Well, we’ve been home almost a week, although it has gone by in the time scale of a day in Mozambique, no wonder we are all so tired here and age so quickly. I have barely had time to catch my breath! Washing, ironing, cleaning, shopping, cooking, ferrying the children from pillar to post, and in between time trying to organise photos etc! Well, I have spent nearly a whole day downloading the photographs onto this blog, only to find that they don’t seem to have appeared! If they do appear then great, enjoy, bare in mind that this is a small cross section and I haven’t even started on the ones that we took on the video camera yet!!!! also the dolphin photos will neeed to be scanned in, but there are some good ones there too!

I feel like I need a holiday! Perhaps I will perfect my writing skills and become a travel writer!!!!

Thank you to everyone who kept in touch whilst we were away, it was lovely to hear from people from time to time! We shall probably keep the blog up for other communications, as it seems to work well!

Lots of love Heidi.

Again we find ourselves in the Southern Sun hotel airport in Johannessburg. We had a very eventful 10 hour drive from Ponta D’Ouro in Mozambique. We took some wrong turns and had another run in with South African police as dad was speeding! Luckily he was a very nice policeman and let us off with only a caution. We are all the way in Africa and still we had lunch in Wimpy!

After leaving Maputo on Thursday we arrived at Dolphin Encounters. The road to Ponta D’Ouro was a sand road filled with potholes, bumps, deep sand and really badly constructed bridges. Also what made the trip doubly hard was the fact that there were lots of smaller other roads going off in other directions. Nonetheless we made it to Ponta D’Ouro at 2 O’Clock ready for our briefing. We were briefed about how to act around the doplhins, some information about the dolphins in the area and other animals that could be spotted in Ponta D’Ouro. After our briefing we went on a short  snorkelling course just to make sure everyone knew what they were doing. We woke up early the next morning at about 6 O’Clock and eventhough saskia and I were not at all happy with this early rise it was definately worth it. After about 30 minutes of being in the boat everyone was doubting whether we would spot any dolphins. Suddenly that changed when the skipper spotted a whaleshark close by. As soon as we were close enough to the whaleshark we got into the water and what we saw was incredible. A whaleshark of about 6 metres in length was swimming along side us. Unfortunately it was only Dad and I in the water with the whaleshark as Saskia didn’t want to get in and mum stayed with her. After this encounter our luck changed completely as about 5 minutes later we spotted a pod of about 30 dolphins. Sarah our guide for the week did the data collection she had to do of the dolphins i.e. how many dolphins there were and their behaviour. As soon as the dolphins were identified as being happy to be with us we were allowed into the water. We swam along side the dolphins and followed their behaviour for about half an hour and then we had to get out of the water as the dolphins had left us. As we were going back to the beach we were allowed to snorkel on a small reef. At first I thought it would be boring swimming on the reef but as soon as Saskia and I entered the water we saw a turtle! Overall this was an amazing day and we couldn’t have wished for anything better as the weather was also beautiful.

Over the next few days we weren’t as lucky in our searches. In the next two days we only managed to spot 5 dolphins and a turtle as the sea was quite choppy. Anyway this didn’t matter so much as we bonded very well with the other families that were also staying at the camp and our guide Sarah. On our last evening we took Sarah out to dinner with us at a pizza restaurant called Bula Bula. The pizaa’s were very nice and we had a nice time with Sarah. Woke up early the next day, said our goodbye’s to everyone and hit the road, destination Johannessburg.

We will post more about overall holiday impressions and photos and videos when we arrive back in sunny old England!

