In Search of Paradise (Island), Inhassoro, Mozambique

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Crammed on the backseat of the minivan 'chapa'

On the recommendation of some people we had met in Tofo we decided to head a little further north to Inhassoro where Isla de Santa Carolina (also known as Paradise island) is reputed to be one of the nicest islands in the Bazaruto Archipelago. Andy and Jenny, a gregarious English couple we met on the bus to Vilanculos and who had visited our bar at Beach Village backpackers, decided to join us for a day trip to see somewhere new. The journey itself was pretty typical of this part of the world - cramped in to the back seat of a mini-van or  'chapa' as they call them. There were at least four people to every row, sometimes more if children were on board, and the front row behind the driver would accumulate as many as seven to eight people - half of them on the seat, and half standing hunched over trying to avoid banging their heads on the van ceiling. Being the only way for locals to

Minivan to Inhassoro - note bowed roof struts

travel, everyone brings all their goods and wares with them - whether it be 50kg bag of rice, or plastic patio chairs, or their bicycles. We soon realised that we had chosen the best bench seat as all the goods were shoved straight on to the roof - it didn't have a roof rack - and as the journey progressed the ceiling became more and more concave above our heads! Sitting at the very back we felt marginally safer: we had the van's structural support above heads rather than a bowing roof!

We parted ways with Andy and Jenny so that they could enjoy their brief time in the beach town. Thinking that Goody Villas - our recommended accommodation -  couldn't be too far (we kept on seeing signs but no one could tell us how far).  We seemed to have walked quite a way when we met up with Andy and Jen again.  Thinking there would be refreshment at our camping lodge, they walked with us.  It turned out that Goody Villas was about a 5-6 km (4 mile) walk by road. Astonishingly, the bar and restaurant was not open, so poor Andy and Jen headed back into town along the beach seeking refreshment. For us, we discovered that to camp at Goody Villas was 400 Mts per person ($13) - twice the price we had been told. Apparently it is high season right now because of South African holidaymakers. There were about 4 families in the whole place! I was quite appalled - not only had we walked such a long way in the heat, it was more expensive, had no cooking facilities, and no restaurant or bar - even though it was high season! We were not impressed!

Tony our generous 'luncher' who drove us to our tent

Resigned to staying because we couldn't carry our bags any further (we estimate we're carrying about 18-20kg each), we set up our tent and locked up our stuff, and went off in search of food along the beach back towards town. The first place that was supposedly quite near was actually closed because there was no-one staying there (again, so much for 'high season'!) So we carried on 4-5 km in total into town. We found Andy and Jenny sunbathing on the beach and together we headed off to find a restaurant in town.

Seta Lodge had a restaurant, a full menu, and a camp site! As we sipped a much needed beer, Andy, god-love him, started talking to the only other guest having lunch, and before we knew it, we had a ride back to Goody Villas to pick up our tent and bring our stuff back to Seta's campground. Tony, our kind 'luncher' turned out have studied in England for 8 years. While he waited, we did the fastest tent take-down you ever saw (we hadn't really unpacked anything). On our way out of Goody Villas, one of the assistant managers had the cheek to ask us for money for having the tent up, saying that people usually pay for short term use of the place.  I, in turn, told him that his request was unreasonable, and would not pay anything. We hadn't used any of the facilities - the swimming pool nor showers etc, and of course we hadn't used the kitchen because they didn't have one, nor the restaurant because it was closed. So, no, I wasn't going to pay for the 2 hours that our tent had been there while we had gone in search of food! After pitching our tent at the new place we chilled out with some beer and some much deserved monster-sized garlicky prawns at a Johnson's bar nearby. The day had finally turned itself around, and we met some nice people there. Phew!

Park guard meeting us with an AK-47

Our task the next day was to organise a trip out to Santa Carolina island - the  reason we were in Inhassaro. Lorenzo was a local character half way up the beach - our only way to find him was that he had a sea shell shop next to one of the lodges (insert kids rhyme here - "he sells sea shells").  While waiting for him we sat on the beach watching the local fishermen who were putting out their nets from the shore. Martin and I were checking out his foot as it was sore between his toes. Soon we were attracting the locals and one of the fisher ladies, a tiny wrinkly old woman, started to get closer and closer with her curiosity. Suddenly she was hovering over his foot wanting to squeeze between his toes saying in Portuguese that 'it would eat him and that we must get it out'. By this time we were surrounded by about seven or eight of fisherfolk, one of which ran off and returned with a very sharp scary looking gorse-bush thorn about an inch and a half long. The fisherman started to pick away at the "mantikenya" (is how it sounded).  Gradually by poking and slowly peeling the skin around the thing, he was able to dig out a circular, white firm blob about the size of a lentil. Gross! Immediately we bathed in antiseptic. So it turned out that waiting around for Lorenzo had paid off - Martin got some impromptu surgery to remove his mantikenya (apparently some kind of worm - horrible!!)

Dinner with Darvy, Pete, Kevin and Gerard and some other campers

Back at our new camp we were much happier especially because we didn't have to walk three miles just to get food! Also, the other people camping there were so nice and friendly. Our neighbours opposite were on a year long fishing trip up through Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania etc from South Africa and they generously invited us to dinner. Pete, Kevin, Davy and Gerard are deep sea fisherman and so dinner consisted of four different recipes of Rock cod, barracuda, and Sail fish with spicy rice and fresh salad. It was so delicious I am salivating just writing about it.

Communicating with people in Africa is not always easy - even face to face when they have good English. Because Lorenzo was quite far up the beach though, he arranged that he would communicate by text message at 5am next morning to say whether the wind was right to sail the dhow (a fishing boat with a sail) or go by power boat (a fishing boat with an engine). Of course, way after 5am we still hadn't heard from him.

Beautiful beach of Paradise Island + boat with one-speed engine!

His reply: "6 o clock. Now is dark." Surely he should have known that information when he arranged a 5am communication yesterday?! As you can imagine, there was a lot of back and forth. It turned out that he was trying to coordinate and negotiate a price with some other tourists who were still asleep. This just delayed our departure further. Finally just before 10am we left the coast in a fishing boat with an engine. What we didn't know was that the engine had just one speed - SLOW. It took three hours to get the Santa Carolina. I'm pretty sure at times we were not moving over the ground - our engine being the same speed as that of the tide. It was farcical

Michelle walking from the boat to Isla da Santa Carolina

but in the end we did get to the island but with only about 2 and half hours there. We were greeted by a man with an AK-47 machine gun, but luckily he was just the park ranger.  We enjoyed our lunch of fish sandwiches (donated by our camp neighbours) over the stunning views of the aqua clear water and Bazaruto island. We just had enough time for Martin to snorkel for a quick half an hour, and then we explored the island with its run down colonial style buildings, jail, hotel, and airstrip. (We only just found out that Santa Carolina had been used for one of the "Survivor South Africa" programs). Within three hours we were back on the boat and, even though the captain had said it would take only an hour and a half hours as the 'water would help us', it still took three hours to get back to our campsite. Of course, arriving well after dark, our neighbours were worried and had gone searching for Lorenzo in town. Thankfully nothing had gone wrong just bad timing for the tides. Also luckily for us, dinner was waiting for us too - goat potjie (pronounced poiky) - a spicy goat stew cooked in a three-legged cauldron-style pot over hot coals. We couldn't believe how nice these guys had been to us.

So, in spite of wishing we'd had more time on the island, not only had we come back safe, but were very fortunate to experience once again Africa's infamous Ubuntu: a warm African welcome of generosity and unending hospitality. *Mush