wooden platform built amoungst the trees. There is a bar/restuarant in a treehouse, a lounge area under a thatched roof beside the river, and a small swimming pool.

After the long drive I'm eyeing the pool longingly. After a quick change we get down there to find a Mancunian couple on honeymoon who are sitting in deckchairs, and a finnish woman in the pool. They are arguing over whether the pool is too cold, with the Brits (who are not in the water) saying it is, and the Finn (who IS in the water) saying it isn't. I dip a toe in and decide a slow entry is going to be too tortuous, so I take the plunge in one go. It's actually fine, particularly as the air is so warm.

We don't have long before 'high tea' (the lodge's late afternoon version of lunch), so we make it a quick swim. At High Tea, we meet Ann, one of the lodge's owners, who asks after Edd and forthrightly denounces him for not coming. She's friendly and very funny but I'm not sure I'd want to get into an argument with her.

The other guests comprise a gay couple, one half of which is a hilarious ex-canadian now living in Sweeden, a swiss amateur pilot who flew directly to Gualaguala (as in, he flew his plane into an airstrip walking distance from the lodge) travelling with a South African co-pilot guide, and the Manchunians.

The first game drive is straight after high tea, and is a local 'Gualaguala' drive on Gualaguala's own 500 hectare reserve. They don't have any of the 'big five' here, but because it's a small reserve, it's easy to find loads of giraffe, zebra, antelope, warthog, guinea fowl, and water buck. It's a long drive but we can barely go 100 yards without seeing some other animal. We stop at the lake for the sunset, where they have a hide - a wooden hut built n stilts on the edge of the waterhole. After sundown it's back in the land rover for some night driving. We find some more giraffe - now sitting down, but fail to find any hyena.

The South African pilot suddenly pipes up "Hey, back up we got sex going on here". Sure enough there's a giraffe making concerted efforts to mate with a female, but she doesn't seem to be in the mood.

Dinner is a brie, and a very smoky one, but the food is delicious - five meats to choose from, potato salad, and sadza/pap. We have to be up at 5am for the morning game drive so we make it an early night.

Day 12

Breakfast is included, which is good as it's a full english, and relatively good, especially compared to dinner yesterday. It's served in silence by our semi-mute host. We decide to stay another night but to get dinner elsewhere.

We drive into town for provisions and find a 'U-Save' supermarket, where everything is half the price of Mozambique. They also have a fridge full of bottled water but it's 'flavoured' water, and Nick is unimpressed. He seems to get through several gallons a day.

Thirty kilometres south of Pigg's Peak is the M___________ Nature Reserve. The road to get there covers some spectacular scenery, and frequently passes cattle simply standing still by the side of the road. You'll round a bend and see a cow just stood in the centre of the road, absolutely oblivious to the obstruction it's causing.

We come to a bridge curving over a picturesque valley, and a man is standing in the road waving at us. I slow down, never sure in these situations whether the frantic waving means 'Help! My children are trapped in an abandoned mine shaft', or 'Please visit my shop'. To be honest it has always been the latter so far. In this case y slowing down is greeted by even more enthusiastic gesturing and pointing at the side of the road, where two small children, dressed in costumes covered in leaves, start bobbing up and down in a bizarre dance.

I drive around him. Nick refuses to take a photo on the grounds that they'll want paying for it.

At the other end of the bridge, another pair of identical performers await, this time with a less enthusiastic chaperone, and start bobbing again as we approach. Nick hasn't got his camera ready.

Getting into the park, we're on Africa time again. It involves making a hand drawn copy of the park map (which they've run out of), and signing the visitors register (last visitor yesterday afternoon). The roads within the park are ingenious, consisting of concrete ridges embedded in the grassland, making the road surface green and well camoflaged against the landscape. The weather is perfect, with a few white clouds in an otherwise clear sky.

Following Nick's map leads us to the first picnic spot, where there are fixed tables, toilets and the start of a marked trail. I decide to sit under a tree and chill out for a while, while Nick tackles the trail. Ninety minutes later he returns complaining that he has become unfit in the last two weeks.

We drive on to the next point on our map - a trailhead for four trails, which are marked with meaningless symbols like triangle, square, trapezium, parallel curves. On the way we suddenly spy an antelope of some kind standing on a hill. Nick spies his first opportunity to use the SLR for a wildlife shot, and starts the lengthy process of getting the camera bag out, extracting camera, strap around neck, turn camera on.... fortunately the antelope has clearly been to the Nick Ambrose school of wildlife photography, and stands absolutely still while he faffs. We follow the signs to the parallel curves trail, which is supposed to go past a waterfall. The trails are well marked with red pumpkin-like stones painted with symbols and icons in white. Following the trail for around half an hour, we start hearing water bubbling, and discover a stream. Nick, as ever, wants to dam it. Considering the environmental impact of excessive whimsical damming of rivers, and the lack of suitable building materials, we agree that a bridge would be a better idea. I sit in the shade to apply another layer of sunscreen while Nick finds a stick, lays it across the stream and declares his bridge open to traffic. Insect traffic, presumably.

