Pemba and Ibo

We left Ilha de Mozambique on Thursday at 4:30am. A taxi was taking us to an intersection on the road, just over an hour away, from where we could catch the passing bus to Pemba. We didn't want to be late because that was the only bus of the day. We ended up waiting 45 minutes for the bus to show up as the sun rose and the street vendors clogged the intersection offering their goods to every passing vehicle.

We reached Pemba 7 hours later, found a hotel and went for a walk down the beach. Pemba is in a bay, and most hotels and tourists are along a beach a few km east of town called Wimbi. The beach is pretty, but unfortunately it has only a very small patch without trash. Instead of swimming, we settled down at a bar on the beach and watched the sunset over a couple of drinks. Every bar offers caipirinhas around here. I thought they were a Brazilian exclusivity, but it seems that Mozambicans claim their share, too. Either way, I'm a happy caipira consumer anywhere in the world.

Friday we took our first dive. Peter is a South african living in Pemba for 15 years who owns a diving shop. Business is slow right now, we were the only clients, so he was very flexible with his schedule. We started with the basics at a nearby beach where it was shallow enough for us to stand. Then we ventured into the deeper waters. We spent approx 45 minutes under the water. He said we went as deep as 12 meters. After we got used to the ear popping, the floating up and the trying to stay down, we started to enjoy the colorful little fish and corals. The instructor was good. Neat experience. Even more memorable when the boat's engine broke down on our way back. Trying to repair it, Peter lost his glasses falling into the water. Everybody went in (except lazy yours truly) trying to find the glasses. Due to the strong current we gave up the search after a while, still without a working engine. There where 2 guys helping: one with a paddle, the other one with a bamboo cane, and finally Peter swimming with his fins pushing from behind. It took a little long, but we weren't far from the shore. We all arrived safe and sound.

Near Pemba there is a national park: Quirimbas Archipelago. There our hotels in some of the islands, and a small plane that makes a daily round picking up and dropping off passengers. We went to Ibo, an island that used to have a Portuguese settlement, i.e. forts, church, colonial houses, similar to Ilha, but smaller. It is much less developed than Ilha: only 2 hotels, 1 local restaurant, no banks, less people, more colonial houses in complete ruins. The hotel was one of them, they recently opened after rebuilding a house that had only the walls left. Looks like a lot of work, and construction on the upper floor is still ongoing.

We walked around Ibo and later in the day sailed on a local dhow (no engine). We had a little swim and sailed back. Very nice and tranquil. People are very friendly.

We were supposed to fly back and then onwards to Maputo on Sunday night. However, bad weather conditions caused cancellation of our flight out of Ibo. We'll have to stay one more day. Not a bad place to spend extra time. I'm particularly looking forward to tonight's "lulas grelhadas".

Mercedes