Photos from Ihla de Mocambique

Here are the long promised photos - just a few of my favourites - from Ihla de Mocambique, the capital of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique until it was moved to what is now Maputo a century ago.

A narrow alley

Water carriers

A warehouse, and a formerly grand home now inhabited by "renters" (note the laundry drying on the railings).

The governor's palace, now the museum. The grand, white hospital, in ruins but still in use.

The original fortress.

Like the commercial

Remember that TV commercial a while back? A guy in tattered clothes, hair unkempt, bushy beard, washes up on shore in an old boat. He walks into the lobby of a fancy hotel and pulls a particular credit card out of his pocket. Within a few tightly edited scenes, he’s a ringer for James Bond. All thanks to the card.

That’s how I felt this morning. In the almost two weeks since I left Johannesburg, I’ve been in some very atmospheric places. Mozambique Island, Pemba, Ibo Island, little Moshi on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. But atmosphere also comes with lots of dust, hot humid rooms, thin sheets and towels and somewhat dodgy water.

By this morning, as I boarded a public bus for the 80 km ride to Arusha, riding with several Tanzanians who use their cell phones like megaphones, and two Brits in the back row who were racing each other to see how many beers they could down before noon, I felt more than a little tattered, a little shaggy … a little aromatic, despite several hotel laundries.

The bus stopped at the terminal, but I managed to convince the driver to continue on 2 or 3 blocks and drop me closer to the hotel I had booked, so I wouldn’t have to pay for a taxi. In a cloud of exhaust fumes, this cranky, cracked, baling wire and duct tape bus pulls right into the Porte Cochere of a polished teak and marble hotel, and out my bags and I tumble. I stamp the dust off my hiking boots, pat down my tousled hair, and smile at the uniformed young porter who has picked up my backpack. His name is Godwell and he smiles back and says “Karibo”, welcome in Swahili.

Within an hour, I’d had lunch in the fancy restaurant, had rewashed the worst of my clothes in the hotel sink (damn right at $2 per undershirt for the hotel laundry!), and was settled down to watch a mindless American movie on Satellite TV. Something about three teens driving through a winter forest pursued by a mysterious Cadillac.

I’m now sitting on a padded lounge chair beside a twinkling turquoise tiled pool, Gin and Tonic by my side, posting this message on the hotel’s WiFi network as the light drains from the evening sky.

It’s nice, but ya know, I kinda miss the atmosphere.

Oh, and here are a few shots from Moshi, including sunset on Kilimanjaro, a sidewalk watch repair man, and sidewalk tailors:

Off the Map on Ibo Island

The tiny Pygmy Kingfisher flashed through the dry bush veld, dipping and weaving in search of its morning meal, flashing brilliant orange and deep turquoise feathers in the hot sunlight.

Nearby, the persistent call of the Gorgeous Bush-Shrike rose above the calls of other birds. Suddenly, the Kingfisher stopped dead, suspended in mid-air, strong filaments encircling its head and wrapping around its wings. The more it struggled, the tighter the filaments became, digging deep into its shoulder.

As it hung suspended, exhausted, barely a breeze stirred the hot morning air. No one would know what the little bird was thinking but as the tall drab olive figure approached quietly, it began to struggle again.

I crouched nearby under a spreading Flamboyant Tree, my legs cramping and beads of sweat hanging on my upper lip. I wondered for a moment how I had ended up in this predicament.

After soaking in the architectural heritage of Ihla de Mocambique and being whisked through the expat eccentricities of Pemba, I had flown to Ibo Island, climbing down from a small Cessna and falling straight into a nest of rabid ornithologists.

I encountered them at the bar in my hotel and was immediately whisked into their lifestyle of late nights and even earlier mornings. Their leader, a tall, broad, handsome Indiana Jones of a man was mercurial, charismatic. His three acolytes were: a dark-haired Afrikaner, a bear in drab olive with a steady smile and the most florid ‘rrrr’s imaginable; a shaggy Englishman with a flushed red face and the demeanor of a severe yet kindly school teacher; and a tall, lean mystery man with dark eyes and a soul patch and a hard-to-place accent. The little gang included a circle of much shorter local men with ebony skin and serious faces and several slouching, global teens.

The four had blown into town a week earlier to ring birds – catching them in the bush at 4am as the sun rose, and on the mud flats at 5pm, as the tide rolled out. Each bird that was caught in their mist nets was banded (ringed), identified, measured and weighed and then carefully examined for clues to its age and moult pattern.

They let me tag along – their birder groupie - and shared with me some of the most beautiful birds I had ever seen; the Emerald cuckoo, Striped Kingfisher, Gorgeous Bush Shrike (with the primary colours of the Mozambique flag), the Scarlet Chested Sun Bird, Melba Finch, Blue Waxbill, Black Throated Wattle Eye, Madagascar Bee-Eater – 26 species in all in 2 short days. I learned how to spot feathers that are damaged in the nest or on 15,000 km migrations from Siberia, saw evidence of glue used by children to trap birds for the pet trade, and understood how moulting can be delayed by the need to migrate. I felt their excitement when they reached into a white cotton bird bag, just brought back from the nets, and extracted a bird deemed hard to catch.