The trail splits into the triangle trail and the curves trail, though the triangle trail is closed due to a Bald Ibis nesting. I'm impressed that the Swazi parks service are this attentive to the maintenance of the park and the wildlife. After all, if we're the first visitors today, then they're making a pittance from the entrance fees at £2 a go.

It takes another 40 minutes to get to the end of the trail, which meanders through open grassland and over and round several hills. The last few hundred metres are particularly steep, first up, and then down. Overall we've descended more than we've climbed, and yet we end up at the top of the waterfall. A French couple are already there, having overtaken us while Nick was planning and building his bridge.

On our way back, black clouds start congregating in a corner of the sky, and we head rumbling in the distance. We're still 20 mins from the car when the sky is mostly black overhead and the thunder is coming quite distinctly from all directions. The temperature drops ten degrees, and the wind picks up suddenly. This gradually gets worse and as we scramble over the top of the hill to see the car in front of us, the few drops of rain is starting to turn serious. We get a few spectacular shots of the storm, with the clear sunny weather clearly visible on the other side, before fleeing the park before it becomes impassable by a weedy two-wheel-drive hire car.

We get to the exit gate at about quarter to six (park closes at 6pm). For dinner we've decided to try the Hawene Lodge, an upmarket hotel village about 5km further along the road. We arrive to find an immaculate complex of 'beehive' cottages build in a combination of Swazi and western style, set around a circular thatched restaurant. We enter to find it deserted, and ask the barman if we can book for dinner. He tells us it's fully booked - a big disappointment considering the distance to the next decent restaurant. At least it's still early. We leave the - still deserted - restaurant and head for the exit, and are briefly acknowledged by a friendly but important-looking chap who asks us if we're guests. I explain that we had simply intended to come to dinner but had discovered that the restaurant is fully booked, and this causes him some confusion. He insists that it is not fully booked. Following him back into the restaurant the staff get a firm dressing down from the chap who is presumably the owner, and we sit in the bar area waiting for dinner to be served.

The bar area has a TV tuned to CNN, and in our 20 minutes of being back in touch with the 'real world' we discover that Hillary Clinton has NOT said what her role is in the new Obama administration. This is CNN's lead story for half an hour.

Nick disappears saying something about taking photos of the sunset, but I am reading the paper and not concentrating. He returns with some spectacular pictures and I'm kicking myself for not going out to see it.

Dinner is a 'brie' - African word for barbeque. Three different meats, 'pap' (which I know as Sadza from my time in Zimbabwe) and salad. It's fantastic, and cheaper than the dodgy dinner we had last night. The restaurant does fill up a bit more, but gets nowhere near full.

It's about 40km back to our hotel, where we find that the power is out. In fact it's hard to spot the hotel at all with no lights on. Since we're only going to bed anyway it doesn't matter much.

Day 11

A taxi takes us to the bus station for 6:30am. It's raining again, this time with more enthusiasm.

When we arrive there is a bus already there, and people milling around. We check in and wait. The bus leaves and another arrives, which turns out to be ours. we get our bags stowed and board in time to leave just after 7am.

The bus driver makes his way down the aisle, offering tea, coffee and 'juice', which turns out to be something pretty vile and not really the juice of anything fruit-like.

The journey is uneventful until about 8:30am when we get to the South African border. We all have to get off and go inside the Mozambican departures building to get our passports stamped, then walk about half a mile across no man's land to the actual border, where a very substantial sliding gate is open. We follow the pedestrian channel and enter the SA arrivals building where the whole process repeats itself. We already have an SA visa, and one entry and departure stamp (entry at Jo'burg airport, departure at Lanseria airport), so we just get another entry stamp.

Back on the bus.

Seems everyone made it into South Africa. Another two hours later, we're in Neilspruit. The only thing going for this outback SA town seems to be the motor industry, which is everywhere. It's like the South African Detroit. This seems promising since we want to rent a car. We are deposited by the bus at a petrol station on the corner of a busy intersection, and the sun is now shining strongly so make for some shade to apply sunscreen. An armoured car suddenly appears and two men with large guns get out and encircle a nearby cashpoint. One eyes us suspiciously and asks us to move away.

We go to the Europcar office, which turns out to be a desk in a hotel, and find it unmanned. The helpful receptionist phones a few companies for us and we end up with Avis, who also come and pick us up from the hotel.

Renting a car in Africa seems, like many administrative processes, to run on Africa time. It takes a full hour to complete all the paperwork, but at the end we're on the road at the wheel of a marvellous grey Toyota Yaris - not quite the same model I have at home, but close.

First priority is food. It may only be 1pm, but we've been up since 6am and only had bananas for breakfast. Nick spots a Wimpey on the highway, and I manage to successfully negotiate a dual carriageway to get us there in one piece. One very irritating difference between this Yaris and the one I drive at home is that the windscreen wiper and indicator controls are reversed. I curse this fact for about the fourth or fifth time as I turn the windscreen wipers on in order to turn left. Other drivers may not know my intentions but at least the windscreen is being cleaned regularly.

I haven't been to Wimpey for about 15 years. After a brief lunch of burgers, I reason that 15 years was about right, and could probably go another 15 years without visiting Wimpey again.

