We woke up this morning with clouds in the sky and a fair amount of wind. Today was the day we had planned to do research on ticket/ bus costs and make the decision on whether to just go north as far as Tofo or go up to Pemba, however we forgot it was Sunday. Everything but the restaurants & Internet cafes were closed. We should have gone to do our research on Saturday but we got a late start & I was focused on visiting the cultural/ historical places listed in Lonely Planet.

After discovering that nothing was open we walked down along the Indian ocean. It was not a very impressive beach. All the guide books & travel brochures talk about the beautiful beaches of mozambique but this was not one of them; it smelled and there was a significant amount of garbage. By this time it started to rain so we took a taxi back to our hostel, so we could grab the iPad before heading out in search of wifi.

With the iPad concealed in my Kavu travel purse (also fits the Nikon D90 w/ lens) we headed out. Uncomfortable with the idea that we were caring such a valuable piece of technology down the street in Maputo we decided to take a tuk tuk ( a 3 wheeled cab, like in thailand) to the Maputo shopping center where wifi supposedly existed. We searched ever floor with no luck, but we did find a mCel store open so we bought a 3G SIM for the iPad… I mean our phone 🙂

When we came out of the shopping center it was raining again so we hoped in a taxi and headed off to a hotel that lonely planet had listed as having a 500 Mct. (28 meticalias to 1 USD) shuttle to Tofo. I don’t know if the Lonely Planet just hit this place in the off season, but we were quoted 2,500 Mct. for two people!!!( at our hostel it is 600 Mct.pp) The lady at the hotel told us that the price in the book was very outdated. So we politely declined and went to have Thai for lunch. The Thai restaurant which is listed in lonely plant is good, but nothing special. I had curry chicken in coconut milk which had roasted pine nuts in it, which added a pleasant but unusual flavor. Alex had the chicken fried rice but it was plain.

Back at the hostel we carefully cut down our 3G SIM into a micro SIM to try in the iPad. Success!! We have a 3G enabled iPad in Mozambique! Which makes up for getting nothing else done today.