Tag Archives: Maputo

Buses, Chapas, & Ferries: How to Get from Maputo to Tofo to Vilankulo

March 31, 2014 Marc Hedrich 4 Comments

When we arrived in Maputo, we had a vague idea that we could reach Tofo and Vilankulo “by bus,” but we did not have the details down. The process seemed fuzzy at times, and our best information came from reading the accounts – sometimes several years old – of other travelers. In the hope that it might help others plan their travel through southern Mozambique, here is how we made the journey:

Maputo to Tofo. As we have mentioned before, we took the Fatima’s Backpackers shuttle from Maputo to Tofo. Although Fatima’s does not actually operate the shuttle, it contracts with a local minibus operator to make the journey directly (albeit not nonstop) to Tofo. The shuttle leaves from Fatima’s Backpackers in Maputo around 5:00 a.m.¹ and arrives at Fatima’s Nest in Tofo sometime in the early afternoon. (After leaving Fatima’s, the shuttle goes to the Maputo bus station to pick up more passengers before departing hopefully an hour or so later, and also stops a couple of times along the way at petrol stations for refueling, toilet breaks, and the purchase of refreshments.) The journey costs 700 mets per person, which is a decent price considering that taking the Fatima’s shuttle saves you the trouble of i) getting yourself to the bus station in Maputo – which was nowhere near where were staying, ii) locating, and then getting yourself and your baggage² onto a bus heading to or through Maxixe, iii) taking the ferry across the bay to Inhambane, and iv) catching a chapa³ from Inhambane to Tofo.

Actually, mayonnaise is one of the only foods that I do not love. (Happily, this is a South African brand of drinkable yogurt that we purchased as a snack for the Maputo-Tofo journey.)

Continue reading Buses, Chapas, & Ferries: How to Get from Maputo to Tofo to Vilankulo →

Mozambique

Macaneta Beach Weekend

March 17, 2014 Katie Barber 1 Comment

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 →

Mozambique

3 Days of Sleeping & Eating in Maputo

March 13, 2014 Katie Barber 5 Comments

It’s Thursday morning in Maputo,¹ which means that we are starting our fourth day in Africa. I know I’ve only updated social media in that time period to the tune of zOMG SOOO TIRED, so I’m going to do my best to cram the last few days into this post. (Spoiler: We do a lot of sleeping.²)

On Monday, we arrived in Maputo. After much-needed naps and showers, we plodded about the house slowly, trying to gather our thoughts, until our friend Tiffany and her friend Jeff arrived home. They took us out to dinner at a restaurant (the name of which is lost in a jetlagged blur), where we drank Mozambican beer (Laurentina Preta) and ate the best fried calamari I’ve ever had and grilled prawns.

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Travel Days

Four Countries, Four Hours of Sleep

March 10, 2014 Katie Barber 3 Comments

Somewhere around the three-quarters mark of our 11-hour flight from London to Johannesburg (the second of three flights), when I was tired, hungry, cold, and unable to remedy any of the aforementioned problems, I thought that we would never reach Mozambique and that we would be on that flight forever. (I may occasionally tend toward the dramatic.)

Happily, I was wrong, and we made it to Maputo, Mozambique this morning. We arrived tired and in desperate need of a shower, and, while we’ve each had a nap and a shower, I think I still need a good ten hours more sleep before I feel like a human again. (If this post rambles or is incoherent, now you know why.)

We left cold, snowy Chicago on Saturday afternoon for our three-part journey to Maputo. The first leg took us to London, where we lucked out and had a gorgeous day. It was sixty degrees and sunny, and so we wandered around the city, soaking up sunshine and admiring the springtime flowers. We ate samosas alongside the Thames and watched the London Eye spin, and met a former colleague of Marc’s for coffee and got a tour of her neighborhood.

We boarded the plane to Johannesburg exhausted and prepared for a nice long nap, but we ended up only sleeping minimally. (I got four hours, more than Marc.) Instead, we watched movie after movie (and, in my case, three episodes of Cheers, which I was delighted to find in the British Airways in-flight entertainment system) in the darkened cabin and lamented our inability to sleep.

Finally, that flight ended and, after some typical international transfer formalities, we boarded a plane to Maputo. The flight from Johannesburg to Maputo was short (basically just long enough to be served a tiny bagel sandwich and cheese danish). It seemed like we spent more time waiting in line for a visa at the Maputo airport than we did on the flight, but that’s probably just an exaggeration. (After all, no one was serving me cheese danishes to distract me while in line for the visa.)

Our friend picked us up at the airport and brought us home, leaving us with the all-important decision of what we should do first: nap or shower. Having done both, it may finally be time to pick up the guidebooks and decide what we are going to do now that we are here.