We originally planned to leave Maputo on Saturday morning at the ungodly hour of 5:00 am (the pick-up for which we were instructed to arrive at the even more ungodly hour of 4:30 am) and head north for the beaches of Tofo, but we were convinced to stick around through the weekend. While our decision was admittedly somewhat based on how unappealing a 4:00 am wake-up call sounded after a late night playing Cards Against Humanity, it was largely based on the promise of beaches that weekend.¹

On Saturday morning, we left Maputo at the much more reasonable hour of 10:30 am and headed for Macaneta Beach. The trip to Macaneta was an adventure, taking us over a dusty road with literal hills and valleys for around 45 minutes until we reached the ferry across the Incomati River at Marracuene. After the ferry was loaded with passengers and what seemed to be an inadvisable number of cars (six!), we were ferried across the river, where a safari-style vehicle was waiting to shuttle us another 30 minutes down the road (and a stretch of sand that was only a “road” in the loosest sense of the word) to our destination. Continue reading Macaneta Beach Weekend →