We spent the night in Inhambane on our way up the coast to Vilankulo. Inhambane is located on the same peninsula as Tofo and Barra, and the bus to Vilankulo left from Maxixe (a larger town across the bay from Inhambane) in the morning. The most expeditious way to reach Maxixe from Inhambane is a twenty minute ferry ride. We figured that spending the night in Inhambane would make it easier to make it from the ferry to the bus on time and wanted to have some time to wander around the city, which is supposed to be one of the nicer provincial capitals in Mozambique.

We enjoyed wandering around the central part of town, checking out some of the cool art deco buildings, the old mosque built in 1840, and the 18th century Catedral da Nossa Senhora da Conceição. Also mixed among the tidy houses were a few errant abandoned buildings, with subtropical foliage dramatically taking over the manmade structures. Overall, things were very quiet as it was Sunday evening, and the sidewalks were completely rolled up in most of the town.

We spent a hot, sticky night at Pensão Pachiça, a somewhat bizarre but conveniently located (just 300 meters from the ferry!) guesthouse with murals painted directly on the walls. The light in the shared bathroom on our floor did not work, and the faucet in the shared bathroom on the upper floor only worked about half the time. (That said, the bathrooms were clean and the shower had water that was reasonably warm.) We watched the sunset over the bay from the roof deck, and then considered and declined the overpriced dinner menu on offer at Pensão Pachiça’s empty restaurant.

We ended up having a couple of nice curry dishes at the Buena Vista Cafe (located around the corner from, and potentially affiliated with, the Hotel Inhambane),¹ the only other place in town which appeared to be serving any food, and which was decked out with some impressively sourced Cuban decor and delightfully pumping out salsa music to an otherwise empty downtown.

After dinner, however, upon returning to Pensão Pachiça around 8:00 p.m., we found ourselves locked out.² We had not been locked out very effectively though, as we slunk around the gate and then waltzed through the unlocked front door, but, if you stay there, it would be worth checking to see what time they lock the place down before heading out for the night.

¹ The Buena Vista Cafe is located in the same space where the former Café d’Hotel (which is recommended in our guidebook) used to exist. If you look closely, you can still see the old signage under the new paint.

² This was not the first time we have been locked out of our accommodation while traveling. When on Koh Samui in Thailand in 2008, we returned around 10:00 p.m. to find ourselves completely locked out of the guesthouse at which we were staying (despite having been told that the restaurant/bar on the ground floor would be open until around midnight). After a half hour of first banging on the gated door and then dragooning the neighboring restaurant owner to call the proprietor of our guesthouse, we managed to make it back inside.