Pomene is North of Masinga and South of Vilankulo, it’s official name is Ponta de Barra Falsa meaning false bay. With Ron, Julie and the boys out from Dubai we all headed off for a huge family week at the folks new spot. It did not take long for Rose (Nomad) to be packed to capacity and bulging at the sides (14 people means a lot of stuff) with just enough room left over for Vaughn, Bevan and myself to sit in. 

Being extremely excited we left at midnight forseeing that the slow pace of Rose (80-90kmph) would mean that we could all meet up at the border at 6am when it opened. Being a good highveld winter and being in a not so wind proof car meant that we were stopping at every petrol station for coffee instead of petrol – the cold also meant we drove faster so we arrived at the delightful Komatiepoort Petrol station (pre-toll and petroport days) at 3.30am. Luck would have it that we only had one sleeping bag between us and a few hours to pass the time. Nothing like the cold to turn minutes into hours but these eventually ticked by to mark the arrival of Vaughn’s folks and more importantly a heated car and tea! However, we were still not on our way as Roger and his family had overslept, run out of petrol, had to walk for petrol, fill up and finally get to the border. 

At 8am we gave up on waiting for them and headed through the border. By now tempers were flaring and the excitement was beginning. A quick border loo break meant a clean toilet with a bowl to scoop water out of a 40 gallon drum (much better than the SA side where you have to tip toe through the overflowing effluent to reach what appears to be a loo). Then we all piled into our cars and headed north, it did not take us very long to learn a few things. Firstly – Chevrons in Mozambique are a warning of a tight corner unlike SA where they are not. Secondly – PERIGO means danger and is meant! Thirdly – watch out for bus sized potholes that would swallow your car! It also became a topic of much conversation that the new road was littered with branches to keep the cars off it but it was the road for pedestrians and bicycles while we all bundu bashed along the side of a dirt track. Another topic became the art of people jumping out into the road in front of huge cars going at 120kmph while frantically waving their chickens, causing the said cars to jump on brakes and try to avoid this sudden obstacle that appeared from the bushes 2 meters in front of the car. We smiled when the police officials inquired of Mom C in the Nissan Patrol “How much does Madam think she should pay for not wearing her seatbelt?” We were overwhelmed with the armed army presence along the road as well.

Due to the bad roads we were still traveling and quite far from Pomene when dusk descended and as luck would have it, it was also a Friday night which meant everybody was drinking up their wages as fast as possible and then heading into the road to walk home. This meant that I got good practice driving in “suicide hours” (the pet name we have given to driving in Africa as the sun sets and the whole of Africa and its animals head into the road). After 3 grueling hours of dodging people, unlit cars, animals and potholes we finally hit the Rio das Pedros turnoff (just after Masinga), by now all were tired after nearly being on the road for 20 hours already and so we all headed off with a bit of pace down the sand road. It did not take long to hit the first pothole which resulted in bruised heads, bums and the re-arranging of all the goodies in the car, pace became a non-issue but we still hit 2 million potholes – the worst being the car sized pothole on a bend. Rally drivers had nothing on us as we drove along with all limbs braced against the car ready for the next hole. The potholed sand roads gave way to sandy beach roads that required a few attempts at racing up one especially soft sandy hill, then it was coastal bush and finally the campsite. By now we had been on the road for 22 hours and all collapsed in the kitchen tent to sleep. 

The first 3 days were spent playing with the well. The fluctuating water levels meant that the water had dropped dramatically from 3 months previously when the well had been originally dug.

Half way through our stay we decided to head off to Maxixe campsite with the boys. We forgot to look up some basic phrases and spent most of the day trying to figure out what bread was in Portuguese, beer was much easier to sort out! We also took a dhow to Inhambane – after hours of waiting at the local “harbour” we were loaded onto the dhow with all the locals and there tons of stuff. What an education that was – if you want to be carried onto the dhow you wait on the beach with your shoes on and then the men carry you onboard, 6 or 7 passengers become the designated balers and spent the whole trip baling (they still had to pay for the ride!).

The drive home was far less exciting than the trip down (I think the lack of darkness had something to do with that?!) but we did stop to help out a broken down South African for a few hours (they had to spend an extra few days in Mozambique while car parts were couriered to them). Rose decided to scare us with her oil light, an hour of fiddling produced the assumption that the sensor was broken after buying oil off a truck driver only to find that the oil was at the right level. The modes of transport were also amazing as every truck, bakkie or vehicle has people hanging onto every available space irrespective of where it is on the car. Goods are also transported haphazardly – goats are piled loose on top of the truck and hang on by sheer goodwill.