A few weeks ago I was in Mozambique for the East and Southern Africa retreat for my company, which was in Maputo.The weekend before Amy and I wanted to take a long weekend at a beach. However we didn't start looking early enough so most places were booked
(May 1st is labor day around here), and getting around Mozambique is really expensive. We ended up going to Ponta D'Ouro. The ride there was about 4 hours on what was essentially beach sand. Very up and down and unfortunately Amy suffers from motion sickness so that wasn't fun. Most people apparently come from South Africa (Durban) and not from Maputo so everything's geared for them. You can only pay for th
e hotel in South African Rand, but since I was flying from Tanzania, I transferred through Joburg and thought it would be easy to get Rand. Oddly tho, there is no ATM in the international terminal, so I had to get a visa to get out to the domestic airport to an ATM. Sometimes it's very nice to be American, so we can get visas easily in most places.We stayed at Dolphin Encounters, a place that does dolphin research and hosts trips to swim with dolphins. The fi
rst day we were there the water was really choppy and so they didn't do any dolphin swims, but it was a pretty day to lay out on the beach. On Sunday we went for a morning dolphin swim which was actually pretty cool. We must have seen 60 dolphins but because we had a large group (12) and people were splashing when they entered the water, the dolphins mostly just swam away. But I did get to swim with a few as they would go past me:) They were almost close enough to touch, but you are not allowed as that harms the protective coating. While I would have liked more interaction with them, it was still pretty 
cool. And while we were in the boat they were swimming all around us.I wanted to go kite surfing but didn't realize that the weather had to be just so, so missed my chance. On the last night we were there the power went out. And annoyingly the water was pumped in so no water either. We hadn't showered since the dolphin swim and NEEDED a shower! Since I've lived in places with frequent power cuts I don't mind that it happens, but be prepared. It was strange that they didn't have flashlights, or lanterns or back up power/water. So in desperation, feeling very dirty, we headed out for food and a place with light. It ended up being a place with some live music - a guy with a guitar and a kazoo doing cover tunes. It was quite amusing.
All in all, could have been better but we were able to laugh and I'll remember it fondly. The rest of the week was in Maputo which was nice but not as phenomenal as I had imagined. Very good seafood. But we had a quick layover on the way back to Nairobi in Pemba which was one of the prettiest beaches I've seen. Definitely heading back there sometime!
