Mozambique

We're in a town called Tofu on the Southern Coast of Mozambique. We just went for a dive which was good but the boat ride to the reef was rough. We should be used to it now that we're "Advanced Scuba Divers".

That's right, we went from virtually no scuba experience to advanced in a 4 days and 8 dives in Sodwana Bay South Africa. There were lots of nice dives as well as training. We snorkled with the bigest fish on earth (Whale Shark), and saw many eels and mantas. It also was nice hanging out with Marrisa Rebecca's friend from Sudan.

We went quickly thru Swaziland to Maputu and stayed two nights there. It's an interesting city with nice people and good food. Now we're looking forward to a lot of beaches of Mozambique. We may take a dow ride to Bazzaruto Island for some snorkling and then we have to do a bunch of driving to get back accross the Zambize
river into Northern Mozambique which is meant to be fabulous.

We may not have many chances for internet so don't worry about us if you don't here from us for a while.

We're in Durban

Since the last post we've moved up the coast to Durban. First on the Garden Route then the Wild Coast. We missed out on shark diving because a cold front caused too much wind for safety and visibility. We did do a zip line in the rain forest near Tsitsikamma which was fun but wet.

The Wild Coast was more like what we're used to in Kenya. Less development, poor road conditions, livestock on the road and police road blocks with friendly policemen to shake us down for some extra cash.

Next up is St. Lucia, warmer weather and ocean, and meeting up with our friend Marrissa for some water sports.

Table Mountain, it’s a mountain that’s flat on top, like a table

Here we are in the thick of soccer madness by accident. When we first arrived in SA, we just drove till about 4pm then consulted the travel oracles (lonely planet and GPS) to find a place to sleep. We’ve gotten lazy and possibly quite good at this approach. This time, we pulled into a lovely guest farm and were welcomed by two guys named Peter, who were moving in that weekend to re-open the B&B (did I mention our oracles a bit old?). We ended up staying with them for two days they were so welcoming and charming – it was also fun to be their obvious guinea pigs. We highly recommend “Peter’s Place”, formerly Cozy Mountian.

Then we stayed at a hot springs called the Baths and we splurged on a nice room (only one they had left and it was a cold night). They had a big tub on the enclosed porch than ran directly from the springs – it was heaven. Then we wandered into Cape Town and decided to stay along the coast on the rail line. We’re in Muizenberg and it’s really charming with other coastal towns with different flavors within walking distance and along the rail line – Kalk’s bay is particularly nice.

We’re hitting the road again tomorrow and are just enjoying the Germany/Spain game on TV. Hopefully we’ll find a pub to watch the finals and we’ll try to be on best behavior. By the way, if anyone stays at the Canon Roadhouse in Namibia, buy Franz a drink for us. Several, in fact.

We’re starting out with a Stellenbosch tour, then going to the coast for an oyster festival and possibly diving with great white sharks. I’m thinking it’d be good to hit some wineries before diving with sharks. After that, we’re planning on the garden route. However, best laid plans and all that. We ended up skipping the park crossing into SA as we were really tired of desert and dust but we ended up with an equally wonderful surprise experience.

Will added more photos to the flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photos_by_will/sets/72157624346262464/