Finally at about 2pm, we're on the highway heading for Swaziland. It's back along the road towards Mozambique, and it takes about 90 minutes to get to the border. On the way we go through the toll gates that we came through in the other direction on the bus this morning. "I'm really getting to grips with the car" I declare as I roll to a gentle stop at the toll booth - and stall - having forgotten that I'm driving a manual. Seems it only takes a week driving an automatic to cause me to forget what the clutch is for.

We discuss the Swazi border and hope that it might be more efficient than the Moz/SA border we did earlier. Maybe even a drive-through operation.

We're waved through the first gate - a good sign, but then we're invited to park and enter the SA immigration building for our departure stamp. Back in the car we drive 100m and have to do the same again for Swaziland, including paying a £2 road tax for our car.

A billboard proclaims "Welcome to Swaziland". And we've arrived.

The first town on the road leading away from the border is Pigg's Peak, but before that we pass a sign for the Ph__________ Nature Reserve, which is on our map so we decide to stop for a visit. The turnoff is a dirt road that winds 2.5km though some spectacular scenery to the gates of the reserve, where we are charged £2 to enter.

A lodge sits at the entrance, with luxury cottages perched on the edge of views across the valley. We get a trail map from the reception guy and set off on one of the marked routes, through the densely wooded sides of the valley. Water runs everywhere, mainly through man-made channels next to the paths, and pours into natural ponds and eventually flows into the valley.

The trails are well marked. We reach the valley floor and a couple of bridges over the narrow parts of the river - only a couple of metres wide, but flowing fast and rough over huge piles of rocks.

We loop round back to the lodge. I want to know their prices for rooms but Nick prefers to press on into town. They're full anyway - seems there's a poker tournament down the road and the lodge is providing spillover accomodation.

As we drive on into town, we pass several large trucks that are carrying what appear to be sticks. They're not logs, by any means, and it's a jumbled collection of small branches piled high in a huge lorry. Just random bits of twig, by the lorryload. We thought Swiziland exported timber, but not sticks. Maybe it's for the pet market.

In town the first B&B is full, and in driving up to their intercom to establish this fact, I have stopped the car on a steep downward slope. The Yaris strains in reverse but simply can't make it back up to the road. We're considering buzzing again to ask them to open the gate simply so I can turn around and leave again, but I give it one last go with Nick out of the car, and manage to heave the Yaris back up to the road. There is, however, a definite whiff of burning rubber in the air. I make a mental note to not mention this to Avis.

The final option is the Highlands Inn, which the Lonely Planet advises to leave as a last resort. Unfortunately it is in fact the only one left. Luckily they have rooms, and they actually seem to be perfect. We get two double rooms for £30 in total. The proprietor is a very softly spoken african woman who talks so quietly you can barely hear what she's saying. The rooms are large, clean, have massses of storage and very comfy beds, so we're actually quite impressed, but the restaurant is awful, so we resolve to find somewhere better to eat tomorrow.

Nick looks up the times for breakfast, and notes that they start serving at 7:30am, which is "quite early". I disagree, pointing out that most hotels serve breakfast from 7am at the latest. "Ah yes", contends Nick, "But many don't serve breakfast at all". Right.

Day 10

This morning Maputo is enveloped in cloud and drizzle. Our hotel doesn't offer breakfast and is unrepentant on their pricing so we leave early in search of food and another hotel. After a few transactions with street vendors we have ourselves bananas, bread, tempura and water, and are marching towards Fatima's Backpackers, the Maputo branch of the place we found quite hospitable in Tofo.

We get a room for only a little more than half the cost of the previous hotel, and set off on a tour of the main sights of the city. We start with independence square, framed by the cathedral ___________, and the more austere city hall. These are practically the only nice looking buildings in Maputo.

Next is the market, on the way to which we are stopped by the Police. After checking our passports they conclude that we are illegally in Maputo without getting a stamp when we moved from one region to another. We will have to pay a fine. News to us, certainly, and the visa does not appear to have space for region-specific permissions. A middle eastern looking chap woth a long beard walks up and decides he is on our side, and starts to harass the police officers. "You are lying - we will go to the embassy now. No, I won't show you my passport here. At the embassy". He's awfully good, and by the look of the maroon passport sticking out of his chest pocket, a fellow Brit, but I'm not sure at this point whether he's helping or hindering, particularly as the Police look as though they're getting a bt stressed. One is fingering his rather large gun nervously, as if for comfort. Eventually they decide this tirade is not worth the hassle and tell us we can go. I move away immediately to let our rescuer continue berating the Police and get shot if he wants to.

Eventually we do reach the market, where rows and rows of vendors are selling everything from wigs to pet rabbits. We get a couple of apples for snacking later and move on. It's not yet 2pm, and we need to be at the bus company's office at 2 to buy a ticket for tomorrow's bus to Neilspruit, South Africa, so we find a foid court called _______, and specifically a chinese restaurant inside it.

At the bus company's office, tickets are bought, and we have seat reservations on tomorrow's 7am bus. A taxi then takes us to the natural histry museum, which was closed yesterday. It's open now, but only until 3:30, contrary to the info in the Lonely Planet guide. It's a fascinating place, typical of many museums in countries without lavish science budgets - rows of austere wooden display cases containing stuffed skins of animals along with small cards announcing their name in portugese, and (if you're lucky) in Latin. The centrepiece of teh museum is a savanna model complete with life size animals - elephants, antelope, lions, buffalo - some of which are busy fighting others. It's an impressive exhibit, and Nick comments that he can easily imaine them all coming alive singing Circle of Life from The Lion King. Maybe not.

