Mozambique

OK I’m finally back to tell you all about the past month of my life! I’m going to do one blog on Mozambique, one blog on my safari, and one blog on my final time at AE so you don’t get confused. Here I go!

A few weeks ago, our semester started to get really hectic. We just had assignment after assignment and paper after paper with no break in between. That was when the nursing majors decided that we needed a vacation to revitalize and re-energize ourselves for the end of the semester. After some extensive planning, we picked the destination: Ponta D’ Ouro, Mozambique! Ponta D’ Ouro, a small town on the southernmost border of Mozambique, is most widely known for its incredible scuba diving and white sandy beaches. Could it get any better? One of our biggest issues with planning was finding someone who could (legally) drive us all the way up there. Fortunately, one of our friends, Page, from North Hills church was more than willing to drive. Page was born and raised in PMB, so we figured having a native South African take us up the coast would be perfect. Once we had our driver and accommodations settled, we were all set to go.

On the morning of Thursday, 11/20, ten of us piled into an 8 seat van (we became very good at squishing a lot of people in small spaces in SA) and were off! Our goal was to make it there before 5PM, which was when the border closed. The drive was pretty uneventful until we got closer to the border and the roads started getting really bumpy. Despite Pages’ attempt to carefully avoid the numerous potholes, we still hit some of them pretty hard. On one of the big hits, the car suddenly shut off (electricity and everything). After 10 seconds of dead silence, we all burst out laughing. Of course this would happen when we were only a few miles away from the border! We all got out of the car and Steve and Page did what any other manly men would do: open up the hood to see what was wrong. Apparently the potholes had completely separated something from the engine (I’m not really sure what because I know nothing about cars), so all Steve had to do was reconnect it and the car was all fixed. Praise the Lord! After that minor setback, we powered down the road and made it to the Mozambique border at 4:30PM just as it was about to close. Once we bought our visas and got our passports stamped, we waited on the other side of the border for our “border transfer” to pick us up and take us to our final destination. A tiny truck with two guys in the front finally pulled up and announced that they were our border transfer. We laughed and, after confirming that these sketchy guys really were the right people, piled into the back of the truck with our entire luggage. After sustaining a wild ride on a windy dirt road, we arrived at our place of stay called Simply Scuba. We got our keys and were driven up to a bunch of tiny old chalets right along the beach. It looked like a picture form a postcard…absolutely beautiful. My roommate and best friend Mandy and I opened up our chalet to find two little cots with mosquito nets hanging over them, a plastic table and chairs, and a tiny kitchen with a sink and stove. It was pretty basic and kind of dirty; however, we didn’t care because we were living on the beaches of Mozambique!

For the next three days, we spent as much time on the beach and in the water as possible because the weather was so hot and humid. The highlight of my trip, besides just being able to relax and spend time with some amazing friends, was going on a boat ride with Dolphin Encounters. Right down the road from where we were staying was a bunch of scuba and snorkeling places, and Dolphin Encounters was one of them. With this company, you were guaranteed to swim with dolphins or you got your money back. So with this guarantee in mind, we woke up at 5:45AM and trudged down to the place. We got briefed on how to interact with dolphins, got all of our gear (fins and snorkel masks) picked out, and then got on the motor boat to take us out to sea. The ride was crazy because the water was so choppy; however, it was an absolutely gorgeous day and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Almost right away, we saw a pod of 3 whales (2 adults and a baby). They were huge and got incredibly close to the boat; it was awesome. After driving (or boating?) around for awhile, we found a pod of dolphins. Unfortunately, it was a “nursery group” consisting of mothers and baby calves, so we couldn’t swim with them. Apparently it’s company policy because the mothers have a tendency to be overprotective and mean. Awhile later, we finally found some dolphins that were “acceptable” to swim with and got in the water. sadly, they weren’t being very friendly and just swam away. I guess dolphins, like people, have their days to be friendly and play and their days to get down to business and hunt for food. Today was definitely a “get down to business and hunt” day. We did see a ton of jellyfish when we were in the water, though. They were huge and swam up super close to us. It was kind of scary but cool at the same time. We drove the boat around a little longer, snorkeled one more time and got a little closer to some dolphins, and finally headed back to the beach after 3 hours out on the beautiful Indian Ocean. So that was the highlight. The lowlight of the trip was definitely the mosquitoes. Ponta D’ Ouro has a high risk for malaria transmission, which is a nice way of saying that there are a million mosquitoes that want to suck your blood. I forgot to bring bug spray with me, so even with my mosquito net, I got totally eaten alive from head to toe on the first night. I even got bitten on the inside of my lip. I don’t even want to think about how that happened. The second day, I bought mosquito spray, covered up the holes in my mosquito net with scotch tape, and tucked the net under my mattress. I also armed myself with one of my rainbow sandals so I could smash any in sight. Thanks to my protective measures, I sustained substantially less mosquito bites the rest of my time there. Thanks so my Malarone (an anti-malarial drug), I also avoided getting the dreaded malaria that my sister Alyssa got when she was in Kenya last summer.

So despite the mosquitoes, Mozambique was an awesome trip that I will never forget. I’m so glad we took the time away from our studies to experience life in another country. Now it’s time to tell you about my safari!