The local men were all rangers with the Querimbas Archipelago National Park – trainees who were patiently given opportunities to ring, identify, and age the birds. The man with the hard-to-place accent turned out to work in Tourism and Hospitality with the Mozambique government and put in yeoman service translating and explaining to the rangers – although he seemed far too hip to be a civil servant.

For most of the week, the five of us were actually the only tourists on Ibo, until the Dutch girls showed up.

Ibo is far off the usual tourist route. It was, until the 1920s, the capital of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado and is now a bizarre remnant of the former Portuguese Colony. Today, the wide, white sand main street is lined with hulking ruins of high, one-storey buildings, empty windows behind broad, low-slung porches. Some had lost their roof and several walls were in the process of melting back into piles of stone.

On the second street, narrower, and shaded by mature trees, the long, low porches met in a continuous nave along one side. Some of the dwellings appeared intact, if empty, but many more were facades shielding open interiors with huge trees. Further along, the buildings had melted away into wall fragments – true ruins that looked more like the aftermath of Armageddon.

But there were also reconstructed and renovated homes interspersed amongst the desolation. The three hotels – Cinco Portas, Miri Watiri and the elegant Ibo Island Lodge led the way with crisp white walls, red tile roofs and beautiful carved doors. Despite the lack of electricity and the isolation (accessible only by small charter planes or traditional dhows that cross from the mainland on high tides), there are many who believe that this ghostly, ruined town has the potential to be a magnificent tourist destination. There are others, the local communities among them, who believe that the hulking, empty colonial buildings are inhabited by ghosts.

My favourite part of the visit was walking alone down the middle of the sandy main street, under the bold full moon, stark black on white shadows animating the buildings on either side, the quiet murmur of voices from the porches, either gathering ghosts or a few brave locals huddling in the cool night air behind the railings.

In the end, I spent 4 full days here,
- Wandering aimlessly through the ghostly colonial town and the bustling coral stone, mud and thatch villages around the edges;
- hiking through the mangroves to the ruined lighthouse facing the open Indian Ocean,
- being invited to enter an enclosure to watch 14 women (and one very drunk man) practice traditional dance and song routines to the sounds of 3 drummers using octagonal metal drums;
- hiring a dhow with Anna and Pauline, the two strong confident young medical students from Holland, to snorkel off a white sandbar miles out into the turquoise ocean;
- and always eating whatever the fishermen happened to bring in that day – prawns, octopus, lobster, squid, and huge chunks of some white fish.

And of course I got to hang out with my new posse, my "buds", the world class bird ringers. Yup, me and the boys and the birds. I was in awe and very happy to be included.

Oh, and the Pygmy Kingfisher, it was expertly extracted from the net, unharmed, ringed and before it was released, placed on its back in the open palm of an elderly local woman who chortled happily as it lay momentarily, playing dead, before it flitted off into the bush.

Out of Spendid Isolation

I've come a far way on this long, long day.

I started the morning in the spendid isolation of Ibo in Northern Mozambique. I awoke on an island without electricity, bathed in sweat at 6am under my mosquito net. The two Dutch medical students had walked to the beach at 4am to try to get a dhow to take them to the main land before the tide went out, and my posse had headed to their own chartered dhow at 6am. So I was the last tourist on the island. (More about these people in tomorrow's post).

A young man drove me and my packs to the airstrip on the back of his motorbike, slithering along the loose sand track and waiting with me in the silence of the bush until we heard the motors of the small Cessna coming in to pick me up.

Three flights and 12 hours later, my bags and I arrived intact on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Northern Tanzania. I've settled into a solid little business hotel on Aga Khan road in Moshi, and ate Dahl and rice while watching a Bollywood music video channel.

And instead of the 35 degree temperature this morning, I'm enjoying a cool 23 degree breeze even though I'm almost on the equator. I know the snow capped mountain, the highest in Africa, is out there... I look forward to daylight tomorrow and the chance to see it.

At every turn, the diversity of experiences on this trip surprises me.

You meet the most interesting people: Pemba

In need of some cash for the next phase of my trip – out to Ibo Island, which apparently doesn’t have electricity, much less an ATM – I decided this morning to take a trip into Pemba town. On the Lonely Planet map it looks like a smallish town with 5 or 6 main streets, but as the taxi took me to the intersection I had requested, it became apparent that it was big and bustling.

I was dropped in front of the Standard Bank, and thought I’d better do my sightseeing before stopping at the ‘money machine’ in sight of many interested eyes. The main intersection had a few 3-5 storey concrete buildings, and there was a ‘strip mall’ development just to the north with two other banks – BIM and Barclays. The map had shown an ‘escarpment’ and a big church, so I set out on foot in search.

But beyond the main intersection, the roads and the town soon seemed to crumble away. Within a block in each direction, I found high security walls, small concrete buildings, litter choked alleys and rough bamboo shops. For the first time on the trip, I felt uneasy.

