Waking up the morning after climbing Mount Mulanje and knowing we had a day of travelling ahead, Lili and I headed straight for breakfast and then hopped on a minibus to the Mozambique border. We had both done the whole border thing before so we were eager to get past this bit smoothly, and managed relatively well. Having asked the border guards how much a bicycle-taxi to the Mozambiquan border town should be (adapting to a new currency is a struggle which always attracts conmen to the borders) we discovered that the guy insisting on giving us a lift was trying to charge us 10 times the fair price. Instead we started walking, and luckily soon found other bikes that were happy to help us at a fair price. We also exchanged money with them - I'm not sure it's strictly allowed but good luck trying to find any bank that will take Malawian cash! As border towns go, Milanje is a rather pretty one, and the differences with Malawi were immediately apparent: wide tree-lined avenues with actual pavements and street lights, hearing a familiar-ish (European anyway) language everywhere, and completely different architecture and food (mmm, the bread)! The contrast with the border town a few miles away in Malawi was stark.

Another blaring culture-clash that we soon discovered was a complete lack of public transport. After being spoilt in Malawi with minibuses in the tiniest of villages going absolutely everywhere across the country, the only way we were going to be able to leave Milanje was by getting a lift. We were helped by a friendly local who looked forward to getting a cut of the fare we would pay to get to Mocuba (after a long discussion with the driver I don't think he got anything), and were pointed towards two potential lifts: one huge 18-wheeler truck, and one white pick-up. As it started to rain when the drivers of said vehicles were eventually ready to leave, we decided that the covered cabin of the truck would be a preferable lift. And oh how wrong we were… Just out of Milanje town, we soon came to a village where one of the drivers hopped down from the truck and returned with beers - for everyone! We politely grabbed one (don't worry - it was still sealed) and continued bumbling along the dirt road that was one of the main roads to and from the border. At the next village a few minutes later, again the co-driver popped out and returned with refills, and by the third village and third beer Lili and I were less amused by the whole situation and started turning down the beers… for me to turn down free beer is saying something! For the first three or four hours of our drive, I don't think the truck went above the third gear, a combination of the state of the road and the state of the driver. At one point the drivers wanted a bit of a break and Lili found herself behind the wheel - hilarious though slightly worrying mainly because she was better than one of the actual drivers! When I turned down the offer of driving because I don't have a license, they reassured me that there were no police on this road and were surprised when I still didn't fancy getting behind the (huge) wheel. To cut a long story short, after our drivers had had a few more beers, a couple of spliffs, and Lili had given them a serious talking-to, we finally arrived at a motel in our destination of Mocuba for dinner and bed!

After a less-than-fantastic night's sleep thanks to Lili having some kind of bed-bugs and getting up at 4:30 for the bus, we put our backpacks on and went out in search of the bus station. Our motel receptionist had explained that the bus we were looking for left from just down the road at 5am-ish. During the previous day's loooong drive, I had decided that my plan of stopping at a few coastal towns en route to Vilanculos would have been great if the transport was there, but as I thought we would already be at the first coastal town by now I decided to skip it. Lili was on a slightly shorter time schedule and wanted to get to the famous beautiful beaches, so we wanted to get down south the quickest way and we found that the furthest we could get was Chimoio. Having walked around (in the dark, with our backpacks) for a while trying to find the "bus station" we eventually discovered that the bus stop was actually an entirely unmarked corner of a roundabout. To cut another long story (getting anywhere with public transport in Mozambique clearly is) short, we were eventually joined by more people, but by 10 we were absolutely starving and decided to give up waiting and get some breakfast. Amazingly, just as we were finishing up, a guy who had been at the bus stop somehow found us and told us our bus had arrived - a clear benefit of being the only white person there, it seemed there was always someone looking out for us! We were so grateful and paid for our tickets and hopped on the bus (having checked with the driver that it was in fact the bus we needed).

Arriving at Chimoio rather drained and again after dark, we found our way to the Pink Papaya (the only backpackers in town) and headed straight to bed. The next morning, the hugely helpful German owner explained that getting to the coastal town of Beira was not on the way to the beach and would be another mission - one that neither me nor Lili were all too keen to embark on. Instead, I gave up on my coastal towns and asked how we could get to Vilanculos and the beach as quickly as possible. She told us there was a bus leaving at 3am - she assured us that it would leave punctually, as there was a military convoy that left at 7am and the bus had to get there on time. "A what now?" That's right, a military convoy. We had heard rumours, but this was the first time I realised we would actually have to travel with convoy and as it was the only way to finally arrive at our destination I was not about to say no. We headed to the bus station to get tickets, and spent a day in the small, charming yet fairly uneventful town of Chimoio. Lili cooked the Israeli dish of shakshuka for dinner and we decided we would power on through the night so we could sleep on the long bus trip. We were joined by an interesting travel vlogger (video blogger, get with the lingo) Christian, who had come from Cape Town although originally Lebanese/French. He helped us pass the time before going to bed himself and Lili and I continued to wait together - a skill we were honing rather well in Mozambique.

2:30 finally came around and we headed out, the guard kindly walking with us to the bus. Amazingly, we found it waiting, and it left at about 3:05 to our astonishment! Despite refusing to pay the extortionate fee to have my backpack put in storage and so having it under my feet, we both fell straight to sleep and, while you would think we might be nervous of the 100km-long convoy, we actually slept through the whole thing - when people ask me how it was I have literally nothing to say! We finally got to a junction to Vilanculos where we hopped on to a joyfully familiar minibus that was to take us to the beach town. We were so excited to have finally arrived and were by the ocean for the first time since Zanzibar. After three and a half days of travelling, we had finally managed to cross a small part of Mozambique and could not wait to settle down by the beach for a few days!