Hi everyone,

I had a fantastic time in Mozambique. We left last Sunday and travelled for about 6 hours before stopping just north of the capital, Maputo for the night. We then set off early on Monday and arrived at the beautiful Tofo Beach at lunch time. The drive was pretty interesting, because there is a big difference between Swaziland and Mozambique. Mozambique is much poorer. There are no shops, they are all stalls on the street, the roads are terrible, and all the houses are huts. When we arrived we spent the afternoon moving in and exploring the area. We were staying right on a deserted beach (apparently its not the tourist season), in a dorm beach hut.

On the Tuesday we woke up to find it was raining in paradise, but we still went ahead with the ocean safari, to go snorkelling with whale sharks. It turned out to be very eventful. It was incredibly choppy, whizzing through the waves in a speed boat. We spotted one whale shark pretty early on and I was lucky enough to be one of the first in, so did get to snorkel with it before it dived down too deep, however most people werent so lucky. The second whale shark we found, I was one of the last to get in, but that worked in my favour as we managed to stop on top of a load of jelly fish, so everybody had to get out pretty quick, and one person got badly stung! Then we found another one, this time I caused the drama, because I got thrown out of the boat, and by the time they came back to get me, the whale shark had gone again, oopss! Amongst this we also had people being sea sick, so I think you understand what I mean when I say it was eventful.

Luckily the Wednesday was back to glorious sunshine. It was one of the girls birthdays, so we spent the morning on the beach lounging around, and swimming in the indian ocean/bath (the water temp was 26c). Then I got to do my sunset ride along the beach at last, and was even allowed to not only trot, but canter!! We also rode back through the local villages, which are little huts made from palm leaves, so that was really interesting too.

On thursday we kayaked across a lagoon to a little island of the coast of Mozambique. The island is totally cut off with no electricity or running water. We had a tour round the island when we got there and a (so I am told, delicious) seafood lunch. In the afternoon we sailed back. It was a fantastic day!

On our last day we decided to try the whale shark safari agian, but this time we didnt see a thing so that was a bit of a waste of money unfortunately. Especially as we had no excitment like falling out of boats or being stung by jelly fish! We spent the afternoon soaking up the last of the mozambiquan rays before leaving early on Saturday to do the 12hr journey back to the lodge.

I am now back at the school for another week and a half, but it was fantastic to see another beautiful african country.