Spotting 5 other white males, probably Portuguese employees of some aid organization, I managed to amble along just a few feet in front of them, relieving my probably-unjustified sense of paranoia with a pretend posse.

And then, just as I reached a dusty, impromptu ‘shoe market’, a beaten up black truck veered off the road and a friendly face called out to me. Like a knight on a white steed, Michelle scooped me up and took me on a whirlwind of errands and bars with views.

I had met Michelle over lunch the day before. An American who has lived in Mozambique for almost 2 decades, initially running a tourist facility down south, she is now ‘hanging out’ in the guest house next door to mine as she prepares to move to Argentina. She is a smart, witty, confident woman with with her own elegant beauty and a wonderfully positive view of the trials and tribulations of living in a 3rd world country. But she claims to have grown tired of being a "wealthy" visible minority, and tired of having to haggle over everything from food to official papers. She wants to find a place that offers cooler temperatures, fresh water, rolling hills and invisibility.

Like her, many of the people she introduced me to in Pemba were in some form of transition. Bruce, her passenger in the truck this morning, is a handsome, dark-haired South African with startling blue eyes whose contract in Malawi had dissolved leaving him penniless. He was looking for work in Pemba while waiting to hitch a working ride across to Madagascar on a yacht.

Pieter, the 51 year old, who runs a successful dive shop on the beach and has built the beautiful 2-room guest house next door around a 1,000 year old Baobab tree, is planning to complete the last phase of rooms in a year (or 2, or maybe 6 months) before selling the place and moving to South America as well. Peru maybe. In the meantime, he had just been given a lovely wooden dhow that he might recondition for cruises. Unfortunately, as we drove by it later that afternoon it was in the process of sinking.

At our first stop on the tour, we stopped at a very elegant bar/café high on the escarpment with “the best view of the bay” and clearly in a better part of town. It was also the place to buy western delicacies you couldn’t find elsewhere – like fresh lettuce and frozen meats. There Michelle introduced me to a square jawed, steel-eyed Afrikaner named Arthur who had sailed his dhow into the harbour below that morning. It was a gorgeous live-aboard expedition boat that he had just finished rebuilding after an unfortunate run-in with the authorities had left it beached and breaking up. This storey sounded very familiar. Within minutes, I realized that his boat down in the harbour was “Fim do Mundo”, the Ibo-based cruising dhow that had drawn me initially to Northern Mozambique. I had longed to find myself on a traditional (yet comfortable) sailing dhow cruising for several days amongst the deserted white sand islands of the Quirimbas Archipelago. I knew that his unfortunate run in with the authorities had put him out of business, but I was on my way to Ibo in the hope of finding an alternative.

I hadn’t realized that he had revived the business, but frustrations with his incompetent skipper had caused him to shut it down again just the week before, cancelling bookings through December.

Arthur was, without a doubt, a comic book character. He had been in the South African military, but without a war, what good was that. He had run a guest house, started this ‘live-aboard’ cruise business and now was buying and renovating properties on Ibo Island. Along the way he had had run-ins with local power figures. Anger management issues, he claimed. But he “knew how to handle himself” and had come to an ”agreement” with those he needed. I didn’t know whether this involved his military experience or his superior negotiating skills, but he certainly exuded the vibes of a hardened mercenary.

In this little corner of Northern Mozambique, the characters are larger than life. The ‘rules’ are frustrating for some, but for others, it’s an opportunity to set your own rules. Survival is a common theme. “This new generation has no clue how to survive in a place like this” Arthur growled at one point.

Not to say that there are none of the ‘next generation’ here. My dinner companion last night was a delightful and earnest young man from England, managing a partnership between ophthalmology departments and based at a private university in Nampula. In fact, everyone else seemed to be arriving from or departing to some international aid program – young, clean cut Europeans in sandals and tidy cotton clothes.

But my own romantic view of this adventure – the dissolute Englishman drinking Gin and Tonic in the courtyard in Cochin – makes the ‘characters’ far more fun.

If Ihla de Mocambique was about the ambience, Pemba is about the people that move through it.

(PS: Sorry, still no ability to upload photos. May have to figure out how to make them smaller. I'll probably be out of contact for the next 5 days on Ibo Island. Apparently it doesn't even have electricity.)

Ihla de Mocambique: Photo essay without photos

An old Mozambique hand (aged 20-something) tells me that bandwidth here fluctuate uncontrollably. Another told me that not long ago, an illegal Chinese trawler had cut the fibre optics cable across the bay and all communications was down for 5 weeks.

So rather than struggle (so far without luck) to upload the 12 photos I’ve selected to show everyone the beauty of Ihla de Mocambique, I will paint a few word pictures. When I get to Tanzania, I’m hoping I’ll have better luck with the photos.

So imagine this:

- 3.5 km off shore, in the open waters of the Indian Ocean, is a long narrow island city, only 3 blocks across at its widest point, and built up from seawall to white sand beach.

- At its north end, a hulking Portuguese Citadel, made from black square-cut coral stone from quarries at the south end of the island and transported here on the heads of slaves.

