Tofo, Mozambique

(Notes from a journey to Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia, Sep/Oct 2015.)

About 30 km east of Inhambane is the long and beautiful Tofo beach, frequented by white South Africans but still relatively low key and undiscovered. We came here from Maputo after a nine-hour ride in an overstuffed chapa, or shared minivan, common across East Africa. As usual, the chapa had nearly twice as many people and way more luggage than it was designed for; we also had a tire blowout en route. Fortunately, the road was nice. As elsewhere in Mozambique, nearly all of the lodges on Tofo beach were owned and run by white people, mostly expats. Local kids beseeched tourists to buy roasted cashews, a major cash crop in Mozambique. A memorable moment for me was eating at a local pizzeria and looking up to see the Milky Way bright and clear (it was like that everywhere we visited outside Maputo). I soaked in this vista, aware that I’d soon be returning to the increasingly murky skies of northern India. [—Namit Arora, October 2015]