My first summer holiday season!

Our hut in Bamboozi for the first few nights in Tofo

Traveling to Tofo from Maputo was an interesting experience. Cam and I took a small bus from Fatima's hostel in Maputo at 5am on December 20th and we were in Tofo by early afternoon. We made some new friends on the bus and we ended up staying in the same place - Bamboozi! We were hanging out with a couple of them more over the following few days. Mica, a Peace Corps volunteer from Tennessee and Tom, a guy from London, traveling before starting his career as a lawyer in England.
We made a few other friends at Bamboozi as well - a South African family from Joburg and a couple guys who live in Cape Town - Jason (a South African) and Lenny (from Germany).

The first day we were in Tofo we went snorkeling and we saw some dolphins and a whale shark! I got sun burnt (again) :) so I was staying away from the strong sun the next couple days - mostly just sitting at the beachfront bar, enjoying a good drink.

Local village near Barra

Mica and I went to Barra (a nearby beach town) with a few of our new South African friends - Tamlin and her family. It was an interesting drive on a dirt road, passing through poor local villages to get to a fancy beach lodge... extremes.

The rest of our Maputo friends arrived in Tofo on Christmas Eve. We had rented a house for the next three days. That night (Christmas Eve) we watched the sunset from the ocean and got back to the house in time to see the moon rise over the water from our front porch - it was amazing!

Christmas Day BBQ

Christmas day was wonderful. We invited several of our new friends to join us for a Christmas seafood barbeque. It was fun to share the holiday with people from nine different nationalities.

On the 27th we left for Vilanculos. We couldn't all fit in one car so Cam and I took public transport while the others drove. We took a chapa from Tofo to Inhambane, then a boat to Maxixe, and another chapa to Vilanculos. It took about 4-5 hours.

Beach Village in Vilanculos

The place that we stayed at in Vilanculos - Beach Village - was very new, and not fully constructed :) but aside from that it was quite amazing, with a swimming pool and a bar, just steps from the beach. The ocean in Vilanculos was very peaceful and there were almost no waves - quite different from Tofo.

One afternoon I saw a group of guys playing soccer on the beach. I asked if I could join them and they quickly let me play on one of the teams. It was great. They were really good and the game was quite fast pace :) I don't feel like I made a big contribution aside from my one assist :) but it was a lot of fun and a good chance to hang out with the locals. One sad observation is that in a country where the vast majority of the population is dark skin, almost all of the people vacationing in both Tofo and Vilanculos were white. Many of them were from South Africa (since now is their vacation season). This was very odd (and sad) to see. When at the beach (especially in Tofo), most of the time, we couldn't tell we were in Africa.

The island of Magaruque

December 31st was my favorite day of 2010! We went on the island of Magaruque and spent most of the day snorkeling, eating lobster and lounging around the beach. The boat tour we took was through a company called Sailaway and we all had a great time.

Later that evening we got our group together (which continued to grow to over 20 people) for a nice dinner out at a restaurant. After eating our last meal of the year, most of us went to the largest local NYE party on the beach :) There were several thousand people, ready to count down the last moments of 2010. It was a good time. Shortly after midnight we went to the bar at one of the hostels - Baobab. This is where Jason and Lenny were staying (yes, they came up from Tofo to meet us in Vilanculos) and they introduced me to a Bulgarian guy they had met there a few hours earlier - Ivo from Sofia. He is part of a work and travel program in Cape Town, South Africa, and he was traveling with one of his friends (a guy from Chile). This was so interesting and random - meeting another Bulgarian in Mozambique who's traveling all over southern Africa with a Chilean :) As it turns out they were in Tofo for Christmas as well...
After Baobab we went to a local bar for several hours. By the time we left at 5am it was already starting to get light out so when we got back to Beach Village we watched the sunrise over the ocean - it was beautiful... then we had breakfast in the pool and went to bed :) Not a bad New Years.

You can see all of my pictures from the trip here.

Now, after a fun, relaxing and adventurous two weeks, I'm finally back in Maputo. I have less than 24 hours left in this country - I leave for Zimbabwe early Tuesday morning. I've had a great time in Mozambique and I hope to be able to come back again soon.