All the best

Louis and Saskia x

Wednesday April15th, We arrived in Maputo yesterday afternoon at two after motoring comfortably for 7 hours completing 500km, enduring some heavy rainstorms, fierce sunshine, deep potholes, and third world policemen! Just before XaiXai, about halfway, several cars coming from the opposite directions flashed their lights, worrying and puzzling the hell out of me, thinking something was wrong with the car that I couldn’t see, however soon I noticed the waving hand gestures indicating for me to slow down. Speed restriction signs turned up, again, like almost every 20km, when approaching a bus stop or village. we slowed down to the required 80km/hr, and immediately to 60, as the sign turned up approximately 100m after the first one. Policemen showed further down the road, gesturing with official hand for me to stop, which I dutifully did of course, an official salute and a stern look later and my driving license was being examined with great attention to detail. Then it came: ” you drive 70, only 60 allowed…”. ” I know, that;’s why I slowed down from 100, to 80, then to 60!” He wouldn’t have it, walked up to his colleagues, smiled, showed my license to them, and shortly after quasi non-chalant showed me his radar-device. I decided to not argue as the prospect of spending more time than neccessary with them would not be my idea of fun, and as I approached he showed me again his toy and proudly pointed his finger at the display that showed the number 70 flashing on/off on the screen, funny though it had never been directed directly at us when we approached the check point. All officials suddenly became masterful clerks, frantically completing paperwork, before announcing with great delight I had to pay a handsome 1000Meticas as a fine, £30.00!, and for that I received three tickets and five receipts…

We payed and moved on, certainly sticking to every speed restriction and frantically flashing lights at every car after spotting policemen at several check points.

We then finally approached Maputo, from different direction than before, and boy was it different…’slumdog millionaire’, 10 km of hectic traffic coming from all directions at you, hundreds of people milling amongst the traffic, and street sellers fighting for space at your car window and your attention…fantastic! And suddenly there it was…building works, lots of it, what are they building?, a giant stadium…who are building it?…the Chinese! Yes, the chinese have moved into Africa and the proof is to be found at several places around Maputo, from road building, public work projects to a brand new building in the middle of Maputo, the New China Invsetment Bank.

Before arrival in the Capital we had decided to stay here for two nights and that we would check out a hotel we had seen before, on the beach, in the city. We did, the price shocked us, but then we soon decided to give the kids a treat after all the hard travelling, so here we are now in this lovely hotel, the Southern Sun.

Yesterday afternoon we spent by the pool, the evening we had to treat Heidi and ate in a Thai restaurant, satisfying her always present thirst for Tum Yum soup. Today we woke early, had massive buffet breakfast, and hit the road…exploring this great city. It is a mixture of parts of Hong Kong, Barcelona before the Olympics cleaned it up, and African chaos. A city with enormous potential present everywhere, the colonial past shows itself in the embassy district, and in old buildings/ruins that are left to rot away. We explored the main market, an hasllefree experience, visited a portugese fort by the main harbour, had coffee in Cafe Continental, a left over from the fifties, still looking the same as then, walked through the botanical gardens to the independence square and main and new cathedral. Just of the square is the museum of modern art, the size of a respective gallery in London, and of course we had to see it, got Heidi completely inspired, and motivated for her next series of paintings. After that we wandered parts of the expat area, had lunch and stayed by the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

Tomorrow morning early we will be off again, to Ponta D’Ouro, and the dolphin program, see website.

Hopefully we will be writing in a couple of days again. Photo’s is a bit troublesome, uploading time, etc. slow connections, bandwith and other excuses I can come up with…haha. Late,later…

Take care all,

Love from all of us.

Paul

All,

With the slow connections here it takes ages to upload pictures, let alone video, will see if in Maputo we can get faster connection.

Take care,

Paul

Easter monday April 13th,

Happy Birthday Bethany!

Today we are enjoying our last day in this wonderful peaceful corner of Mozambique, the sun has come out in full force to say its goodbyes giving us all  a much welcomed tan, which feels a bit false here, especially when taking the expensive sun creams out of your bag and lather our sensitive skins with the stuff. Locals look at us if we are mad! We have met our local ‘fixer’, called little ‘Johny Banana’ whos father is a dive instructer, busy working, leaving Johny free to roam the beach. He’s only 10 years old, looks more like 7, but what are a few years in this slow moving, tranquil, laid back  and beautiful place. Johny has a frined that kept swimming with Sas and Louis, we had no idea who he was, so asked Johny; the boy, as small and young as Johny, was sent away by his parents, who live in a town 80 km away, they told him to move out, move away, make his own way…somewhere! Heidi brought to tears gave Johny 50 pence and told him to buy some food for the boy, which he did with great fervour and sense of responsibilty. The little man was so delighted and had finnally enough energy to have a good play. We saw them again today, together on the beach, each with a boogey board our kids had donated to them the other day. The story of the little boy is another example of what aids has done and is doing in this country, his parents are probably victims…!

