Final post

It is with a heavy heart, that i make my final post on this site becasue........I have decided to move to another site, for their superior picture usage capablities. so thanks for being a part of this awesomely named blog. but the time has come to go here: http://surfinpat.wordpress.com/

and enjoy the pictures of my trip.

TTFN

pictures

So, im trying to figure out how best to put pictures up here. I am pretty unhappy with that layout when i have done this so far. The pictures just go at the top of the post and I can't live with such a setup. I need CAPTIONS and such. I would like to be able to speak about a foto and have the words come appear right below it. If anyone has a suggestion for me, I am all ears at this point.

On a different note. I am in Bali now. Staying here: www.thegrandbali.com for FREE! Thanks to my friend Brendan and his Uncle Charlie

Hasta La Pasta Africa

After 3 nearly 3 months, I am finally leaving Africa for the tropical paradise of Indonesia at 8:45am tomorrow morning Sometimes life is tough, but this isn't one of those times.
I won't be arriving until around 3pm in Indonesia the next day, a 1 hour flight from Durban folled by a 13 hour flight to hong kong, then a mere 5 hours flight to Denpasar airport in Bali.
Im a bit sad to be leaving SA but moreso excited for what is to come.
On a different note i think that Burger King needs to seriously consider bring back the SOurdough Bacon Cheeseburger, it was an amazing sandwich and I have been missing it since it's mysterious disappearance from the menu back in 2004 or 2005 (I can't remember which).
On another different note, I am seething with a bit of jealousy that 2 of my best and oldest friends, Matt a Rich are going to see one of my favorite bands, Mew, in concert tonight. I wish i was going with them.
Lastly, i would like to give out congratulations to my other good friend John Barney, who has very recently become engaged to his girlfriend Jessica: JOhn you are a bit crazy, but shucks I can't wait to get drunk at your wedding.
Ok Thats all for now, next you hear from me I will be in asia, a place Iv'e not been before.
TTFN

Mozam part 3

SO i believe when we left off we were at Hell's Gate, in Santa Maria, which is about a Kilometer away from Hells gate, Rick saw a woman carrying a Turtle. SO he took the Turtle from her and told her it was not legal to just take a Turtle and sell it or eat it or whatever, and that if the cops saw it there would be a 25,000 metical fine. THere are no cops anywhere near Santa MAria, so the people who live there have the run of the land and believe they can do what they like. SO this lady was not happy at all wioth Rick, and she argued with him and got other local people to defend her, some of whom didn't seem to keen to take her side. In the end Rick paid her 200 Mets to leave us alone.

It was a heavy thing to see these people who had lived in the area for so long, unable to understand why there were rules against taking a creature that was just walking through the woods, like they would have been allowed to for centeries before now. In the end it felt to me like justice was served when the lady got a few dollars from us, but in the long run that time of thing surly can't be permitted, i mean she basically got paid for breaking the rules and then complaining about it until Rick wanted her to just go away.

ANyways all of that happened around 4pm while we weere waiting for a man named Pepe to come pick us up in his boat so to give us a ride to our camp. Our accomodation was amazing. WE stayed in the contractor camps next to a fancy fishing resort called "Hell's Gate Resort" that was marketed to mostly AMerican and Europeans. From the beach the Resort Looked amazing, straw roof set in amongst the lush green Sanddunes. There is a lot of aluminum or titanium (I can't remember which) in the sand in Mozambique and that traps water in the sand, so plants flourish there. People were growing watermelons and corn right in the sand, like it was rich fertilized top soil.

As i was saying, our accomdations were next to the resort, in the trees. We had a kitchen with running water and electricity, a tent was set up with beds for us to sleep on (which were normally occupied by contract workers building the resort. When the resort is complete Pepe will open a backpackers in the area where we stayed, a much cheaper and most do it yourself enviornment. It should be an amazing place when it all works out. And Pepe doent get too many visitors so he was so friendly and so happy to have some new faces to talk to.

THe mornign after we arrived we waited for the tide to start pushing into the Bay of Maputo, and when it does, it creates a SERIOUS current running through hells gate pass. And about 10 feet from shore there was a rock ledge that dropped off about 9 or 10 meters at some parts and the snorkeling along there was spectacular. We would walk out to the where the ocean met the mouth of Hell's Gate pass and just float down with the current a few hundred yards diving down to explore the rocks and we saw lots of fish and urchins and a big old lobster. Apparetntly big kingfish and even some sharks are known to run in the pass, but we saw nothing like that.

AS the morning passed we went sandboarding down the dunes and just explored the beach, until we left for Bella Russia Point. Bella Russia has an wave setup that looks insane, just a point break wave over sand bottom that looks like it might peel for over a kilometer, and had we gotten it good there would have been only 4 or 5 of us in the water. Oh well. THe day and night we spent there was eventful, we went for another turtle walk at night, and saw a bad ass scorpion in our campsite, which I foolishly got no pictures of. And we slept without flys on our tents so we could watch the stars. THen next day was insanly hot so we had a surf early and decided to make it all the way back to Ponta do Ouro that day, around 6 or 7 hours in the car. Becasue the only place we had left to check out between Ponta and Bella Russia would for sure have no waves.

WE pulled into Ponta Do Ouro, the most built up place i saw in Mozambique, right aroud dark, and about 500 meters outside of town our Landy ran out of gas on a hill and we had to make a line to tow the car the remaining kilometer or so to Rick and Brian's house.

