Love and Hate Tofo

Never have I been to a place which has left me with such conflicting emotions. We pretty much failed to do everything we intended to in Tofo, but somehow found a whole lot of other things which made it all worthwhile... i think. Let me explain:

Tofo beach itself is a beautiful place. Our backpackers, Fatima's Nest (or Rat's Nest as it could well be called) was perched precariously on high sand dunes over looking the beach. From the bar you had unspoilt views of long sandy beaches and deep blue water - very very cool (See photo below).

The view from the bar.

Yet another amazing sunrise in Africa.

Wooks and James enjoying a refreshing ale after the long bus ride here.

The accommodation was basic, mainly grass huts but this was kind of all we needed. We also ended up in a dorm full of really cool people. We'd made friends with people on the bus there and for the next five days the 10 of us lived in a dorm. It was a lot of fun.

This was helped by the fact that Tofo is a great party town. Every day a bus load of backpackers arrives from Maputo, keen for some beers and party, so all in all it was a really fun place. That was the part of Tofo we loved.

The other side of Tofo was typified by amazingly useless and apathetic staff, ridiculously over priced food, accomodation and activites (more on this). For exmaple, the staff at the hostel were habitually stoned and unable to answer any questions, we soon realised it best just to not do anything which involved their help. Simple things such as "can i get my bag out of the safe?" were some how completely impossible - Please come back at another time, at which point we may or may not decide to help. Useless.

This aside, the major disappointment was the Diving / Whale Sharks spotting. The single reason we came to Tofo was to see Whale Sharks. Tofo is unique in that it has the only resident whale shark population in the world. All other Whale Shark populations are seasonal, but at Tofo they are always there - apparently.

We started our search for the whale sharks with an extortionate two tank dive. (we're still not sure why but diving in Tofo is by far the most expensive diving we've done). Diving isn't the normal way to see Whale Sharks as they normally spend time on the surface, however, the guys at Tofo scuba ensured us that between dives we'd spend time looking for them then snorkeling with them. Sounded great.

Sadly, the seas were angry that day. Heading out of the bay we were met by 10 ft swells which didn't stop. This wasn't helped by the fact that instead of a normal sized dive boat, we were instead in a small rubber ducky style boat. After 25 minutes of bobbing around we were on the verge of sickness. 2 hours later after our dives, we were most definitely sea sick (Nick, Wookie and I anyway, somehow James escaped unharmed). The massive waves and cloudy sky also made it impossible to find any Whale Sharks.

The diving itself was... ok. Wasn't great, but wasn't that bad. All in all a pretty disappointing experience.

The next day we thought we'd try again, this time a dedicated whale shark trip. Again, extortionately priced (nearly $100 US for two hours!), and again disappointment. After barely two hours of heading down the coast then back, we were told "sorry no whale sharks today", spent 10 minutes snorkeling on a "reef" completely devoid of life and then headed in to the shore.

This was all very disappointing, but that wasn't the end of it, not for me. The final kick in the teeth (hehe) came that evening when, whilst biting into a delicious chocolate bar, the bridge work which holds my false tooth in place broke. This has been waiting to happen for a long time, but the timing couldn't have been much worse. After a day of doubt and despair (I was almost ready to jump straight on a bus to Maputo, Jo'burg, then fly home) I decided to soldier on. I'm really glad i did now as it turns out i probably wouldn't have been able to get on a flight and would have stuck in Jo'burg along - not a lot of fun.

So, with that decision made we head off through northern Mozambique to Malawi, minus one front tooth. I can't help but laugh at the irony of the post below, I definitely did get a serious dose of travel pain, hopefully that's it for this trip though.