And Aids was created, or came from a monkey????Sounds to me like a good population control measure in Africa…

Anyway, we are heading back south tomorrow, leave early in the morning to Maputo, will stay in the middle of the city this time. The following day we travel to Ponto D’ouro where we will participate in the dolphin encounters program fro 4 days. From there we travel back to Johannesberg via the southern approach, passing by, or through Swaziland.

Sorry, just had to stop for a minuet, sip of my beer and a bite of my tuna salad. Where we are?…Do you really wnat to know?…beach, restaurant, sea all blue and green, waves lapping onto white beach about 10 meters away. Sorry had to mention it.

I don’t know if we will encounter any more internet cafes or wirelss hubs…will try my best.

Take care everyone, thanks for reading and all your great comments, love from all of us,

Paul

Friday April 10th,

Happy easter evryone at home!

We did it yesterday, we dived with the Manta rays, an absolute incredible experience…and not just with one, but with about ten in total, all spread out over the reef and its three cleaning stations Anyone who has seen the BBC prgram Oceans will understand what we have gone through, the program was actually filmed here. The first time you see these amzing, graceful creatures you actrually think you are watching a film, it is so surreal, especially when they swim about a foot above you and the complete 7 meters wingspan floats above you. The interaction of all marine life on the cleaning station makes you realise how all is so connected and everything in life has its clear defined function and purpose. Yes indeed, the dive was a spritual moment! For hours after the dive we floated high on oxygen and nytrogin, and of course the manta mantra.

Paul

Today, we started early again, we were invited to the village of our waiter Marcus. What a treat…not many people are priveledged enough to be able to do this. We had to be there at 7.15am, before the market opens. Marcus’ father was out fishing, we were greeted by all the children from his family, his mother, two grandmothers, aunts and his eldest brother, they treated us like royalty, and bought out chairs, shinned up one of their cocnut trees and cut us fresh coconuts to drink, they all sat on a rush mat in front of us, the children immaculately behaved (all in a  little row, the eldest girl(7 years old) tending to the babies. It was a truly amazing experience for us all.

After this we travelled to Inhambane to the only banks where we can withdraw money, from there we took a dow across the bay to Maxixe, (the final frontier!) a dusty, smelly, dirty busy old town, we had a quick drink and jumped back on the dow to return to Inhambane. We were joined for the hair raising return journey by a group of four Zimbabwaans, who informed us, with much trepidation and horror, that our bilge boys open sores were an absolute sure sign that he not only had HIV, but was also sufferring from Syphilis!!!!!!! Horror!!!! THIS is the danger here, NOT carjacking or violence, as the people are a gentle and beautiful race.

We cheared ourselves up with a huge Seafood platter, and are now off to the beach!

Will try to write again Monday before we leave here,

Best wishes and love to all,

Heidi xx

As usual this morning we were up at the crack of dawn (about 5.50am!!!) The sun was shining and our beautiful stilt house was cool and breezy. Paul put the kettle on for a cup of Roibos tea and the little boy selling bread rolls arrived below our balcony…shopping here is SOOO easy! The boys excitedly scoffed down their tomato rolls, eager to get away early for their first dive to Croc Rock…apparently a shallow dive of about 16 meters, the dive instructor said that yesterday he was fighting off the manta rays here, so I have my fingers crossed for the boys that they will be as lucky!They seem seem to have waited forever for this dive, the weather here has been very unpredictable, the locals say it is about a month behind it’s normal pattern, so the sea’s are very high, making it near impossible to launch the small boats from which they dive, even when the sea is ‘calm’ they still have to surf their way to safety, and at sea too the waves can be enormous, making it very difficult to snorkel, and very difficult to re-enter the boat once in the water…hence Saskia and I are not allowed to join the ‘expedition’!  In addition to this, the dive centre that they were originally going to go with had an enormous fire two nights ago, and have suspended business, so they had to find a new one. Yesterday they went on a refresher course, whilst waiting for the weather to clear, and I think that this was a good idea, especially for Louis, who had really lost confidence. I know he will be fine when he gets going again though…he was so natural before. Saskia and I passed the time by having our hair braided by an enormous armchair of a woman (Louisa), I looked like a total freak, but it was so relaxing laying back in her lap!

