After visiting Tanzania, again… this time for nearly 3 weeks (see previous post), Mathieu and I crossed the border into Mozambique.

For the first time on our African adventure… we crossed into a country where neither of us spoke the official language. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony until 1975, so the official language is… Portuguese.

While English is spoken in tourist destinations and around the capital city of Maputo, we spent most of our time in non-touristy areas. So, when necessary, we relied on our limited Spanish (not the same as Portuguese but sometimes it helped). With that, Google Translate, if we had network, and lots of gesturing and pointing… we made it work!

And it helped, of course. that the local people were warm and welcoming, and did their best to help us figure things out. Besides friendly people, we got to visit some really beautiful places and have some really great experiences.

Highlights of the trip…

⭐ Meeting Michael and Emzie (Austrailia) and hiking with them through a beautiful tea plantation and lovely waterfall, then caravaning with them for several days, sharing travel stories and making new ones together.

⭐ Camping and hiking in Chimanimani National Park, an off-the-beaten-path, remote mountain sanctuary located in Mozambique and Zimbabwe. We’d visited the portion of the park that lies in Zimbabwe several months before where we hiked up to a high mountain pass and stood with one foot in each country, enjoying the stunning views of the high mountains and valleys around us. So, it was great to now explore the part of the park that’d we’d looked down into.

⭐ Visiting in the small beach towns of Inhassoro and Tofo, where we walked along the long stretches of white, sandy beaches, played in the Indian Ocean and, just relaxed.

⭐ Spending a week with our new friends, Alex, Jasmine and Rob at their family’s beautiful home just outside Maputo. We met these fellow travelers a few months earlier at a campground in Zambia so it was great to reconnect and relax with them and their family, and to be lovingly welcomed by their of furry crew.