- Crowded in the lea of the Citadel, an old Stone Town – narrow, winding streets of loose red sand lined with the ruins of an ancient colony.

- The centre piece is the former Governor’s Palace, an immense red villa built in the 1600s and still full of the exquisite suites of furniture left behind when Mozambique moved its capital to Maputo a century ago. I’m the only visitor this day, and removing our sandals to preserve the carpet, my guide and I pad barefoot through the reception rooms, dining room, ballroom, and bedrooms poking 400 year old beds to see how comfortable they are.

- The Jesuits were here – a large, whitewashed and barrel vaulted church with the Barrocco gilded altar they plant in all colonies to display their wealth.

- Then there are two parts to Stone town. The first is the Unesco projects - reconstructed, painted and polished to near Disneyfication – including the Slave Regisry and the Telecom building. The rest of town forms the second part – ruins and near ruins, many of them displaying the proud remnants of once grand homes and shops. Some are inhabitable, and show signs of human presence. Others are open to the sky, crumbling walls of black coral stone and red earthen mortar. Plaques proclaim them heritage sites, awaiting a benevolent buyer to save them.

- Beyond Stone Town is the Hospital, a massive stroke of ego built over a hundred years ago in style clearly inspired by the plantation houses of the Mississippi – massive temple steps leading up to giant porticoed porch, two stories of proud square windows, and a urn-topped cornice. But broken windows and crumbling walls leave it open to the elements. The amazing thing is that it is still a “functioning” hospital. Wandering around back we see people lying in beds, attending to by family members.

- The final element of this odd place is Makuti town, five rough and tumble villages of mud and thatch huts, each built into one of the deep quarries that produced the stone for the citadel. This is where most of the city’s population lives, many Mancua speaking locals but also a number of people from other regions to fled to the island’s relative safety during the post-independence Civil War. Unlike stone town, these villages are full of life, with children playing, vendors selling food from their doorsteps, seemingly everyone with a cell phone in their hands.

- At the south end, the island ends in an enclosure of Hindu cremations and 3 cemeteries, one Christian, one Indian Muslim and one African Muslim.

But that is just the physical city. I have vivid images in my mind.

Walking home from dinner one night, I see a young mother and her child sitting quietly in a darkened doorway to a half-building. As if a bomb had hit it, half of the front wall and most of the second storey are missing, but there’s enough of the roof left to provide some shelter and a lit candle inside suggests that this is home to the forlorn pair on the stoop. Next to it, a polished 2 storey “Central Café” is said to be the completed renovation project of a European couple hoping to capitalize on a growing tourist trade. It is a war zone of sorts.

Every morning and every evening, the main north-south street sees a steady stream brightly wrapped women and ragged children carrying huge water containers on their heads, making their ways home from some tap in Stone Town. I’m approached by children in the streets, generally to smile and wave at me, and occasionally to give me a hug. But sometimes, they point to my water bottle and then to their lips. The well water tastes salty.

In the heat of the day, everyone seems to wilt. Young men …everyone here seems young … sit in the shade of big trees, slumped in unison side by side. Looking in doorways of the half-structures, I often see women sitting on cloths on the floor, holding children or plaiting each other’s hair. There are a few places in town, where I have to step into the street because a family is taking a nap on the broken sidewalk, to catch the stirring of air off of the ocean.

As the afternoon fades into a golden sunset, the turquoise water beyond town, the white sand and the soaring palm trees conjure images of a south sea paradise. It is an odd, ruined, promising town desperately in need of a saviour.

For now, it is a town for adventurers. In the hotel pool one night, while white winged bats skim the water near our heads, I meet a 67 year old Parisian woman who has only 2 more African countries to check off on her list. Her last trip was to Iraq where she felt very safe. “A woman is of no consequence there”, she tells me. Then, as the light fades, I spend an hour talking to the new ED of a European charity who took up his post only 3 days earlier and has little optimism about his task to curb the spread of HIV, malaria and cholera among a population that has no written form of their language. The Walkers are a delightful, older couple from Arizona who are successful business people but seem to have spent much of their lives doing things like trying to back-pack into China over the Himalayas. He has written a book about their adventures. Right now they are doing consulting work on Agri-business (him) and HIV/AIDS (her). .

I hope I’ve created some image of this place. Keep these images in mind and when next I get a broader band-width, perhaps in Northern Tanzania, I will publish those 12 images.

Next stop, a few hundred km up the coast to the Pemba, the beach front capital of Cabo Delgado province.

Ihla de Mocambique 1

I’m not really sure where I am, but I know I have begun a journey to another time, another place.

As I write this, it is 7pm and I am sitting on a covered terrace of the Hotel Escondidinho on Ihla de Mocambique. Although we are over 3 km out into the Indian Ocean, the air is still heavy with humidity and only the faintest stirring in the air. A small trickle of sweat is running down my back between my shoulder blades.

This hotel must once have been a grand colonial villa. The garden and terrace merge almost seamlessly into the interior - red tile flooring, white adobe arches, white-washed, rough-hewn beams forming high ceilings. I’ve eaten my simple grilled prawn and coconut rice looking out into the darkened garden, only the shadow of palm trees against the star studded sky.

