Baia Sonambula Guest House Hot

Baia Sonambula Guest House is one of the nicest guest houses in the area, just a 5 minute stroll along the beach from the central market and dive centre and in a slightly elevated position it also offers some of the most beautiful views of Tofo bay.

The guest house offers a total of 5 rooms, 3 with sea views and 2 within the main house. The main house (to which all guests have access too) has a small lounge area with library, and a small kitchen where you can prepare your own fruits or salads purchased from the market (although no cooking is allowed). Tea and coffee is available throughout the day, and there’s an honesty bar offering wine, beer, water, mixers and soda’s. Outside of the main house there’s a shaded terrace, a shaded dining area, and a sundeck offering a few lounger’s and wonderful views, it’s a perfect place for that pre dinner G&T.

Tofo, being a small village offers some amenities, there’s a regular bus service into Inhambane & Maputo, there’s normally a cab hanging around too. Most guest houses offer a laundry service, and there are a few places to buy provisions and essential toiletries, although don’t expect the wide range that we have here.

Diving at Tofo is arranged through Diversity Scuba, a Portuguese owned PADI 5* Gold Palm IDC centre. Diversity pride themselves in organization and safety, and their rental equipment (predominantly Scubapro) is changed every two years, they also have a good policy of training then employing local divemasters as well as European staff to guide the dives.

All diving at Tofo is undertaken by RIB, and sometime the beach launches can be as exciting at the dives themselves.

All rooms at Baia Sonambula are beautifully yet simply furnished, large comfortable beds, mosquito nets, fans, modern bathrooms with hot and cold showers, personal safe and even a water filter for safe drinking water. Sea View rooms also have their own shaded terraces with a small table and chairs.

There are several options to reach Inhambane depending from where your international flight is originating. If you are taking a few days or week in SA first on SharkWeek for example there is now a daily flight from Johannesburg to Inhambane, if you wish to fly as direct as you can from the UK you can fly into Maputo with Ethiopian Airways or TAP and then fly or drive up.

As there are a few options available and we suggest this is discussed with your advisor to see what flying options best suit you.

Transfer time from Inhambane airport to Tofo is approximately 30 minutes, from Maputo 7 hours.

There are several restaurants to choose from in Tofo, offering a selection of meat and fish dishes with some awesome salads, one of the nicest is “Casa de Comer” French cuisine with a splash of local flavour, the proximity of the market and the sea guarantees the quality and the freshness of the shellfish, fish, vegetables and fruits. Tartare of fish and cucumber, various mixed salads, carpaccio of fish, crab mayonnaise, seafood Feuilleté, calamari flambé with Pastis, fish filet “au vin blanc”, grilled crayfish, Mozambican Matapa (manioc leaves cooked with coco, cashewnuts and seafood), chicken with cashewnuts, fresh exotic fruit salad, crème caramel, real chocolate mousse, mango pie, bananas flambé with local rum are just some of the dishes often available.

Tofo Tofo have a good reputation and offer value for money, and there are a couple of small places where you can pick up a pizza should the need take you, don’t forget that some local foods both hot and cold are available from the local market, as well as from their little bars.

You can do as much or as little as you like in Tofo, and below are a selection of excursions that can be arranged locally.

Ocean Safari’s

A 2 hours boat trip to spot and snorkel with whale sharks and when in season to see humpback whales (June to October).

Welcome to Tofo

A perfect way to get an overview of the, a tour that will show the highlights and the less known places and facts, this excursion is great for anyone keen to have a resident to show them around.

Horse Riding

A fantastic way to discover the back country. Ride under palm trees, explore small local villages on horseback and for those more experienced riders, a brisk gallop along the beach!

Quad Biking

Another way to explore the countryside, slightly more noisy than on horseback, but fun, easy and accessible for almost everyone.

Explore Inhambane

Inhambane is a very old town with a long history. Well before Vasco de Gama set foot upon the “Terra de boa gente”, the Arabs had already installed their markets and set up a trading post. Later, the French used the port for slave traffic. The prolonged presence of the Portuguese strongly influenced the architectural style of the towns’ buildings and structures. The Indians or native people own most of the commerce and represent a large part of the local population. Many kinds of people from different origins and different religions live together peacefully in the town of Inhambane.

This town is known to be one of the cleanest towns in Africa: wide avenues lined with trees, colourful central market, the old church, the mosque, the port, the small shops, etc…

Traditional Dinner

Organized in a local house in the countryside with typical food cooked in the Mozambican way. Duration : 3/4 hours (arrival at sunset).

Mocucune Island

An excursion that will make discover the beauty of real Mozambique and its people, sailing with a traditional dhow boat, visit pristine beaches, walking among mangroves and exploring local villages.

Dives are taken as 2 dives with a surface interval on board the RIB departing between 8am & 9am in the morning, usually returning between 12pm & 1pm. When conditions allow a 3rd dive may be possible in the afternoon, when not there may still be a change to take an “Oceansafari” and go on the 2 to 3 hour trip to snorkel with Whale Sharks.

The Tofo area is rich in a diverse array of marine life, some of which are hard and soft corals, pelagic fish, a multitude of colourful reef fish, turtles and giant moray eels.

There are a wide variety of rays, some of which are not seen in many parts of the world. Many people visit Tofo just for the experience of diving with Manta Rays, including the Giant Manta ray, as the area has one of the largest known Manta Ray populations in the world!

Apart from rays, you may also see Grey Reef Sharks, White and Black Tip Reef Sharks as well as the majestic Whaleshark.

For those divers who love the little things the reefs offer a great diversity of shrimps, nudibranchs leaf fish and a whole range of the small and beautiful to keep you fascinated throughout your dive. Dive sites vary in distance from 5 mins to 35 mins to some of the most spectacular reefs on the Mozambican coast line. You may even have the opportunity to snorkel with Whale sharks on the boat trip to the dive site.