Day 201: Nacala to Chocas Mar

The sun baked us out of the tent again. Caro hand blended bananas to make a banana smoothie for breakfast. After packing up and settling the bill we took the gravel road to Fernao Veloso instead of just directly going back to Nacala. After the Shaquila Lodge which has rooms in modified containers the road turned into a sandy two spoor track. We passed many half-built mansions sitting on large ocean side properties.

The closer we got to Fernao Veloso the more half-built properties we saw with no sign of activity in the last few weeks or months. It felt like something big happened and we’re the only ones unaware of it.

On the tip of the peninsula, there is a large unfinished resort-like place with very strange and imposing architecture and decor. It too was completely deserted with no current building activity.

After taking some photos we took the tar road back to Nacala and then South to the turnoff for Ilha de Mozambique. After 25km we got to the turnoff for Chocas Mar which we took. The gravel road is quite corrugated and bumpy for the whole 20km to Mossuril. After Mossuril there is a piece of tar road again to Chocas Mar. From there we took a small sandy road along the beach to Carrusca, a lodge with an actual campsite.

The place, however, looked very run down and it took more than an hour for us to finally decide to camp there. First, we had to wait for the receptionist who couldn’t speak English then we drove to the campsite which clearly hasn’t been used for weeks or months and there was no water in the shower. We thus drove back to reception and tried to find someone to translate that we wanted to camp next to a bungalow but they wouldn’t allow that. In the end, we went to the campsite again after paying 500 MZN. The receptionist then came and ‘fixed’ the water and cleaned the toilet a bit.

We took out our snorkeling gear and went to the beach. The beach is your typical Mozambique image of white sand stretching for kilometers, turquoise water and palm trees. We’ve however decided that for a beach to be special to us it needed to be small and secluded not miles of white sand. The wind was blowing so we didn’t swim. We just walked up and down and Caro picked up some shells.

Back at the campsite, we made coffee and the played some drawing games in the sand like naughts and crosses. We then found very hard round fruits and decided to play Pétanque (or French boules) with it.

After a cold shower, we had two-minute noodles for dinner and then played two more rounds of Pétanque under the light in the lapa before going to bed.