Our first day and night in Mozambique was to be spent in Limpopo National Park (if you could call it that). Limpopo NP now stands as part of the greater transfrontier park which includes that of Kruger NP and another NP in Zimbabwe. Once a great park, plentiful with animals, Limpopo's wildlife was decimated during the recent years of civil war in the country with the animals commonly used as target practice and/or a source of food. With political stability returned, the fences are now torn down and the animals free to roam between the parks - although its almost as if the animals know better. We had taken bets amongst ourselves on spotting various animals within Limpopo, but after hours of driving and seeing almost nothing we soon grew tired of this game. There was one moment of excitement when we spotted some hoof and paw prints along a sandy track, but soon came the sound of "mooing" from the distance and we realised they were simply dog, goat and cattle prints. "What type of National park was this anyway?", livestock roaming about everywhere.Still within the park boundaries, we arrived mid afternoon at an empty Fish Eagle Camp and after our first broken Portugese conversation, set up camp in a prime position perched high on the escarpment overlooking the picturesque Massingir dam. Feeling guilty at having been tucked away in the car and inside for several days, Karen was determined to exercise and so created a training circuit, complete with endless star jumps for Bones, Karen and I to undertake. Whilst we were exercising another group arrived at camp, I'm sure they thought we were all insane running round in circles as we moved throughout the circuit. Now guilt-free, a lazy evening was spent enjoying the sunset……. and a few beverages.Another hour of dirt tracks the following day and we had finally exited the National Park. We were now in "Mozambique proper". We had no idea what to expect, except like the guide book so eloquently put it "Mozambique has a public relations problem. If you've been watching television in the last 10 years, the only images of the country you'll have seen are probably Kalashnikovs, land mines and flood victims giving birth in trees".Once a thriving Portugese colony, Mozambique had long fought for independence and in 1975 the Portugese withdrew. The country then slipped in to civil war which lasted almost a decade until early 90's. As we were to gradually discover, almost all infrastructure had been decimated, roads, bridges and buildings destroyed. The country a ruined mess.15 years on, and the country is on the mend - slowly, but it still remains one of the poorest countries in the world, where the average life expectancy is just 38 years.We had heard horror stories about the road network in Mozambique. OK, perhaps, network is a slight over-exaggeration. Essentially there is one main highway (EN1), that's it. It runs North-South effectively parallel to the coast along the majority of the length of the country, with the odd secondary road running east west to the coast and interior. Sometimes these are even partially tarred.People had continually told us nightmare stories of potholes that would swallow your car whole, but on our initial journey to Xai Xai these stories remained unfounded. The roads were tarred, with the odd pothole sure, but by and large we were reasonable impressed. We crusied along at a healthy pace past endless grass hut villages, and secondary forest, en-route to our first "major" town centre.