Tofo

December 25, 2025: A Night on the Town

After a wild journey from Vilankulo, I arrived in Tofo around 13:00. 

For lunch, I went to a Japanese restaurant where the I got piri piri ramen and a ginger/tamarind margarita. We are definitely in tourist land. The restaurant even accepted credit card! Besides me the only other guests were a white Afrikaans family of 12 celebrating Christmas who had no idea of the challenging day I just went through. 

I got picked up by Airbnb host, a German man named Simon. I was taken to compound about a mile from town where I had a mini house to myself. My room had two fans just for me and a beautiful view of the pool. True luxury compared to that Vilankulo hostel! 

The other guests were a 12-person group of Norwegian and Swedish college students studying abroad at University of Cape Town. They were traveling after the classes ended and before heading back to Scandinavia for the Spring semester. They all did different trips including road tripping in Zimbabwe and Zambia and Botswana and Namibia (everyone’s favorite) before meeting up here in Mozambique for the grand finale. 

The Scandinavians were heading to beach and invited me to join.  I met them on the beach in town (the beach in front of Airbnb is empty but for some reason everyone goes to the busy town beach). The town beach had lifeguards and surfing and vendors selling stuff. Water is 30C. Bliss. The majority of the beach patrons were South African families.

We spent the day enjoying the water until sunset. Some Danish girls joined our group for an even larger Nordic meetup. 

After changing quickly in the Airbnb, I headed to an upscale local restaurant and ran some friends from the hotel in Vilankulo: a Russian man (Ivan) and Ukrainian man (Max) traveling together. Yes, despite the war, they have managed to maintain their friendship and travel together. We sat together, drank wine and swapped stories. 

As we ate, we could see hundreds of locals swarming the streets of town and the beach. They were here to party: Tofo apparently becomes the party central of Mozambique for the last week of December. 

Most of the locals looked like teenagers, but it makes sense in a country where the legal age of consent is 12 and the average woman gives birth to her first child at 19.2. Seriously though, if you live in a hut without electricity, you too would probably be willing to travel a loooong way to go to an all-night street party. 

The market turned into a giant club with every stall blasting music and serving drinks. The vibe was positive – everyone was here to have a good time. I also liked that it was not hierarchical – there were no VIPs, nobody had to pay an entry fee. 

At some point, I met an Australian/Austrian couple who lives in Amsterdam. The Austrian guy’s dad has lived in Mozambique for decades so he’s fluent in Portuguese. 

At midnight just as I was about to head home and, I got a text inviting me to walk over to a nearby club. I said sure and we boarded the back of pickup truck “for fun”. The truck took off with 25 people in the bed. It struggled to go. 

After a couple minutes, the truck had no stopped and I asked if we were at the club. The Austrian man said he didn’t know. 

The truck continued to drive and eventually we had left Tofo and were in the countryside. I was furious!

After 30 minutes of driving, we reached a village where hundreds of youths were partying in the streets. I did not feel comfortable here because of the uncertainty of the transport options back and the fact that my phone was low on battery. 

At this point, I also had a great night and didn’t need to push it, so I found a car to take me back immediately. 

I got back to Tofo at 1:00 and at the Airbnb by 1:30. 

December 26, 2025: Not Meant To Be

I took the morning easy hanging out in my room and taking a swim in the ocean. 

At around 11, I walked into town to get a smoothie and check out Tofino Beach which is known for its surfing. 

At noon, I got a text from the same couple from last night inviting me to take an excursion. The Austrian man’s dad picked me up and I climbed into the bed of the truck with the couple. Before leaving town, we decided to stop at a market to grab some supplies. As we pulled into the parking lot, someone swerved in front of us so we had to stop short. The force from the sudden application of the brakes caused me to fly forward and I smashed my right collarbone on a metal chest. My friendship with these people was clearly not meant to be!

My shoulder writhed in pain but I could move everything. I tried to do a push up and was able to. 

Luckily, we were next to a pharmacy. I went in a purchased supplies to clean and dress my wound. At this point, I was able to determine that the collarbone was thankfully not broken – what a disaster that would have been. My mobility was still restricted and I was in pain, but I knew that I would eventually be fine. 

I moved into the front seat of the car. We drove 30 minutes to reach the compound of another Austrian man. He now has a local wife and nine-year-old kid. 

He is also a musician and has set up a high-quality recording studio for musicians, built in part by a grant from the Austrian government. It is apparently the highest quality recording studio in the country. He gets musicians from all over the country as well as South African musicians who want to live the beach live while recording music. He arranges travel packages for them. 

We chatted for about three hours. One thing we ended up talking about are politics. The government has been controlled by a single party, Frelimo, since independence. Until 1991, it was a Communist party but since then has officially been Democratic Socialist. In reality, it is an authoritarian one-party rule. If you are nice to them, they are nice to use – if you are a foreigner living in Mozambique for an extended period of time, you better be nice to them. 

After, the group was heading for massages in a remote area inaccessible by transit. So instead of waiting for them, I walked down the main highway and caught a tuk tuk into Inhambane town. 

Inhambane is considered the second prettiest town in Mozambique (after the UNESCO World Heritage Ile de Mozambique in the north of the country). It is also one of the oldest settlements in this part of the world: it has been a port for at least 1,000 years. Vasco da Gama visited Inhambane to restock supplies on his journey to Africa. 

Inhambane has seen better days, but there are some pretty buildings. If you angle your camera right, you might get a shot that sort of looks European. There are no attractions in the town: its sole museum was closed indefinitely. 

This time when taking a chapa back, I got the last “seat” so I hand to stand and bend over other passengers to fit. For the first time ever, the chapa was actually full and the driver did not stop to pick up any other passengers. This made the drive much faster. 

Back in town, I went to the beach and ran into Ivan. 

While at the beach, we saw a local man smash a glass bottle on the sand. This caused an uproar and the man was immediately arrested by the lifeguards who double as tourist police. Tofo is exceedingly safe and clean! 

For dinner, I got local fresh fish. I later ran into Ivan and Max while they were eating dinner at a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant. We all planned to go out on the town again, but there was no party tonight so we all went to bed early. 

December 27, 2025: The Final Swim

This was my last day in Tofo. I weirdly felt very sad to be leaving this town. The energy is intoxicating. 

I took one more swim in the Indian Ocean. 

Then I headed into town. I got a smoothie for breakfast and a shrimp matapa for an early lunch. I then met up with Ivan and Max who drove me to the airport. Max was on my flight to Maputo but Ivan was going to drive south towards South Africa in his jeep.

The airport might be the smallest airport I have ever visited. The check-in and security were all in one tiny room. Everyone was hanging out on a patio in the back or on the roof. 

Despite no flight tracking available in Mozambique and the notorious unreliability of the airline, the flight did arrive on time. We then boarded the CemAir flight back to the capital Maputo. 

Final Thoughts:

Tofo is the town you want to visit in Mozambique. The beach is stunning and easily accessible unlike Vilankulo which requires taking a day tour. The town is exceedingly safe – there is really no danger and can be visited by adults and families. 

Yes, there are touristy aspects to the town, but in Africa that’s honestly a plus. The townsfolk mostly speak English because so many of the tourists are South Africans and there are a wide variety of cuisines. Most restaurants take credit card. 

Tofo has a reputation for being one of those “black hole” African backpacking towns where you expect to spend three days and end up spending three weeks. I totally understand why.