So the 3:45am alarm was super fun. But the taxi turned up on time and the first flight left on time. There was even time for coffee. Then we knew that we had a short connection in Johannesburg so we rushed through the transit route, collected some boarding passes and headed for the gate. Boarding commenced. Then stopped. Apparently they had just discovered that the plane hadn’t actually arrived yet! We did eventually manage to find a plane albeit a soppy little one with not enough storage room for rucksacks, and we did set off. Fortunately there are lunch and wine on the plane.
With a slightly bumpy landing we arrived at Pemba Airport in Mozambique. Through passport control to meet one of the managers foprom the lodge, Diago who was holding up a Guludo sign. He informed us that it would now be around a 4 hour drive across a number of different types of road to the lodge. We set off and just as we were leaving the town we got stopped by a police checkpoint. Used to police checkpoints earlier in our trip we assumed this would be easy and we would get waved through. Not so much here. They wanted to see all formed of ID and Visas for everyone in the car. One of the officers disappeared with our passports for a long time. After this interesting encounter we were allowed to go on our way. Four hours seemed to take forever going down ever worsening condition of road through village after village. It gradually got dark. Finally we arrived at the lodge and were greeted by the other manager Marta and some of the other staff. They took our luggage and showed us to our beach house or Banda. It was incredible.
We were handed a drink each and a wet flannel to wipeout hands. We were shown round the Banda. It was spacious and well lit by oil lamps. There were deck chairs and seats at the front and out the back door, in a wide closed off area, there was an outside shower, which would be filled with hot water twice daily, and up some steps, a compost toilet, with a view! We were quite taken aback. After the long journey, and arriving in the dark, we didn’t know what to expect, but it was amazing. There were even outside mirrors and bowls for hand and face washing. There is no running water nor electricity here so everything custom made. And to minimise the eco-footprint, everything is made from local materials using local techniques. It was interesting to be able to hear the sea so close by, but not be able to see it.
We freshened up and headed up to the restaurant area for dinner. We had had lovely soup for starters, followed by prawns and rice, and then . We had a funny conversation with Marta about food. “The sea is our supermarket!” Just what Jamie wanted to hear. We then had to try to explain that Jamie is not a natural fish eater, so he could try to eat normal fish, but not squiggly things! Lols!
After dinner we headed back to our Banda because, having been up since half three, we were naturally a little snoozy!
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