Having arrived after dark, my half-lit impression of my own room is of grandeur from another era – Colonial Portuguese architecture and furnishings, accented by imposing, dark African masks and implements. A vast, mosquito netted bed set between two huge windows, opened inwards to catch whatever breezes they can through heavy screens.

I started the trip at 4am this morning, in a chic business hotel built over the airport terminal. Through a succession of flights (Jo-burg to Maputo to Beira to Nampula) the airports got progressively smaller, hotter and easier to navigate. Security follows no such logic - Maputo, the capital, is casual. We wander through beeping metal detectors and pick up our carry on from inoperable x-ray machines. However, tiny Nampula requires detailed bag searches, pat downs, and for some poor souls, a quick trip into a side room. I felt I was wandering further and further off of the beaten track.

The two-hour drive from Nampula to the island took us through a landscape virtually untouched by the colonial powers. From the air, I had seen no roads; only a lacy network of footpaths, hut clearings and subsistence fields. Hulking elephantine shapes rose from the flat ground at intervals, barren, oddly-shaped, disconnected. On the ground, the primary architecture was mud brick and thatch.

As dusk fell during our drive, many of the women and children walking by the roadside were threaded their way home from streams and hand pumps balancing heavy plastic containers of water on their heads – children as young as 5 or 6 carrying their share.

We descended to the coast and the island became apparent in the half darkness, a very few lights tracing a low line across a choppy body of water. The road is suddenly a single lane, concrete bridge, 3.5 km in length and only a few feet above high tide. Turn-offs at intervals allow cars and 'bakkies' to pull over and let those coming in the other direction pass.

The city we entered, once an Arab shipping port, once a major slave trading centre, capital of the early Portuguese colony until the late 1800s, is enveloped in darkness. In the light of the headlights, I can only make out crumbling mud walls and a cobbled road along the seawall.

The driver deposited me in the pool of light outside the hotel, and here I sit, wondering what I will discover at sunrise.

Into the Green Hills of Swaziland and back to Jo'burg

A solid veil of rain moved across the estuary and into the city obscured the tall buildings in Maputo’s downtown. Sustained flashes of theatrical lightening and the low bass rumble of thunder sat heavily over our heads for what felt like hours. In the Baixa (lower) district by the water’s edge, the streets ran red with soil washed down from the hillsides.

The storm paused long enough for us to stroll the two blocks to our now favourite ex-pat Portuguese restaurant where we drank beer and Vino Verde and ate plates of fresh seafood and chips and were taught a few Portuguese words by the coltish Mozambique waitress.

The rain had started again when it was time to return to the hotel, so we dashed through the deluge, sharing tiny collapsible umbrellas, co-ordinating our vaults over water filled craters in the broken sidewalk and laughing like school children.

The next morning, the temperature had dropped to a lovely 24 degrees, but the clouds still scuttled overhead, black and brooding.

The city seemed deserted for a Wednesday morning. A few runners in numbered bibs ran a marathon race along the broken pavements of downtown, raising their own hands to stop vehicles when they had to cross against a light. It is not a published holiday, but Lula de Silva, the Brazilian President is visiting and special arrangements may have been made to honour him … or to reduce his inconvenience.

We drove south into the foothills of the Lebombo Mountains, and as we climbed, the temperature dropped. Yesterday, the people walking along the pathways had worn clothing suitable to protect them from the burning sun, today’s travellers walked in sweaters, coats and knit caps.

We crossed into Swaziland at a high pass, a town built around a massive Portuguese church; quick formalities in pristine modern counters.

At this point, we entered a different world – forested hillsides, narrow verdant valleys, rushing streams, and brilliant flowering Jacaranda and Flamboyants, at the peak of their purple and red colour.

The traditional earthen huts here still had the thatched roofs, but were often accompanied by rougher constructions – grabens made of sticks and filled with the red sandstone rock that littered the landscape.

Our hotel for the night was the Matenga Lodge – in a setting that felt like the rain forests of Monteverde. When the clouds cleared in the morning, we also saw that we were in the shadow of the gruesome Execution Peak, where Swazi kings would throw miscreants from the cliffs.

The handicrafts of Swaziland are well known for their quality and ‘fair trade’ local support, and Francisco did his best to help out the various co-operatives here.

From Swaziland, we returned to Johannesburg, crossing the broad open plains replete with grazing and croplands. When we crossed it on our way to Kruger a little over a week ago, it the landscape was desiccated and thirsty. With the first rains, the once bare earth is covered in a delicate carpet of tender new shoots, the streams are flowing again and the farm ponds now contain some water.

Our last day together in Johannesburg was a very sobering one. We visited the exceptional Apartheid Museum, which traces the history of the racist policy in South Africa through vivid photos, direct commentary and a great deal of symbolic design. News reels, documentaries, taped interviews with Nelson Mandela and other leaders of the opposition brought it all alive. First person accounts, ‘memory boxes’, and the reactions of other visitors made it all very personal. There were times that both Fran and I had to shield our eyes from the violence of the regime, and other times that we were brought to tears by the sacrifice and loss suffered by so many people. Desmond Tutu, mourning the 69 “official” deaths of the Sharpsville Massacre said ‘we understand there is a price to pay Lord, but why does it have to be so high?’

