Travel Diary: Mozambique & Shipping Mr Jones

Feeling invigorated after having made the decision to “travel” a little bit by going to Mozambique, we headed up the Natal South coast with a tail wind for a change and so were able to stop in Ballito before lunch for some shopping (mostly wine as it is prohibitively expensive in Moz) and to purchase the required Mozambique 3rd party insurance for Mr Jones. With tasks divided, Tania headed off for the shopping and Stuart to purchase insurance.  After having purchased insurance Stuart was wandering back towards Mr Jones and looking for Tania in various shops when he spotted a person with a big great white beard peering inside Mr Jones and taking pictures. It took a moment to realise that the newest member of Mr Jones fan club was none other than the great African explorer, Kingsley Holgate!  If you are unsure who he is, check this Wikipedia link .  Unfortunately, Stuart was too slow to get across the car park and greet him, it would have been wonderful to grab a selfie with such a well known Land Rover fanatic…

The following day after a hassle-free drive further up the Natal coast we crossed into Mozambique and experienced two new firsts for us.  The first one being, passing through the tiny Kosi bay border post which was by far our easiest entry into Mozambique, ever, and the second taking our first Covid test.  It is hard to believe that despite all the moving around, within SA, that we have done since the start of the pandemic and therefore in theory being higher risk this is the first PCR test we have taken in 23 months.  Thankfully we both “failed”, i.e. tested negative.

The closest town to the border and a very popular one with South Africans as a holiday destination is Ponta de Oura, we however were not that impressed by the vibe and the campsite was part of the main thoroughfare to the beach so we quickly moved on to a smaller village a little further up the coast called Ponta Malongane. The campsite there is huge but right next to the beach and has many trees and coastal forest which both makes you feel closer to nature and also provides shelter from the wind and sun, we immediately felt very relaxed.  We rounded off a very good day with a swim and some fun body surfing in the crystal-clear water just in front of camp, although we did have to curtail the fun as Mozambique has a rather strange Covid regulation in place that requires everyone to be off the beaches by 4pm.

Every country in the world at some time or another has implemented a regulation to manage the pandemic that probably didn’t make much sense but we are firm believers that if you are a visitor to a country or region then you should abide by the rules and/or customs of that area and thereby respect (and perhaps help protect) the very people you are visiting.  We were thus left gob smacked when over the course of the next two days we had conversations with 2 different sets of traveler’s from Europe who openly told us of their disdain for Covid regulations in general and in the second case how for all the borders they had crossed in Southern Africa that they forged their PCR tests certificates. In the case of the latter we calculated they had probably spent in excess of USD10k renting the 4wd they were travelling in but justified their forgery based on the cost and futility of the PCR test!

After a couple of pleasant days at Ponta Malongane, we pointed Mr Jones northward for the relatively longish trek (650km), to our favorite beach in Mozambique: Tofo.  This included a first for us, crossing the spectacular, 3km long, Maputo – Katembe suspension bridge and then a traverse through Maputo proper.  A couple of quick stops were made in Maputo to draw money and source a local SIM card.  In South Africa, even we can do 650km in a single day in Mr Jones if we want too, due to the good roads and ability to maintain a relatively high average speed but in Mozambique the main road north passes through many villages and in each one the speed limit drops to 60km/h so it is far more practical to split such a distance over two days which is exactly what we did.  A late afternoon arrival at Sunset beach, saw us enjoying sundowner R&R’s (Rum & Raspberry) on the deck overlooking the Indian ocean.

An early start the following morning saw us in Tofo before lunch where we were pleasantly surprised to find that Fatima’s Backpackers was still operational.  It was time to settle in for what we hoped would be a very pleasant 3 weeks of a simple routine: wander onto the beach after breakfast for some sun & surf, then on our way back to camp passing through the local fresh produce market for some fresh pau (bread rolls) and vegetables or fruit for lunch.  In the afternoon rinsing and repeating, if we felt like it or just chilling by Mr Jones.   The only thing we wouldn’t be able to totally enjoy was the spectacular sunset Tofo beach enjoys, thanks to the 4pm curfew but that was a small price to pay for being in paradise. It was quite amusing to watch how each day at 4pm a relatively large contingent of police would arrive on the beach to blow their whistles and shepherd the surfers and beachgoers out of the water and off the sand.