One rather nice and unique exhibit is a collection of elephant embryos from each month of a 22 month elephant gestation. These were collected during an elephant cull in the Mozambican civil war, when thousands of elephants were killed. They are now a protected species in Mozambique.

From the natural history museum, we made our penultiate stop at the main art gallery - a showcase for modern Mozambican art. It's free, which is a strong reason for going on it's own. The collection is better than expected, with a gallery of photographs of Moz life, and a temporry exhibit of installation pieces. Around the back of the gallery, a small group of sculptors are busy at work.

finally we reach the striking train station, where about one train a day still manages to sustain the original purpose of the building. The trains are petty appalling though. The bus that we'll be taking tomorrow will get us to the border in an hour. The train from this station takes five hours.

We're unable to find a Jazz cafe we're told is in the station building, so we head back to Fatimas for dinner. Fatima has however, apparently decided to close the kitchen, so we end up at a locals' cafe - a sort of Mozambican Wimpey, which is good enough, and cheaper than we've come to expect from Moz.

Day 9

Time to leave Kaya MJ behind us. Artur arrives at about 6:30am with the Land Rover and we load ourselves in for the journey to Maputo. Nick is in the back with Artur's wife and daughter, and I'm in the front. The weather is bright and sunny, and the car quickly gets hot and stuffy. We start by going to Barra Lodge to see if they have my sunglassses, which I lost on the ocean safari yesterday (they don't), and then on to Inhambane to fill up with fuel (an exorbitant 2100 meticals - about £65) and pick up Artur's luggage from his house. By the time we've done all that it's already 9:30am and we haven't even left Inhambane yet.

Once we get on the highway, progress is much faster, and we're soon passing senic landscapes and amazing coastlines as we drive south along the coast road. I move into the back, since the Land Rover's heater seems to be on full blast with no way of turning it off, and as a result the passenger footwell is hot enough to be painfully uncomfortable.

Towards the end of the 450km journey, the car starts making a hissing noise. Artur stops and fiddles with the engine for a while, and declares that there is something broken which will cause us to use more fuel than we should, but that we can carry on.

Arriving in Maputo, the city seems overflowing with practically everything: people, cars, rubbish, etc. Artur drops us off at our hotel, and we discover that the price Nick was quoted on the phone is per-person, rather than per-room, as we had expected. We take it anyway as there is little choice at this point, and set off to explore the town.

A short walk brings us to the docks, with rows of locals fishing directly off the embankment, and a car ferry slowly turning in the bay, ready to disgorge it's cargo of cars onto a suspiciously narrow pier. We walk along the dockside until we get to 'Robert Mugabe square', which is little more than a traffic junction, but certainly a sign of the scheme Mozambians seem fond of for street naming.

We climb up through the _____, an overgrown area of 'park' in the centre of the city, probably once an oasis in the middle of the city - Maputo's Hyde park perhaps - but now the unofficial city landfill site. At the top is the Hotel Cardoso, which Paul recommended (but was a bit out of our price range), and next to it, the Natural History Muesum (currently closed).

Walking down towards the East side of the city and the beach, we arrive at a restaurant/bar district. Dinner is piri piri chicken at a small cafe. We look around the Polana shopping mall, a modern retail complex where we get some water, moan about the prices of pretty much everything, and are amused by a bookshop that has a window display consisting of several dozen books all of which are either about food or pediatric urology.

Just down the road from the shopping centre we come across a trendy bar that has comfy sofas, and have a few interestingly named smoothies while the proprietor explains that the place only opened yesterday and the wifi advertised in the menu isn't online yet. I have a 'Naked Baby' (banana and strawberry smoothie).

Day 8

Weather this morning looks promising for our ocean safari. We're down at Barra Lodge for 10:30am, and we leave at about 11, having been issued with wetsuits, snorkels and flippers. My flippers are a manly size 9, with a 'medium male' wetsuit, while Nick is issued with a pair of size 6s and a wetsuit that appears to have an age range sewn into the back.

The briefing is predictably dull. How to get into a boat. Don't touch the whalesharks. Try not to get sliced into bits by the propellers. etc.

To launch the boat we all have to crowd round, push it into the water and drag it deeper every time a wave lifts it off the beach. It's one of those rigid inflatable jobbies with ropes all around the sides and two big outboards on the back. On the skipper's command we all jump in, and we're off.

Thus begins two hours of whale and dolphin watching, in which time I get very seasick and we manage to see exactly one dolphin and no whales. At the end we pull alongside a snorkeling reef and snorkel for half an hour. I spot quite a number of Dorees, and a few [black and yellow fish], but no Nemos. The swell is impressively powerful, even for the fish, which are struggling to do much more than shoot backwards and forwards over the reef with the current.