The Museum is a starting point in understanding how such a monstrous policy had evolved. But it is also a fitting place for hope that despite such outrages, inspired leadership can bring about change and lay a foundation for a more equitable society. South Africa has so far to go – the school groups lined up to get into the theme park next to the Apartheid Museum were still strictly segregated along race lines (more because of ‘economic’ apartness – where they can afford to live), but in the mere 16 years since Apartheid fell the country appears to have developed a functioning democracy, reasonable opportunities and a healthy social conscience.

This country has much to be proud of.

A Mozambique Roadtrip

After the relative orderliness of South Africa, the chaos of the Mozambique border crossing is a plunge into the Africa we had expected to encounter. Long shuffling lines full of anxious local travellers, multiple counters with forms to fill out and officials to send you to yet another line, and touts with official looking vests who offer to ‘speed your way through’ for a fee.
We are lucky that we are travelling with an experienced guide, who can plant us in the appropriate line and manage the officials with firm courtesy.

With visas and forms stamped, and surprisingly, no additional fees to be paid, we head off towards Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city. It first appears on the horizon as a gleaming line of white high-rises, more Miami than tropical outpost. However, as you near, it’s developing world credentials become more apparent.

The main road passes first through shanty towns, alive on a Saturday morning with impromptu roadside markets teaming with colourful life. Then entering the downtown, we’re struck by the broad, European avenues, lined with mature trees and tall apartment and office towers.

It appears very modern and cosmopolitan until you take a closer look. On the multi-story apartment blocks, the concrete is crumbling, the paint has faded, windows are broken and the breeze block grills are shattered or missing. Relatively modern buildings from the 60s or early 70s have seen little care since then.

The reason is that when the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal fell in 1974, the colonial masters simply abandoned Mozambique and fled home. What they didn’t take with them, they sabotaged (concrete in wells and waste treatment system, for example). And they had done no succession planning; no one was in charge. The resulting chaos and civil war, pitting a socialist government against right wing rebels supported by neighbouring South Africa and Rhodesia, left the country tattered. Now, with peace barely a decade old, there’s still a lot of rebuilding to do.

The city’s core is still quite lovely- from a rococo Manueline museum, to the Beaux Arts city hall, from the soaring white Catholic cathedral to stunning deco movie theatres and office buildings, there is so much to admire. Throw in a few quirky details, like an amazing domed train station designed by Gustav Eiffel (and his iron State House that, under the tropical sun, has always been too ‘oven-like’ to inhabit), a charming Victorian arched City Market , and a cooling botanical garden and there’s lots for a traveller to admire. But between these barely maintained sights, structures are crumbling. Roofless ruins may have trees growing from their interiors and still viable shops tucked into corners of the ground floors. Like Havana, it is a sadly beautiful city.

Unhindered and hassle free, virtually ignored, we wander streets visit the Nucleo de Arte collective and settle comfortably into a shady sidewalk cafe. The occasional vendor walks by selling towers of electric converters, but for the most part, no one even gives us a second glance. Foreign travellers here are rare enough that they have yet to obtain the bullseye targets they’ve acquired in more touristed spots.

After a lovely dinner of grilled seafood, Vino verdhe and chorizo, and a good night’s sleep (well-guarded by the US ambassador’s security detail with some Marine Corp banquet event in the ballroom), we headed out of town for the long drive north to the Barra Peninsula.

For 7 hours, we drive across the green rolling hills of Southern Mozambique, passing through small plots of Pineapple, Maize, Cassava and plantations of coconut palms and scattered wild cashew trees. The agriculture is more subsistence than enterprise, and the cultivators live in small clusters of huts amongst the fields.

The predominant structure is a round hut with a conical roof, all made of the thick reeds that grow in the river floodplains. Occasionally the huts turn into squares, and even more occasionally the reed walls are replaced with cinder block or large red bricks. The bricks themselves are made in the beehive kilns we see scattered by the riverbanks, constructed of the same materials they are used to fire. North of Xie-Xie, as palm trees become more common, the reeds give way to palm fronds.

It hits me that none of the huts, in fact none of the villages we see in the distance, have roads to them. Their only connections to the outside world are meandering footpaths.

And the coast’s highway we follow, a solid multilane blacktop, is the most important pathway of all. It is Sunday morning, and along the entire route, women in white suits and floppy hats and men in wide ties and ill-fitting shirts, walk along the shoulder or plod single file along footpaths in the ditch on their way to some unseen church perhaps miles away.

In the small towns we pass though, the main streets are lined with picturesque Portuguese colonial structures from the 20s and 30s, with broad porches and fading paint. Women wrapped in colourful sheath skirts balance plastic pails on their heads, little boys run through the dust pushing toy trucks made of bent wire on tin can wheels, affixed to handles that rise to their skinny waists. Small buses, packed with those travelling to neighbouring villages stop to disgorge and pick up passengers while vendors crowd up against the open windows trying to sell everything from fruit and beverages to personal care products.