We did have one concern, a large cyclone was developing off the coast of Madagascar and heading towards the Mozambique Channel, sometimes these cyclones make it down to the Tofo/Inhambane area with devastating results but the forecasts seem to show it would stay offshore which we were obviously holding thumbs for.

Day 3 in Tofo was Tania birthday and we were really looking forward to an evening out at an exquisite little Japanese restaurant called Sumi which just so happens to be run by a school friend of Tania’s and his Japanese wife.  Their food is divine and that alone would have made for a great birthday but then an even better birthday present arrived, in the form of an email from a shipping agent to say that there was a RORO vessel to South America calling in Durban during the first week of March with space for Mr Jones and were we interested?   It felt poetic that in the country were 14 years prior, we had come up with the idea to travel the world by vehicle and where we had in fact started the journey in 2019,  we finally got news that our plans could get back on track.

In the campsite with us was a German couple, Ruth & Jeurgen, who were currently winding down their time in Africa but had 10 years prior travelled South America and we really enjoyed receiving some first-hand information on South America even if it was a little dated.  They were also very keen to do an ocean safari which is something we have always thought we should do but in all our visits hadn’t, so we agreed to accompany them on one and help to make up the minimum numbers required. Unfortunately, though while the cyclone had stayed far offshore it was still creating very rough seas and so Ruth & Juergen kept having to extend their stay while waiting for a suitable day.  In the end the wait was well worth it as we had a couple of fantastic hours out on the ocean getting to snorkel with a couple of Whale sharks and Giant Manta rays.

This video captures some of the snorkelling action

After just 10 days in Tofo we started the journey back to Durban having decided to rather get back early and have plenty of time to prepare everything for the shipment rather than be stressed and short of time, we were both super excited and nervous at the same time.

The decision to get back early was a very good one although it didn’t save us from the stress.  The first major moment of stress was when Stuart was about to do a final service and discovered a major oil leak down the side of the engine block, thankfully it turned out to be not too serious and only required the changing of an exhaust manifold gasket.

Our second big stress come in the form of the shipping agents.  We had gathered from a number of sources that shipping an overland vehicle is never easy and rarely smooth sailing but were not prepared for what in our opinion amounted to incompetence and arrogance: almost every important communication or document had errors on it, the submission to customs was done wrong  and without our approval (and only corrected when we pointed this out), we were given incorrect information about timing of customs inspections and when delivery to the port would be made, etc, etc.   With only 24 hours until the vessel was due to depart Durban and a critical customs inspection still not scheduled, it appeared next to impossible that we would make the shipment and so we set about cancelling airline tickets and losing our cool with the shipping agent. Somehow 12 hours later we got the news Stuart could take Mr Jones to the port and that all was on track.

We always expected the shipment process to be stressful (simply because Mr Jones is our house and “everything”) but we never anticipated it being as bad as it was. It is not an experience we want to put ourselves through anytime soon but hopefully we have learnt some valuable lessons as to what to watch out for and demand,  when we next ship Mr Jones across an ocean.  The Captain(s) logs (at the bottom of this post) for February and March give more detailed insight into our emotions and frustrations during this time.

Only once we got news that the vessel had actually sailed with Mr Jones tucked into its bowels did we set about re-booking tickets and getting excited about the adventure being underway.  The fun and games though were not over yet, as we ran into one more bureaucratic hurdle at the airport.  Our research had not indicated that Argentina required a return airline ticket for entry as a tourist but as we were to find out, the airlines do, in order to cover their backsides in case the country customs request it upon arrival.  We had only booked a one-way ticket as when we do fly from South America it most likely will be from an entirely different country and most definitely after the visa period for the country we were flying too had expired (we will have left in time with Mr Jones..).  No amount of discussion and showing shipment documents for Mr Jones or a rough itinerary would change the check-in counter staff’s mind and so we ended up scrambling to buy another one-way ticket (which we hoped we could cancel on arrival) just to enable us to board the plane.  This in itself was not a smooth process (and a race against time to ensure we didn’t meet the check-in cutoff time) as the internet was acting up but given that this blog is being written from South America,  all eventually ended well and we boarded our flight to Argentina.

Below are links to the “Captain(s) log” which is our attempt to reflect the realities of daily life (emotions, good times, bad times, frustrations, etc) on the road