For a long time I had an idea in my head that I wanted to see Indonesia. Maureen and Tony Wheeler, founders of Lonely Planet travel guides, described it as a must-see-before-you-die destination. For about six months I saved up enough money to sustain myself for a month of travel across the volcanic archipellago known to be the world’s surfing mecca.

I had heard that Indo was action-packed full of single white Australian males and I was feeling slightly nervous about going on my own so it was imperitave a female joined me on my trip there. It was then that I started trying to convince my best  lady surfing buddy to join me on an expedition that promised to be the cheapest, funnest, most-culturally vast adventure we could possibly invest in. After executing a perfectly orchestrated sales pitch to her, she pointblank shot me down.

”How could we possibly visit a country on the other side of the world before seeing our very own neighbours?” she said.

After having seen most of the world already, I was keen to keep pushing my own travel boundaries with more exotic, more distant locations…but I could not deny my friend was right.  

So destination Mozambique it became.  

Being a born and bred South African girl who wears veldskoens on a regular occasion, a small trip past our border should have been nothing short of familiar. My trips as a child to Namibia (or then South West Africa) were my reference point as to what I could expect from neighbouring South African countries. Oh how wrong I was.

Mozambique, one of Africa’s oldest independent nations, is a crazy blend of Latino, Arabica and tropical Africa . I felt like a foreigner just a few hours past my own border.

We rode a chappa (their version of our mini-bus taxi) from Maputo into Inhambane, an old Islamic town situated slap-bang in the middle of the country. For eight hours we listened to strange Afro-guese covers of Belinda Carlisle  as we tried to keep our eyes off the narrow-potholed road ahead of us. Our driver spoke on his cellphone for the majority of the journey clearly organising drop-offs and pick-ups of various cargo along the way. Whether it be people, chickens or beer, our driver was an import/export specialist of it all. Chappas are the most affordable way of travelling across Mozambique (unless of course you have your own vehicle which should be of 4WD variety) as well as a willing driver with nerves of steel - neither of which we had of course.

Our final destination, Tofo, just a short 22km from Inhambane, is a small sea-side village that has become a backpackers hotspot over just a short period of time. Attracting budding divers and as of the past couple of years, surfers too, Tofo can closely be compared to a more rural version of Kuta, Bali  with nicer beer and bigger prawns. And for roughly the same price, you can fly to both ex Cape Town. This fact being the very reason we subjected ourselves to a total four days of travelling on African public transport.

Both of us being too scared to subject our surfboards to any of this feral sort of travel, we did some research into board rental. The very helpful, very awesome guys at Turtle Cove, a backpackers situated just a small walk from Tofinho point, were only happy to help us out. Sean, an ex-Llandudno local and transplant had a slew of boards to choose from (seemingly from his own collection) including a quad come five finner affectionately dubbed ‘The Zebra’ due to its black and white appearance. Sean and Nick, the owner of Turtle Cove, have coined the term Feral Surf and after a trip to this side of Mozambique, you learn its true origins. Your leash breaks, you get some cable-ties and fish-wire and you fix it. No fancy Billabong shop. Hell, you can’t even buy surfwax…anywhere.

Friendly smiles, big hearts, familiarity and helping hands were abundant, though, and this place swiftly became the most surprising destination I had ever visited. I had been reminded what travelling was really about, and what surfing was all about. It’s not about how far you go from home, or how foreign you get - it’s really about who you meet and what they teach you about yourself.  All of which you can sometimes find in your very own backyard.

As for Indonesia, I will see you one day and learn what all the fuss is about. Maybe after a quick trip to Liberia or Morocco…

Check out www.feralsurf.com for more information on Tofo and surfing.

So this is the ever-daunting first post. I’ve gone over about a million ideas concerning the nature and topic of my very first post and have decided to keep it down to a short:

“hello world”

(a scary blank page looking at you in the face everyday is worse than death.)