Two weeks of isolation and then social distancing has meant a lot of time in the house and in a hotel, and not much time getting out and seeing the country we have moved to. Going to the supermarket hardly counts as a cultural experience. Although the staff coming together and singing, what I presume was, the national anthem was pretty cool.
With this in mind, we were trying to think of things we can do to get out of the house, relieve the cabin fever without getting cheek to cheek with lots of people. There are some great little towns and village not far away at all, but they are busy and there is very little sign of social distancing going on. Tempting as it is to get in amongst the bustle and browse the wares for sale on the side of the street, at this moment, it’s probably not the best idea.
So Zoe, as usual, came up with the great idea of getting out on our bikes. We drove for about 40 minutes up to the Komati river, paid the 50Mtz toll to cross (about 60p) and landed on our first proper dirt road. We could see why we had a 4×4. The road was wide and made of compacted sand. We quickly pulled over, parked and got out the bikes. The temperature was pleasant. It was 9:30 so by no means early (its light here before 6 and dark by 6). But as it’s now May (that’s equivalent to November in the northern hemisphere) the temperature is cooling. This time of day when we arrived in Mozambique, was roasting. Now, over a month later, with a little light breeze, the 25 degrees was pleasant.

Zoe and I had road bikes which made for interesting riding on the sandy ground. Luckily it had been well compacted down by the other vehicles and some of it was easy going. The odd soft patch often appeared though causing us to skid and slide on a regular basis as we went along.
We hadn’t gone more then a couple of hundred meters before we came to our first obstacle. The muddy wallow was the full width of the road and looked pretty deep in places. The road was wide enough to fit 5 or 6 cars side by side. This gave the odd car that did come plenty of route choice through the softer sand and muddy obstacles.
We managed to find a narrow path along the side balanced between the pools off to one side and the muddy road to the other. It was still squelchy, but on the most part, only a couple of cm think rather than the deeper gloop in the road. Everyone made it through without any falls in the mud and our protesting bikes set off flicking a trail of mud over us and the road as we went.

We were riding through the savanna, there was a wide grassy plain on both sides with a huge variety of birdlife all around. Quite a few distant pools had large groups of flamingos gathered. There were herons, egrets and a wide variety of birds I have no clue about. It would be good to find a good local English language book shop and find out much more about the native wildlife here, but due to the virus, that doesn’t seem a top priority at the moment.
Pickups lumbered passed every ten minutes or so, the back overloaded with locals getting from village to village. Fifteen to twenty people hanging on sat on the side of the trucks as they weave around the road avoiding the worst potholes and ruts.
I was becoming the slowest rider by far. The girls had hybrid bikes with wider tyres and generally had good purchase and could ride along with a bit of speed. Zoe and I were left with our thin tyres struggling to purchase much in the softer ground. Travelling in a straight line wasn’t too bad, but any turn often involved skids and tyres digging into the sand. Zoe just carried on regardless skidding her way through, while I took it a little slower. It was a bizarre experience being the one sat at the back and one I’m not used to. Imogen encouraged me on, in her slightly sarcastic way. “Come on Dad, you set off, then we won’t have to wait for you”. Children of this age show no mercy to their parents.
After a good few km and no more road wide bogs, we came into a village. Cows were grazing at the side of the road and children were passing playing. There were a few stalls set out on the side of the road selling tomatoes, apples and bananas. As we got towards the end of the village there was a turn off to the beach down a very sandy road and a cafe on the corner.

As the cafe was empty there seemed little risk in going in so we stopped for a welcome cool drink in the shade of the trees in their compound. It was a great spot. You just had to dodge the mini pine cones that were falling from the tree above on your head, at quite a rate.
After a drink we decided to head back to the car, more skidding, flamingos, overloaded pick up trucks, goats, cows and beautiful surroundings on our way back to the car.