And there are occasional sights that tug on the heart-string. A young boy, no more than 7, balances a cinderblock on his tiny bald head, trudging along a path behind his older brother. A few miles further on, an even younger girl walks behind her brother, both with large bundle of sticks for firewood balanced on their heads. The schools we see are large, solid fenced structures that seem inaccessible to the children of the hut dwellers.

As we breeze through the vast rolling country side, Johannes Kerkorrel singing his Liberal protest songs in Afrikaans on the tape deck, we never feel completely alone. There are always people by the side of the road, walking at a careful pace, or vendors, reaching out into the road, imploring us to stop at their ‘shops’ – roadside trees decorated like Christmas with white plastic bags of cashew nuts or stands with glass bottles full of yellow liquids (petrol?) or milky white beverages (coconut wine?), and ramshackle stands of the local hot sauce (Piri piri).

We drive straight through, stopping only twice for beverages, and by mid-afternoon, have reached the turn off at Inhambane. From here, the road enters the Barra peninsula – a broad arm of white sand dunes and palm trees that reaches up into the Indian Ocean. The people here by the side of the road, suddenly appear more relaxed. Men in shorts (new to us), occasionally shirtless, work on small construction projects (one pounding metal into something in front of his open shop, another threading palm fronds through wooden up-rights to create a hut). Young boys leap gleefully into the bay from a breakwater, women sit in clusters under trees turning to watch us as we bounce by on the red dirt road.

And just when you think it is all timeless and exotic, we are reminded of the global culture; young men in loose pants and young women in tight jeans, walking along the pathways near town, their heads bowed, and arms raised in that ubiquitous texting gesture.

It is an easy drive, but a long one, so it is a relief to arrive at our destination. Our bags are transferred from Steven’s truck into a Land Rover and are taken to the very tip of the peninsula. Our hotel, the Flamingo Bay Resort, is a fantasy: 20 open cabins on stilts, balanced over the tidal flats a hundred meters out from shore across a rickety wooden walkway. We arrive at high tide, and the turquoise water is 20 feet deep and teeming with fish below our cabin floor boards. From the balcony a wooden staircase leads directly into the water and the first thing I do is don my mask and snorkel and wash off the road dust in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

The first rains in Africa

We were honoured to be invited to a ‘brei’ by two South Africans staying in the next bungalow. The Brei stand was readied, the starter chips lit and the wood piled on. While the flames danced and the coals began to glow, we drank Castle beer and talked of the weather.

As I’d said, it has been hot and dry. Very hot, very still, very dry. The scrub brush is for the most part a ghostly grey, and the grasses where they still stand, are a golden yellow. But where animals have worn away the ground cover, the dry red sand dominates.

The bleakest vista is the burn … generally controlled burns to encourage tender new shoots, but in places, vast tracts of blackened grass and scorched trees where fires appear to have burned out of control.

One of the black park rangers, “Lucky”, drove his safari vehicle up onto the brown grass beside our bungalow, was handed a beer, and joined our little circle. He too spoke of the need for rain.

The coals ready, our hosts placed an empty cast iron pot on one side of the grill. The smoke rising straight into the now darkened sky, they first laid out a single long link of beef sausage. When it was deemed ready, it was dropped into the pot to stay warm. Next, lamb chops, onto the grill, turned at regular intervals, and added to the warming pot. Chicken that had been marinated and ‘par-cooked’ landed on the grill, and then joined the other meats to stay warm.

Finally, a white bread sandwich with salmon, tomato and onions – flipped by quick fingers to grill lightly on both sides.

As we sat down to eat the brei feast, accompanied by a fresh green salad prepared in a frying pan, the air started to stir. No sooner had we popped open another round of beers, then the wind came up. Glancing out from under the thatched roof of the porch, we noticed the dome of stars had been obliterated by clouds and on the horizon, white flashes of lightening.

While in Canada, we might have worried about rain ruining our planned activities, our South African hosts spoke of hope that the rains were starting. October is the hottest, driest month, and therefore, the best time for game viewing because the animals congregate at waterholes and leafless trees open up longer vistas. But it is also known as suicide month because the 40 degree heat is oppressive. The water holes were dry and the rains were already late.

That evening, when the first few drops fell, you could feel the landscape let out a collective sigh. We moved our makeshift table under the roof, but the meal was abandoned as the South Africans stood out in the thickening rain, faces turned to the sky, open cans of beer in hand, slowly getting drenched.

As the first drops dampened the dust, we were enveloped by the smell of thirsty terracotta. The wind stirred the tree tops and turned cool and our hosts laughed.

We’ve seen the first rain in Africa, and felt the joy of those who await its arrival.

The Wealth of Kruger National Park

Kruger is the crown jewel of South Africa’s National Park System. This vast swath of land the size of Wales on the border with Mozambique remains in a pristine state. It had never been settled by the colonizing Dutch, Boer or English because of the deadly tsetse fly – now thankfully eradicated – so the landscape looks as it has for millennia.

