Macaneta

On my Sunday in Mozambique we went to a beach south of Maputo, a trip involving avoidance of potholes on the main road, a river crossing on an aging ferry, half an hour on a badly rutted dirt and mud track (4x4s coming into their own), and young boys hitching rides on the backs of the vehicles without permission (stopping and telling them that this is dangerous has no effect; they get off but then jump back on as soon as the doors close; but then we were moving pretty slowly anyway so perhaps it wasn't all that dangerous). Then we got to a beautiful white-sand semi-deserted beach with the breakers of the Indian Ocean rolling in and depositing large crabs on the beach - which then immediately dashed back in to the water. Apparently the likes of Sting go to high-class resorts on Mozambique's offshore islands - and as mentioned earlier the country has a thousand kilometres of white sand beach to choose from.

I paddled but didn't swim, mostly because the water was cold (it's autumn here, after all) - my friends who live in Mozambique were tougher and went swimming. Later it occurred to me to ask them about sharks. "No, no sharks here," they said. "Or only small ones, anyway, they wouldn't attack you." (pause) "On the other hand they have sharks in Durban and that's just a couple of hundred kilometres away." (pause) "Well we haven't heard of anyone being killed yet."

Above: the ferry; Macaneta's main road; the beach; fruit salesmen (inedible fruit, in reality; the sales pitch was that we should buy these objects "por effetta" - decoration only); persistent hitchhiker; road crab (not a sea crab); the river at sunset.