Money:
There are 3 banks in town, and they all have ATM’s - all new generation ATM’s that accept any type of card. You can get 5000Meticais ($200) per transaction and I sometimes did 2 transactions back to back and got 10 000Meticais without a problem. You can pay your accommodation and diving with a credit card (they add a 5% transaction fee), and everything else is normally cash, although you can run a bar/restaurant tab if you are a guest at some of the places and pay by credit card when you check out.
All prices are in Meticais, and daily exchange rates for Rand and US$ indicated behind the bar. So if your bill arrives in Meticais and you want to pay in Rand or US$, the waiter uses the daily rate to calculate the amount. The rates were not too bad – better than the rates at Heathrow airport in Londen, but if you do not want to pitch up with a load of cash on you, the 3 ATM’s in town will never let you run out of cash.
Health & Medicine:
The tap water at Palmeiras and most other places comes from bore-holes, and is safe to drink… My wife did not want to risk getting a stomach bug and only drank bottled water, I on the other hand had a bigggg thirst the first night and we had run out of bottled water…so having to choose between ‘dying of thirst’ and having an upset stomach from drinking tap water I chose the latter and when I was still fine the next day I continued to drink the tap water – so I can honestly say it is safe. But truth be told if I had plenty of bottled water on the first night I probably would not have risked it.
Mozambique is in a Malaria area, and I’m not sure you can buy malaria prophylactics in Vilanculos, so come prepared. We always use Malarone, it is very expensive compared to other prophylactics out there, but because it has very little side effects (zero in our case) it is a good one to use if you are diving.
The type of malaria they get there is not the life threatening and recurring one, so if you think you’ve got it(feel a cold coming on), you can go down to the local hospital where they will do a blood test and know within 10 minutes if you have Malaria or not. If you do, they’ll give you some tablets and you’ll be fine after 2-3 days - or so I’m told by the locals. So yes there is a hospital and apparently they are good at diagnosing and treating malaria – but I got mixed reviews on how they treat more serious illnesses/injuries. But hey, at least they have a hospital which is more than you can say of most African villages.
There is no hyperbaric chamber in Vilanculos, and I think the closest one is in Richards Bay, South Africa. So if you need to get to one you will need to be airlifted – which will be costly, so divers insurance is always a good idea.
The Weather in April:
Mostly sunny and hot (25-28 degrees), and it cools down a bit during the night. The weather was a bit random, and it varied from really hot days with no wind with hot nights where we had the fan running to nice sunny days with a cool breeze blowing from the sea, and a day or two where a strong wind would blow from the sea towards late afternoon, and it would cool down to the point that my wife would wear a jumper at night. When I say random I mean you’d get a hot day, 2 nice days, a windy day with a bit of cloud, a nice day, and then a hot day again…
All in all we cannot complain about the weather.
Sunrise on a cloudy day
