As already mentioned, the alarm clocks rang early. Without any problems or controls we reached our bus on time. Our luggage was somehow stowed and we were asked to take a seat right next to the driver. The ride was quite uneventful – only once again we could experience corruption in perfection. The bus driver had already prepared small rolls of money ready to hand, which he always stowed in his driver’s license. We were stopped, the papers went to the official, came back and the roll was gone. On our 10 hour trip we were stopped a total of 8 times – always the same procedure.

We were even brought by our bus driver almost directly to the door of our accommodation, the Pariango Beach Motel. Pariango means friend in local language. The motel is run by Volker and Jochen, 2 German emigrants. Since Volker was already on his way to Germany, we only met Jochen. Since there were hardly any guests on site at the moment, according to our stories and Mel’s birthday, we received room upgrade number 2 on this vacation.

Jochen is a very relaxed, super nice guy with a cute 6-year-old daughter. With Volker we had only by mail contact, but he seems to tick similar. Whenever you land in Tofo, visit them and stay at Pariango Beach.

That day we did not do much more. The local dive schools had already closed, so we bought some more beer and cooked ourselves that evening.

28.09.2021 – The Ocean Safari

The next morning Mel set out to organize another dive for today. She found what she was looking for at Tofo Scuba and booked an Ocean Safari.

So while Mel disappeared once again into the depths of the ocean and marveled at the abundance of fish, Andreas enjoyed his time on the beach. He didn’t stay there alone for long – a beach vendor quickly joined him to offer his wares. However, the sales talk quickly developed into a real conversation, to which Andreas enjoyed an overpriced coconut.

  • Departure for diving
  • This is how it should look later

At the Ocean Safari we got together again and already the beginning was funny. We were together in a group of Dutch girls and a young American girl. All of us together had to push the dinghy into the water and then get in – what a show.

On the way we saw dolphins and 5 whale sharks, who could and wanted to snorkel with them. With pictures it looks for this day, however, unfortunately not so good, because Andreas had slopped the night before and now the batteries of all devices were empty.

The return trip on the big dinghy was also interesting. While 2 of the Dutch girls had already been hanging with their heads above the water for some time and were getting paler and paler, the captain had fun taking every wave with full power so that our boat took off – we had fun.

At the end of the day we bought some souvenirs and beer and went to a small beach restaurant. With the typical local food Matampa and a cocktail during the sunset, this day also came to an end.