Beaching the boat is a simple matter of opening the throttle wide, and heading for a gentle bit of beach at full tilt. Just as you get the impression that the beach will merely be a launch ramp for a journey that will see you landing somewhere in Kent, the boat simply judders to a stop in the sand. A roofless Land Rover that looks like it saw service in world war 2 and might well be up for another one arrives seconds later to collect us and whisk us back to the dive lodge.

We eat lunch at the lodge, clear our tab, and walk back to the house, as the tide is going out. The receding tide has left numerous small lagoons all over the beach and while some are marooned, others are draining into the ocean through small channels in the sand. Nick excitedly proposes to dam one of them, and we start constructing a barrier. But by the time we're done, we realise that both sides of our dam are dry. Damn.

We try again with another lagoon and succeed in damming this one properly. With a great sense of achievement we head back to the house, and for me the inevitable realisation that I've gone and burnt myself again. This time on my thighs.

Afternoon is spent taking some final photos of the house for Paul's website, and catching up on diary writing (me) and blackberrying (Nick).

Day 7

Rain.

The morning is spent reading and relaxing in the house, and when Artur arrives, we decide to go with him to Inhambane to get some fuel and money, and check the flight situation for Tuesday. The rain makes driving on the sand a different experience - sometimes easier, sometimes harder. The road from Barra to the Tofo junction is more vibrantly red in the rain, and the car is getting covered in clay.

In town, everything is closed. We stop by a small bakery but leave without buying anything. We get the fuel and cash, and head for the airfield. The terminal seems to be about the busiest place in Inhambane, woth around a dozen people crammed into the small room. A LAM representative tells us the flight time is 5pm on Tuesday and the cost is around 4,000 meticals. I'm not sure precisely because I tuned out a bit after he said 'four thousand'. That's at least £120.

So, plan B. Turns out Artur is also going to Maputo on Tuesday, to coincide with us leaving, but is driving all the way in his company land rover. We promptly invite ourselves along for the ride.

Back at the house, the rain is getting heavier and the roof is starting to leak a bit. We break out the emergency Monopoly set, and after two games, both of which Nick wins, I'm beginning to think my age-old 'land rush' strategy needs updating. We discuss possible improvements to the game, such as earning interest on money placed on long term deposit at the bank, or being able to mortgage property to other players as well as the bank.

Day 6

Another cloudy day, though I can't say I'm that disappointed as I've yet to recover from the sunny one. It's calmer though, which makes it good weather for sitting on the deck reading. In the morning I finish atonement and reply to a few emails from Rob.

After lunch we head for Barra lodge to book an ocean safari for tomorrow, but discover that they are not running one until Monday. Artur rings to say he will come to visit us tomorrow to sort out our flights and accommodation in Maputo. He reveals that there are no flights on Wednesday, when we planned to leave Barra, so we will fly on Tuesday instead. This gives Nick the idea that we should visit Swaziland as well, and reduce our stay in Maputo to two nights, which gives us two nights in Swaziland. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

After checking the ocean safari times, we stay around Barra Lodge and take a dip in the pool. At around sunset (if the sun were out, which it isn't), we walk back to the house, stopping to admire the sandbars that have been revealed by the low tide. The waves are now breaking at least a hundred yards off the beach, and a series of sand 'islands' dot the shallow waters. I take a swim in the sea before we go back to the house to get ready to go out tonight in Tofo.

We head off around 7pm for Fatima's Nest the bar we visited two nights ago, where live music is promised. Hours later, having eaten and met an interesting Japanese guy who appears to be single handedly responsible for the global financial crisis, at least judging by the number of ex-banks he's worked for, we realise that there is not going to be any live music. Probing fellow patrons reveals that the main event of the week was yesterday. Damn.

We follow a couple of other people for a walk up the beach to another bar called Barbouska, which may be more lively. The tide is coming in and on the way we have to negotiate a stretch of beach that is being intermittently covered completely by freak waves. Unfortunately we catch one, and we're not dressed for the beach, causing Nick to complain that water is going in his shoes. When we reach Barbouska it's slightly busier than Fatima's, but still no live music - just a DJ playing western stuff.

We leave at around midnight and trek back along the beach in a fine rain, and against the wind, eventually reaching the car quite damp, but at least it's still warm.

Back at the house at around 1am, Vasco and friend are installed under the deck. We say hello as we lock ourselves in for the night, just as it starts to rain more determinedly. I select a couple of new books from Paul's mini-library: Black Dogs by Ian McEwan, and a biography of Michael O'Leary (CEO of RyanAir).

Day 5

Sunshine! Streaming through the slats of the house, filtering through the mesh of my mosquito net. And very welcome it is too. Bread and fish arrive, and by the time I've showered about four people are cleaning our windows and the housekeeper is halfway through the washing up.

We spend the morning on the beach, reading under the shade of palm trees. I've started reading Atonement. Around lunchtime we head back to the house for food, and prepare to drive over to Tofo for our ride. We're due at 3:45pm, and we leave around 3:20 with Nick at the wheel for the first time. Unfortunately we seem to get stuck almost immediately - perhaps because the sand has been churned up and is particularly soft. A few more attempts and we're over but we're now running a bit late. We arrive at about 3:55, just in time to saddle up and get going for 4pm. I'm with Voelker, taking a slightly longer route than the others so we can go a bit faster, while Nick and a Sweedish couple are with one of the workers taking a shorter route at a slightly slower pace.

