Day 48 – Cahora Bassa to Vilankulo

The Haze that lasted the whole journey from Cahora Bassa

One of Many Rivers we Crossed

We skipped breakfast and are on the road by 06h00am as we know what ever our decision is we have a very long day ahead of us, the first leg is 518kms and the road is largely straight and we are travelling through featureless countryside made even more boring by the haze that seems to cover the whole country with visibility at around 4kms, but the road was good and we made good time getting into Chimoio at 12h00 midday. I promised the girls a good Sunday lunch, but I needed to first go to the police station and see what they have to say about the security situation and also get some money changed for petrol and to pay for the lunch.

I call at the police station and found it locked up and the 4 officers outside shooting the breeze, only one could speak a little English and thought I was asking for directions, only when I said what was going on with the Renamo and Frelimo problem did they click, but they said it was all good and I would have no problems on the road and they knew nothing about police accompanied convoys.

I call in at the smartest hotel in town to enquire about changing money and the receptionist tells me she cannot help, but I could get at the market, but be careful as I could be conned out of more than the exchange rate, I get back to the car and suddenly this guys drives up flashing Mozambique Meticais, I ask him how did he know I was looking for some, which avoided asking, I am sure it could only have been the hotel receptionist. Well I have been forewarned and I change US$100 at a reasonable rate, but I want to check the amount he has given me and I and Denise count and find he has short changed us by Mets200 by his slight of hand as immediately we confronted him he fished out the missing 200.

We then have one large pizza two fresh orange juices between the four of us and that was the slap up Sunday lunch and Denise got some snacks at the local Spar, which was poorly stocked, but we had chocolate dessert and some crisps for the pad.

We have another 460kms to travel if we are to get to Vilankulo and we do not know what to expect, Denise is driving this leg and we are 100kms on the Beira side of Save and she has just commented on how quiet the road is with few trucks or any other vehicles when around the corner comes a bakkie with flashing lights and a guy dressed in green in the back with a gun, Claudia thought it was a pistol; and behind was a convoy of over 40 vehicles including the missing trucks. Now this has us worried, but we have been through at least two army road blocks and they just waved us through.

We get to Save and go through another road block with no hassle and over the Save River and 120kms to go and still no convoy, I must say talks of convoys took me back to the 70’s in Rhodesia when you had to travel some roads in a convoy, but I think they were much better protected than the one we saw, if indeed it was a convoy.

We get to Vilankulos at dusk with the last 100kms badly pot holed, which were difficult to detect until you were in 10m of them, but Denise did a great job zig zagging her way down the road with an occasional bump. We put the Casa Rex into the Garmin, but heavens knows where she wanted to take us we eventually find it after 976kms covered in 12 hours at an average of 81kmph which is the best time we have made in the whole trip to date.

The Casa Rex can accommodate us for one night, but they tell us they have some villas, which are self catering and we can eat at their place if we want, we find the villa’s some 5kms further on, which are great, if not, the best accommodation we have had the whole journey and we felt we deserved it as well as the belated slap up lunch, now dinner.

Sinead has once again been well behaved and we were very grateful for that on this tough leg of our travels. So after a day of concern especially with the mixed messages we were getting we are pleased to say that Plan A is still in play and we should get home either on Saturday or Sunday, but will phone Michael once we know what we are doing. It is going to be tough going back to our city way of life because all you want keep going or at least planning for our next trip.

Another Victim of Africa's Road's