So here we are in Tofo again, we drove the 20 minute drive to Tofo through the palm groves, over the main road, a very pot holey red sand track, passing the numerous ittle settlements, the people waking up and heading to the wells to fetch their water, enormous plastic barrels on their heads…they must have extremely strong necks! It is a truly balmy and bumpy ride!

Here in Tofo, Saskia and I waited to see the boys launced, then treated ourselves to a big breakfast, before mozying around the little craft stalls, at masks and batik’s. Then we walked  along the beach, watching the surf, we were joined by a little boy (Johnny) who wanted to practice his english with us! Very sweet! Saskia is now looking up Crufts on the internet (of all things!!!), we have a few more minutes and then we are off to meet up with our diver boys! This afternoon we shall be back on our beach at barra, and back to the palm trees!

Love to you all!

Heidi

View to beach

Maputo

Monday April 6th…I think?

Sitting in Dino’s Bar, reggea music playing, blue skies, 32 degrees, been on beach since 8 this morning, beer next to the laptop, and…well what more do you need really. Totally forgotten what day and time we live, not seen a newspaper for days, no routine to stick to except for waking up and beaching it all day.
Been ‘curb crawling’ this morning, just before lunch, trying to get some prawns, and as the concept of supermarkets hsn’t reached this part of the world yet you have to drive up and down the main access road and look for street sellers…Believe me, they are all there when you need them…after a while they find you! “A Mister Paul, where is your wife, do you need some more ‘fishy’ business today?”
Absolutely marvellous here, every day I / we are getting more and more attached to the ‘hakuna matata’ mentality here. If it could only last forevere.
Tomorrow we are off on a snorlkeling trip all together to see the whale sharks, and after Louis and I are of diving for two days.

Speak to you soon.

Paul

Sunday April 5th, here is Heidi:

So indeed as jon pointed out, our lack of entries has been because of the lack of internet access! This truely is a wild and developing country, and finding even a shop has been near impossible!
When you first enter the country through the crazy border, you really start to realise that you are in Africa, everything changes! On the South African side there is a large supermarket and glitzy petrol station, the houses are kept well and there are numerous safari lodges. Over the border, (which is a frenzy of women with baskets on their heads and officials with guns!) the houses become relics, evidence of the not so distant war everywhere, and it is clear that this is a poor country.
Our first stop was Maputo, here we all felt a little uneasy, it is a large colonial city on the palm fringed coast, with an air of having been a destination of spleandour in the distant past, it is now in the process of recovery, our hotel (Costa Do Sol) was across the road from the beach, a stunning art deco building which seemed to be stuck in that era, having not been upgraded since then! It had a beautiful old seafood restaurant overlooking the sea, and run by Portuguese mafia! The clientelle appeared to be the rich and famous portuguese! Apparently Tom Jones has stayed there, and it was home to spies during the war.
We then travelled north onto the EN1 (main road). The road was extremely long, studded with little settlements of reed houses and rondavels, every little village with its own school and clinic, the people so friendly, a very balmy place, but amongst their everyday life are hundreds of empty decaying colonial buildings, yet more reminders of their past and their struggles. The first night we completely missed the turn off to the place we wanted to stay, very few signposts here! We ended up in an amazing surf spot over half way along our route, run by South Africans (as are most of the places here!). On Friday we arrived here in Barra, a stunningly beautiful place, all palm trees and red dirt roads almost unaproachable with a normal car, the woman here are carrying water buckets on their heads from the local wells and working with babys on their backs! We think we have it hard sometimes!
Our house is an incredible reed building on stilts up in the palm trees on a small dune overlooking the beach, it is beautifully (simply) decked out with great beds and mosquito nets, and a little kitchenette. We were a bit stumped at first, wanting to cook our own food, and no shop or supermarket anywhere…amazing it turns out you dont need supermarkets…people line the streets sellinbg their ware, and you pick up what you need as and when you see it!!!
The sea here is lovely and warm, but not not like a hot bath! So is refreshing, with a strong current and great surf for boogy boarding!
So all in all it has been well worth the long drive, we have arrived in our balmy paradise and are very happily chilling here for 11 days, after six different lodgings and 18oo km drive! I think we deserve it!
Hope you are all well, and Paul will down load some images tomorrow, now that we have found this place!xxx