The route starts by going straight out onto the beach - where we ride through the surf for about 200 metres, until we get to a section of long flat hard sand at low tide. Voelker says we're going to go 'for a run', which I hope means a gentle canter but actually means a full fledged gallop and has me trying to concentrate on riding properly while desperaely resisting the urge to just grab onto something and hold on for dear life.

The ride goes on for around an hour and a half, taking in the beach, dunes, palm plantations, villages with donkeys, pigs and lambs wandering around, and summits with views stretching across from Tofo to Barra. At one point we ride through some land Voelker reveals is his - bought last year and waiting for him to save enough money to build his house. Crossing to the other side I see why this is a perfect spot - it's balanced on the edge of a step hill with views across acres of marshland to palms in the distance, and the sun is starting to set behind them. Who wouldn't want to build a house here. Mind you. at the moment you can only reach it by horse, though you can get within about 100 metres with a very tough 4x4.

After the ride we give the Sweedes a lift back to Fatima's Nest, and drive back to Barra with Nick at the wheel. Nick hits less potholes than I do, but with him driving the car seems to veer without warning towards whichever side of the road has the most trees, rocks or other dangerous obstacles.

In the evening I realise, tediously, that I've been sunburnt badly. Again. Despite not having been in the sun without a hat on all day. Dinner is calamari bought earlier in the day from the fishermen that visit the house. We have far too much for ourselves so we do an extra plate for Vasco, our night watchman. He has no English, and the only words I've heard him utter so far are 'torch' and 'change', the latter reserved for when the torch battery runs out and he wants us to give him the other torch.

Nick opens the window and calls his name. Vasco appears - barely visible until he's right in front of you, seems to appraise the situation and slowly takes the plate of food offered, nods slightly and walks off. Nick indicates that he can use the table on the deck to eat, but this fails to distract Vasco from his retreat back to his hideaway under the decking.

Towards the end of the day the power starts to flicker on and off again.

Day 4

No power this morning. I open the back door to find the housekeeper waiting for us to wake up, and a chap painting the well, who sees me looking forlornly at the fusebox and says 'power at ten', which a big grin. Whether this is knowledge of power company schedules or simply blind faith, who knows. I guess we find out at 10 o'clock.

Ten o'clock rolls around with no power. We heat some water on the gas stove for washing, and head for Tofo in the car in the afternoon. I'm quite keen to get behind the wheel and try out the road during the day when I can see what I'm doing. First stop is Inhambane, to stock up on fruit and veg (why don't they bring the produce to Tofo and Barra!?) and get some other essentials like milk and cereal.

In Inhambane it's raining, and still overcast - making this the fourth day since we've seen the sun. It's warm, which is the only consolation. We get the shopping, and some more cash, spend half an hour online, stop for some Meze platters for lucnch, and head for Tofo. Tofo is the next beach along from Barra, and billed as a livlier, backpackery sort of place. Since Barra is all but deserted, it seems to make sense to try and find somewhere a bit busier.

Walking along Tofo beach, Nick is accosted by three dogs, who desperately want him to play with them, and when he doesn't, set about playing all around us and tracking us along the beach. We find a bar and have some drinks - I order a great banana smoothie - and then I decide to check out the horse riding opportunities. I get the car and follow the signs down a long track, having to switch to 4x4 to get through a number of trickier bits. The track runs through a palm forest and a number of small villages, and eventually reaches what looks a lot like a stables.

The guy in charge is a german ex-pat called Voelcker. I fail to establish whether this is his first or last name, but he is friendly enough and quotes 700 met (about £21) for a 1.5 hour ride - a few pounds cheaper than the stables at Barra Lodge. I take his number and drive back to the Tofo Scuba bar, where Nick agrees to a ride tomorrow afternoon.

Since neither of us has been in the sea yet, and there doesn't seem t be ay sign of the sun, we decide to tackle the surf anyway, and relocate to Fatima's Nest, a bar further down the beach with direct access to the sand and changing facilities. Having changed, I dive in to find it's as warm as advertised, and good fun though the rough surf soon wears you out, and since the beach slopes so gradually it's nice to feel the sand still under your feet even though you're a hundred yards out from the beach.

As I'm changing back again, I drop my camera in the toilet bowl, which is possibly not the cleverest thing I've done today. I turn it on (probably also not a good move) and it flickers to life, so possibly all is not lost. I turn it off and remove the battery, which I probably should have done straight away, and resolve to leave it in the sun until dry before I try it again.

The evening brings more people to Fatima's, and we hang around chatting to some South Africans, including an optician who tested Robert Mugabe's eyes 25 years ago and remembers forlornly that he felt awed in his presence. This was in the early 80s, when Mugabe was the success story of Africa.

Artur phones, concerned that we've been mugged or kidnapped or something, and we reluctantly leave the bar to go and pick up the keys from him. Driving back in the dark is straightforward, except for finding the turnoff for lighthouse 'road', but we get there in the end. Once at Kaya MJ, we have to figure out the route to Artur's house, which he showed us yesterday in the dark. Directions would something like: walk away from the car, away from the house, and follow the trees until you hit (proabably literally) a big pile of bricks. Turn left, follow the 4x4 tracks (avoiding any cars), to the road, go around the sharp bushes, and you're there. So far, so indiana jones. I arrived with a cut across my hand from the bush, but did manage to see the bricks in time.

