Desert Island Dreams Come True

After having left Tofo behind, we headed north on the EN1 towards Vilankulo/Vilanculos. Whilst the roads were in excellent condition, the police had obviously taken a leaf out of Western law enforcement entrapment techniques and positioned themselves behind a parked truck at the exact point where the speed limit changed from 100 km/h to 60 km/h. We were pulled over and handed a little printed out slip of paper that indicated that we were going 20km/h too fast. I had to hand over my driver's license and the car papers and received a lecture on the dangers of my reckless 'speeding'. After protesting my innocence, including stating that I would never break speed limits and that I had been instructed by my 'Government' to strictly adhere to the rules of the road, we were allowed to continue our journey, our wallet and sense of justice intact.

Christel had been reading up on the different places to stay along the coast, and when we came to a turn off for Pomene, we decided to see what it was like and headed down a sandy track. The road got worse and worse, and we started wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.



The car laboured on through the thick sand and eventually we came to the end of the track and found ourselves at Pomene Lodge, set on a tiny peninsula, with the ocean on one side and an estuary on the other.

The site was completely deserted apart from the staff and one other group of people staying there. We checked out the accomodation options and decided to camp under a bunch of trees right on the beach. The views and scenery was stunning. This was the perfect beach that we had been looking for.

We parked up, set up the tent and wandered along the beach looking for a place to go for a swim. Unfortunately, even perfect beaches have their downsides, as this one was filled with super-sized jellyfish, including the infamous Portuguese Man o' War version, which can apparently paralyze an adult. Us both being adults, we decided to give the swimming a miss and instead just continued our walk along the deserted beach.

In the evening, we watched the sunset and contemplated our luck of having stumbled upon this remote gem.

The next morning, we bought a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables from a group of friendly villagers, paying well over the odds for the mangoes, bananas, and tomatoes, but enabling us to have a very healthy breakfast and lunch.

After breakfast, I once again repacked the car, finally finding the ideal functional lay-out for all our belongings, supplies, tools and emergency equipment.

We chilled during the day, reading on the beach, wandering along the water's edge, and playing guitar.

 We managed to record another video of Christel playing and singing, and if the internet works for long enough we can post it here:



In the evening, Christel had an open air shower next to the car, we prepared another camp fire from wood collected from the beach, cooked a lovely pasta dish and relaxed under a star-filled sky.

The next morning, we packed up our tent, said our goodbyes to the staff and made our way through the thick sand back to the main road and onwards to Vilankulo.