Ponta do Ouro is basically on the border of Moazam and SA so it is quite busy. We had take out burgers the night we arrived, and it had been a long day in the car so aftr eating we all crashed. The next morning was HOT! again. we hung out inside till low tide then walked up to the point for a surf. Again this wave can run for more than a Kilometer on its best days (you can see the point in the pictures above) but we didnt see anything like that. We found a little knee high wave that ran for about 25 yards, oh well. No point in whining about things you can't control.

THat night we were supposed to go to the little market in town where a lady Rick new was making us a huge chicken dinner with Stiff Pup (a local dish that is corn meal based) Baked beans and Veggies for 30 rand (around $4 US). But a massive thunderstorm rolled in which meant we had to carry the food home becasue the market was an open air market. It was fine with me becasue we got to sit on the roof of the house and watch one of the most (possibly the most) impressive electrical storms I have ever seen. Lighting flashes were happing nearly constantly (you can see some of them in the pics I took Above, and im quite proud of those pictures) coming from inland and moving out over the Sea. It was a great show, and watching the lightning over the sea reminded me of a storm out over the Lake that i could watch from my parents bedroom, or if im feeling foolish, while longboarding through Gilson park.

The next morning we were supposed to go on a dolphin tracking tour with Rick and Brian, we were supposed to swim with them possibly, but at the very least just seek out a huger pack of bottlenose dolphins, but the wather was still a bit sour so we took a rainy ride back to the border, said our good byes to Rick and Brian and parted ways, loading our gear into the Comby Van which Skellum had done a good job watching, failing to live up to his name in the best of ways!

The End

Mozambique Part 2 (of 3)

Warning: THe following post contains many kick ass pictures and stories




On a sunny day in Mozambique, with calm winds, the weather in December is outragerously hot. I would say the hottest day there saw temps in the high 80s and this is a very heavy and Humid heat by 9:30 am, past about 11am you wanted nothing more than a nice shady tree on top of a hill, where it was breezy, or better yet a nice swim in the Indian Ocean, which was nearly always refreshing and crystal clear. But luckily for us the sun didn't shine all the time we were in Mozambique....

The morning we left, Bevan, my ttride trip leader for the past ten weeks, and someone who has bouts of insanity when choosing a time to wake up each day, wanted to leave at 4am, which is ridiculously early for no real reason. Luckily we didn't wake up until 5:30, and were on the road by 6am for the 4 hour drive up to the border. I was not too sure what to expect, i knew that Mozambique was much less developed than South Africa, and that we were going to scope out a few places for waves along the 80 kilometer strech of coast Bevan wants to walk: from Hell's Gate down to the Border, in search of waves and people. From what i gather now there was a long long brutal civil war in Mozambique which ended around 15 years ago, and you can see how things are developing slowly, but it isw mostly people who live in SA that come up and build a summerhouse, or just want to esacape from urban life and go feral in the bush.

Upon arrival at the border we left the VW combi van in a lot just on the south african side of the border, it was being guarded by a man named Skellem which means "criminal" in English, a bit Ironic considering he was watch our possesions, but not really worrying because the english names Tribal Africans take for themsleves are always a bit odd sounding. In SA ive meet people name: Justice, Innocent, and Godswill. In Mozambique we met a man named, and I'm not making this up: 007, which still makes me laugh a little as I write this.

After leaving the combi we met up with 2 people who bevan knew, South Africans who live an work in Mozam now named Rick, and Brian. BOth were really nice guys who have spent a lot of time living in the bush and touring through game reserves. RIck especially has an incredible amount of knowledge about plants and animals in Mozambique, and presumably SA, so i felt quite lucky to have them along. They were waiting for us in the parking lot we loaded our gear into a truck and a big open air, safari car, which we needed becasue the roads we were on in Mozambique were 100% sand. No paverment anywhere. it had been raining that morning as we approached the border, but the weather cleared up nicely for our drive.

We drove about 4 hours from the border, through a wildlife preserve where we hoped to see elephants but had to settle for hippos and lots of eagles (sarcasic sigh). At one point we drove on the shore of a huge lake called Lake Piti, whose shoreline was covered in reeds, and was surrounded by massive green hills, and around 6:30 pm arrived in Milibangalala, where we camped about 200 meters from the Ocean. We ate a BBQ after pitching our tents and after dinner with the rain falling again we walked a few kilometers down the beach to try and mark some sea turtle nesting areas, a job that Rick does for the WWF (not to be confused with the WWE). WE only managed to see the fresh tracks of a female going returning to the sea after laying her eggs, which was a bit of excitment.

Unfortunatly the surf was quite small the whole time we were in mozambique and I only ended up surfing in 2 places: Bella Russia Point, and Ponta Do Ouro, which was a bit dissapointing but eveything else i saw nearly made up for it.

The 2nd moring was a bit rainy, and we had a lot of distance to cover into territory that not even Rick and Brian had been, to a town called Santa Maria, where we ended up next to Hell's Gate lodge. Hells gate is the narrow pass of water, reminded me of the pass at the end of Captiva Island where the golf course ran next to the beach, except with Crystal clear water. And now i need to go to the beach and stop wasting this sunny day inside (sorry readers) Ill finish the story later tonight or tomorrow. Hope you enjoy the pictures ive added for your viewing pleasures.