Artur also, as promised, gives us some honey, but it's unlike any honey I've tasted - obviously home made, but tastes more sharp than sweet. The aftertaste is a bit more like normal honey though. Wierd. We take a jar anyway, and tackle the walk back to Kaya MJ. We manage to get into the house without Vasco noticing, which is probably not a good sign, but we do find him and wake him up to give him his torch.

Day 3

Artur has borrowed the car to take Rita to the hospital, and the weather is still overcast, so we have a late start (again) and potter about reading and trying to make the pool table work, unsuccessfully, until lunchtime. Some fishermen arrive with some fresh prawns, so we buy a kilo (at prices comparable with a supermarket at home, which seems a mite pricy to me) and make a prawn curry for lunch.

Artur doesn't get back until abut 2:30pm, so we abandon plans for Tofo and go for a walk along the beach instead, setting off in the other direction, towards the lighthouse. Round the headland the beach becomes rockier, but after clambouring ovr a few outcrops, we end up on a section of unbroken beach that stretches into the far distance, probably all the way to Tofo, which we're told is a two hour walk.

Not really wanting to walk back along the beach in the dark, particularly as it involves climbing over rocks, we turn back and spend the late afternoon and evening reading on the deck.

Day 2

The bed is blissfully soft and Paul's mosquito nets, which he explains at length are imported from Australia and very expensive, seem to have done their job admirably. I get up at around 9am, having slept like a log, and get myself a drink and some fruit while I wait for the latest electricity outage to end so I can have a shower (water is pumped into a tank using an electric pump). The housekeeper arrives, and starts sweeping. A girl comes to the door with fresh bread, and George arrives to do whatever it is that George does. Suddenly I feel slightly underdressed and go to put some more clothes on.

We pack up all our day provisions and head for the beach. It's about a half hour walk along the sand to Barra Lodge, a largish resort hotel and bar, with a pool. Since the ocean isn't looking very inviting, we open an account, have lunch and decide to set up camp in the pool area. Nick has books and wants to sleep, so I head back to the beach to walk the rest of the beach. Barra beach is about 3 miles long, with our house at one end of it, Barra lodge in the middle and an area called 'White sands' at the end.

I write an email to Paul on the way, explaining that we've arrived, all's well and passing on the news we'd heard from Artur. I decide that this is not proper blackberrying, but merely travel journalism. By the time I'm done I've arrived at white sands, and I look up to find I don't have any land on my left any more. There's still ocean on the right, but now there's just sand, sand and more sand on the left, with a hint of ocean in the distance. The wind is blowing even stronger here, gusting across the sand and creating mini sandstorms that blow around and pepper my legs.

Going to the end and looking back, there is a vast expanse of sand with the dunes and developments of Barra in the distance, and great swathes of sand on the move, rushing towards me and out into the sea.

Walking around the headland, I get to mud flats, so I turn inland slightly and follow the road, which leads me to Flamingo Bay, an upmarket collection of chalets built on a mangrove swamp. The swamp is actually dry at the moment, and I can walk right around the *outside* of the hotel, where clearly there is supposed to be water normally.

Now pretty much considering myself lost, I got some directions and headed in the direction of Barra Lodge along the main road. I'd said I'd be an hour, and I was quite spectacularly late. A few minibuses, safari jeeps and quad bikes passed me, all beloging to various resorts and mostly empty. I considered asking for a lift, but thought this would be a bit defeatist, and anyway, Barra Lodge was probably just around the corner. Finally, it actually was around the next corner and I arrived at the pool to find Nick asleep. We texted Artur to find out where we should pick the keys up from (we had left them with the staff when we left the house), and while we waited for a reply I went for a swim in the lodge's pool. It's an interesting shape, with two pontoon bridges across it and an island in the middle with a palm tree.

While I have spent the afternoon on a 6 mile hike and 30 lengths of the pool, Nick has managed to read three pages of a book called 'Getting things done'. I point out the irony, which is very much appreciated.

Back at the house Artur is waiting with the keys, and invites us to his place for some drinks and to show us where to come for the keys in future. We follow him about 150 yards, weaving through other houses built amoungst the dunes, and end up in a holiday village of about 7 cottages, which Artur manages as his main job. His wife and daughter are there and serve us drinks while we chat about all kinds of stuff. "Do you pray?" says Artur suddenly. I realise this may not be a short visit.

Having finished debating the existence or non existence of god, on which point it turns out Nick and I disagree, surprisingly, we walk back to the house in the dark, with Artur following us to make sure we don't get lost. Too much.

Dinner is sausages, cooked on our gas barbeque (indoors, as it happens, since the roof is very high and the BBQ is smokeless), with a tomato sauce and hand made chips, and is unanimously declared a major improvement on yesterday's effort.

An email arrives from Paul suggesting that there is a cable for the CD player somewhere that allows us to plug in our MP3 players, so one exhaustive search later we're happily listening to our music while reading in the lounge.

