Mike's Moz Blog: Trip to Vilankulo

Continuing our progress up the coast of Mozambique our next visit was to Vilankulo just over 700 km away. Vilankulo was by far the largest coastal town we had been too but the beach area is a very pleasant place to hang out for a few days with lots of good places to eat including the fabulously named Zombie cucumber and some nice beach bars. We stayed at the Casa Rex lodge.

The highlight of the trip had to be the marine safari where we visited the nearby Bazaruto Island which has a spectacular sand dune and went snorkeling on "two mile reef". Things didn't start well with our lodge saying they had made the booking but the ocean safari company not knowing anything about us. However they managed to put us together with a boat that was going out with some divers. The plan was they would leave (maroon) us on Bazuruto island while the dive group did their dive - rejoin us on the island for lunch and then we would go reef snorkeling while the dive group had another dive.

The sea was quite choppy so the journey out to the island on the small dive boat was pretty rough and not enjoyed by Jane. About 10 minutes after they left us on the island it started to pour with rain and got pretty windy and chilly so we spent most of the time on the island huddled under some trees. However the sun did come out and we climbed the dune on the end of the Island. A great view from the top with a spectacular drop straight down on the other side of the dune. The snorkeling off the reef was fantastic with loads of fish.

We sort of got adopted by a dog that would follow us along the beach for walks. It belonging to one of the local boat yards so wasn't a stray. We were also fascinated by the front half of a dead shark that had been washed up on the beach - god knows what had eaten the back half!