We went to Tofo to unwind, and, between frolicking in the ocean (including diving), reclining on the beach, and drinking beer while watching the sun set, I think it’s safe to say that we unwound.

We arrived in Tofo, a staple in the Southern Africa holiday circuit (which as Americans we had been blissfully ignorant of until the New York Times beat us there by a month and a half), last Monday via the Fatima’s shuttle (more on that in a future post). The shuttle terminated at a backpacker place called Fatima’s Nest, which was a substantial walk to Mozambeat Motel, where we had made arrangements. While we waited for the Mozambeat staff to come get us (“Come get your people,” the guy at Fatima’s had said during a phone call), we ogled the view: a stunning spread of soft white beach and brilliant turquoise ocean.

Mozambeat Motel was, for lack of a better phrase, really cool. The cabins have outdoor showers and hammocks, and everything is decorated with a funky vibe. The bar/restaurant (which has one wall that is open air) played awesome music, and the food was good. The night that we stayed there, we enjoyed prawn curries and worked on our blog, while relaxing on a wide couch and listening to the music. Mozambeat isn’t on the beach, but it has an inviting-looking pool.

But, for us, not being on the beach – especially this early into our trip – turned out to be a deal-breaker. As we discovered that first afternoon, although Mozambeat might have been just a couple of kilometers from the water, it was a dusty slog to the beach, and it’s a long, dark walk back after sunset if you forget to bring your torch (which we did, and ended up having our wits nearly scared out of us by an errant dog that raced past us). Worse, your inclination to carry money and entertainment items to the beach with you, since you have to walk such a long way, means that you’ll be unable to relax in the water, as you will constantly be keeping an eye on your stuff on the beach, jumping up whenever anyone walks near it. (For the record, no one seemed to show the slightest interest in our stuff, although there were lots of hawkers who were keen to sell us additional things.)

So on Tuesday morning, after only one night at Mozambeat, we packed up our things and headed for a spot closer to the beach. We checked into Casa Barry, and settled into a little cabin for the next four nights. We didn’t have an ocean view, but we were close enough that we didn’t need to bring anything with us – we could go right from our front door to the ocean in a minute. (This was exactly what we did as soon as we had checked in.)

Most of the hotels in town are located along the beach, and Casa Barry is located at the northeastern end of the beach. We were initially pleased because this end seemed to retain sun the longest and also was far enough away from the other hotels and bars we thought might be loud, but we were later even more pleased to discover that our end of the beach had many fewer jellyfish than other stretches. We enjoyed beers from the deck of the restaurant while watching the sunset almost nightly, but we were in easy walking distance from the other restaurants and hotels around town. (We sampled just about every restaurant in Tofo, which we’ll tell you about in a future post!) The staff at Casa Barry couldn’t have been nicer.

We really only had two beefs with Casa Barry. One, the electrical outlets only took South African plugs and we had not yet picked up an adapter for such, and were unsuccessful in our efforts to procure one in town. (The staff helpfully let us charge our devices in the office.) Two, the night that it rained, it also rained inside our cabin – only in one place, but that place happened to be directly above our heads. (We moved the bed, and the next morning they changed our sheets for us.)

We would whole-heartedly recommend either Mozambeat or Casa Barry as places to stay in Tofo: Mozambeat if you’re looking for a cool place to stay, and Casa Barry if you can’t be bothered to carry your things to the beach and enjoy sunsets over the water.