Day 1

Being friends with the editor of FT Alphaville, the Financial Times' award winning markets blog, has its benefits. Like for example, borrowing Kaya MJ - his 'mud hut' in Africa - in exchange for knocking up a quick marketing website for it, so he can rent it out. Mud hut may be how Paul describes it, but by the time we come to leave he has excitedly provided a 19-page essay on the house, the car, the staff (of which there turn out to be four), the beach, the local amenities and the restaurants around the area of Barra, on the southern coast of Mosambique.

Reading it though, I can't help but feel like I already know the place well. We're tasked with finding out if Rita, the night watchman's daughter, is still unwell, and what's wrong with her. How the building work next door is progressing. What they've done with the resort down the road which Paul's neighbours sold up recently. Whether the pool table, recently loaned to said resort, has been returned.

We've got potted histories of all the major players in the village, instructions for repairing punctures on the car (the spare is apparently from an entirely different model of car, and doesn't fit), and even stuff on Maputo and the Kruger national park as well.

Waiting around at the airport we try to find some gifts for the village kids - pens or crayons or something like that, and I have the idea to get a guestbook for Kaya MJ. But we can't find either in the departures lounge at Heathrow T3.

I'm travelling with Nick, a university friend of Rob's and presently also his lodger. He works for HSBC, and is a loyal fan of Alphaville, so is immediately approved as suitable by Paul.

Flight boards uneventfully, but is delayed on the tarmac at Heathrow for a full hour. We begin to worry that we'll miss our connection in Johannesburg. This is a delicate affair, since ou can't fly directly from London to Mozambique, so we land at Jo'burg at 7:05am, and then have to clear immigration, collect baggage, get money and take a 90 minute taxi ride to Lanseria, a private airfield north of the city for a connecting flight to Inhambane, the closest Mozambican airport to Kaya MJ. That flight is at 9:30am. Actually it's scheduled at 9am, but the airline has been browbeaten by Nick into delaying departure until we arrive, provided we do so before 9:30. You may be getting the impression this is a small airline, and you'd be right.

Virgin, being a rather larger airline, lay on an on-demand film selection, which whittles away 11 hours fairly easily - I watch The Visitor, Wall-E and Iron Man. As we're approaching Johannesburg it becomes increasingly obvious that we're going to be a least 40 minutes late. We persuade a cabin attendant to allow us to move forward to the front of the economy cabin so we can disembark as quickly as possible, but stil, by the time we hit the jetway, it's already 8am.

Worse, it's 8:40am by the time we have cleared immigration, collected our bags and got enough money for a cab. We can only hope the 90 minutes to Lanseria is an exaggeration.

At 9:30, we're still in the taxi. Bitterly disappointed and frustrated, we start trying to plan alternative options. Perhaps we could fly to Vilanculos later in the day, and then take the bus to Imhambane. Or go back to Jo'burg and fly to Maputo. We opt for the former and carry on to Lanseria anyway. Our taxi finally pulls in at a few minutes to ten. A woman rushes out of the polished terminal building to shout "are you guys from the UK? Nick?" We answer yes. "Come quickly, we're waiting for you".

Hurrah. Best news we've had all morning. And even better, the rest of the passengers (of which there are eight) are not bothered in the slightest by the hour delay.

We go from taxi to plane in about 7 minutes flat, and find the aircraft a substantial downgrade on the 747 that brought us to South Africa. Specifically, I can't stand up straight in it. Every seat is both a window and an aisle seat, and the pilot cheerfully gives us the safety briefing himself before scrambling back into the cockpit area (not quite a cockpit since it doesn't have a door), to fly the plane.

It's a two hour hop - just enough time to re-read Paul's extensive notes, fill in Mozambican entry forms, realise that we're clean out of both rand and US dollars so have no way of readily paying for the Mozambican visa, and eat the snacks that have been provided. With the Kruger national park laid out beneath us the view was worth taking in as well.

On landing, we quickly locate Artur (pron Arrtoo), Paul's 'man on the ground'. He takes us into town to get money and do some shopping. The first bank he presents us with is Barclays, which amusingly is my bank, though since I've not told them that I'm travelling to Moz, they certainly wouldn't give me any money. Nick's card was also rejected, because the machine did not support mastercard. The third bank was successful in dispensing 6,000 meticals (at an exchange rate at time of writing of about 50 to the pound). We buy fruit and veg, some basics like rice and potatoes, and head for the house.

The house doesn't disappoint. It's huge, with a deck right on the sand, and a reasonably fully equipped kitchen, in which we cook a spanish omelette for lunch. We go for a wander along the beach while Artur sorts out the car, and get showered and changed. When Artur returns it's dark and blowing a gale outside, but Artur insists it's the perfect moment to teach me how to drive a 4x4 in soft sand. It quite patently is not the perfect time - I haven't slept for 36 hours, have never driven in soft sand during the day, let alone in pitch darkness, and am hungry to boot. We manage to drive into town anyway, and I find some of the route quite enjoyably challenging, though I'd rather do it when I can see where we're going.

Back at the house, we sort out dinner - and discover that the cooker is woefully underpowered, so we resolve to ask Paul about that tomorrow.