Day 8

Weather this morning looks promising for our ocean safari. We’re down at Barra Lodge for 10:30am, and we leave at about 11, having been issued with wetsuits, snorkels and flippers. My flippers are a manly size 9, with a ‘medium male’ wetsuit, while Nick is issued with a pair of size 6s and a wetsuit that appears to have an age range sewn into the back.

Day 7

Rain.

The morning is spent reading and relaxing in the house, and when Artur arrives, we decide to go with him to Inhambane to get some fuel and money, and check the flight situation for Tuesday. The rain makes driving on the sand a different experience – sometimes easier, sometimes harder. The road from Barra to the Tofo junction is more vibrantly red in the rain, and the car is getting covered in clay.

Day 6

Another cloudy day, though I can’t say I’m that disappointed as I’ve yet to recover from the sunny one. It’s calmer though, which makes it good weather for sitting on the deck reading. In the morning I finish atonement and reply to a few emails from Rob.

Day 5

Sunshine! Streaming through the slats of the house, filtering through the mesh of my mosquito net. And very welcome it is too. Bread and fish arrive, and by the time I’ve showered about four people are cleaning our windows and the housekeeper is halfway through the washing up.

Day 4

No power this morning. I open the back door to find the housekeeper waiting for us to wake up, and a chap painting the well, who sees me looking forlornly at the fusebox and says ‘power at ten’, which a big grin. Whether this is knowledge of power company schedules or simply blind faith, who knows. I guess we find out at 10 o’clock.

Day 3

Artur has borrowed the car to take Rita to the hospital, and the weather is still overcast, so we have a late start (again) and potter about reading and trying to make the pool table work, unsuccessfully, until lunchtime. Some fishermen arrive with some fresh prawns, so we buy a kilo (at prices comparable with a supermarket at home, which seems a mite pricy to me) and make a prawn curry for lunch.

Day 2

The bed is blissfully soft and Paul’s mosquito nets, which he explains at length are imported from Australia and very expensive, seem to have done their job admirably. I get up at around 9am, having slept like a log, and get myself a drink and some fruit while I wait for the latest electricity outage to end so I can have a shower (water is pumped into a tank using an electric pump). The housekeeper arrives, and starts sweeping. A girl comes to the door with fresh bread, and George arrives to do whatever it is that George does. Suddenly I feel slightly underdressed and go to put some more clothes on.