Inspired by Shekhinah’s “Let’s take it back to the beach”, making the decision to travel to the white sandy beaches of Ponta Do Ouro in Mozambique was an easy one to make. A group of friends and I started a travel club called ” High Society Travel” with the aim of exploring new and interesting places and a weekend in Mozambique was ideal to close off a year of hard work and tough financial decisions.
Planning a trip of this magnitude requires a lot of saving, planning and coordination, more so when the club comprises of very opinionated young professionals. Surprisingly, making the decision to visit the beautiful beaches of Mozambique was rather easy to make- I suppose we all yearned for the calming effect of the ocean in foreign lands.
Our planning started early in January of 2018 where we selected a location, sourced quotes for accommodation and travel arrangements. By end of January 2018, we had finalised the budget and determined how much each member of the club would contribute.
Our contributions were only LSL390.00 per month (R390 equivalent of South African Rand) for each member inclusive of accommodation, travel, drinks and food. At face value it seemed like the contributions were not enough, but we had a great time in Mozambique (especially taking the exchange rate into consideration).
The trip had a lot of drama, starting with my passport arriving at 01:15am on the 28th of December 2018 (day of departure) from Pretoria. It was delivered by an angry, impatient and aggressive taxi driver; but alas it arrived just an hour before the scheduled departure time. Once we were on our way, the strong opinions of the group came through when deciding which was the best route to Mozambique.
The final decision was to go via Durban in Kwa Zulu Natal (KZN) believing the Maputo- Katembe Bridge connecting KZN to Maputo would reduce the long drive by 6 hours (the importance of verifying what we read), was NOT the case.
The drive was rough at first, with the curves and speed humps of Golden Gate leaving us holding on for dear life. After 7 hours of driving, we arrived at Durban hoping to see the Katembe bridge and make our way to Mozambique. We were very disappointed to find out that we were 8 hours away from our destination and that the Katembe Bridge was no where in sight.
From Durban, our next stop was Richard’s Bay. The drive was almost 2 hours and the exhaustion and impatience in the car was mounting. Perhaps all we needed was breakfast.
5 hours later, we were still on the road at which point we decided this was officially a road trip- yes we were exploring the coast of Kwa Zulu Natal, sightseeing at its best!
We finally arrived at Kosi Bay border 15 hours later having left Maseru, Lesotho at 3am on the 28th of December 2018….
Exhausted but excited, we were ready to experience Ponta Do Ouro… hear all about it in Part 2….