Today, the park is the place to go to spot the “big five” – Elephant, Buffalo, Rhinoceros, Lion and Leopard – and hundreds of other animals and birds, but to do it in comfort.

The park’s accessibility, only a 4 or 5 hour drive from Johannesburg, gives South Africans a nearby opportunity to connect with the land from the comfort of their own vehicles. Most of the main roads are paved, and even the dirt side roads are graded on a regular basis. So we share the roads with families in Audis, Toyotas, Volkswagens and BMWs.

We are spending 5 days here, moving from Satara Camp to Skukuza Camp and finally to Lower Sabie Camp. Our accommodations are rustic compared to the “Private Reserves” that many well-heeled tourists stay in, but are downright luxurious compared to accommodations in our own Provincial Parks. Each party is assigned a Rondevaal, a round brick bungalow with a steep, conical thatched roof. Inside, the living space has twin beds, a ceiling fan and air conditioner – welcome relief from the 40 degree mid-day high – and an en-suite bathroom. On the porch is a little kitchen with a sink, 2-burner hotplate and fridge, and a cupboard equipped with 2 of every type of plate, cup or glass you could want as well as a small slat table and two chairs.

Most importantly, there is a ‘brei stand’ in front of each rondevaal – a shallow waist-high pan with rotating grill on which our South African neighbours burn firewood down to red-hot coals and barbeque their evening meals. After the sun sets at 6:30 and the gates in the encircling fences are closed, the 25 brei-stands in front of the 25 bungalows in our circle are virtually all alight and leaping with flame, and an hour later, 25 couples sit at the 25 identical tables on 25 identical, dimly lit porches around the circle and eat their evening meal while discussing the game they had spotted that day.

And the game is there to be spotted! On our 4-hour slow drive today from Satara to Skukuza, we spotted all of the ‘big five’: NB all photos by Francisco Juarez.
1. a massive Square-lipped (or ‘White’) Rhino squatting in the shade of a thorn-tree while a herd of Impala meandered by in the fore-ground,

2. a Hippopotamus lolling in a small river rolled over on his back and waved all four legs in the air, pink belly exposed (our experienced guide had NEVER seen that before),

3. two male lions resting in a grove of trees by the side of the road, panting and grooming their paws,

4. a leopard, very difficult to spot, stretched out in the crook of a Sausage Tree, tail twitching, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to see what we were up to on the road, and of course,

5. elephants in the bushes, elephants on the roadside, elephants at the waterhole, elephants tearing down trees.

While spotting all of the big 5 is a badge of honour, we had a great deal of fun watching:
=a road-side mother giraffe orchestrate the stately withdrawal of her yearling and 2-year old babies,

= waterbuck tentatively stepping into the knee deep mud by the side of a river to drink as massive Nile Crocodiles floated on the surface only a few meters away,

= huge Ground Hornbills, a meter in height, wandering onto the road, with brilliant red neck pouches, their glossy black feathers fluffed to admit a cooling breeze,

= A tiny adolescent Steenbok, usually skittish, standing calmly under a thousand year old Baobab tree and posing for a wonderful shot, and

= Endless herds of sleek Impalas (or as our guide Steven calls them “Nafi”s – Not another F’ing Impala) everywhere.

And we see all of this, dressed in sandals, t-shirts and shorts, sitting in the Africa Outing touring van, with Steven, our Mel Gibson doppelganger guide at the wheel, me in the front seat, camera and binoculars at the ready, and Francisco in the back seat, sliding from side to side to take shots every time we spot an animal and stop. And with his 18 times zoom, his shots are amazing. So good, that I generally leave my little 10x zoom in the case and simply watch.

As I write this at 4pm and it is a bright hot 40 degrees. I’m seated at the table on the porch of our Skukuza rondevaal, watching a dragonfly float by on the warm breeze coming off the Sabie River. Fran is taking a nap (of course), Steven, his duties completed for the day, has discretely slipped away, and I’m looking forward to a dip in the swimming pool before the other visitors return from their afternoon drives and the camp gates are locked for the evening.

The Elephant roadblock: Chobe Safari

On a dry sandy road on the banks of the Chobe River, the elephants set up a road block.

A massive bull backed up against a dry, grey tree, draped his trunk over the back of the mature female backed up against him and firmly nudging her trunk. Leaning against her was a smaller female gently sheltering a baby between her knees. Behind them, a cluster of ears, trunks and legs showed there were several other adults in this mass of tough, wrinkled grey hide and swaying body parts stretching right across the loose sand road merely meters ahead.

And in the bone dry forest around us, in clusters and alone, were more than two dozen other elephants, eyeing us warily, flapping their enormous ears and sniffing the air with their trunks.
Sure I was nervous. We had just driven the Land Rover right into the middle of this herd. These were not the domesticated work elephants I rode on trek in Thailand, these were wild African elephants, easily able to overturn our truck with a single swing of their long, pitted tusks. Was I imagining, or were they agitated?

Presley, our experienced driver and guide, had warned us to stay still, stay quiet. As long as we looked like one solid object to the elephants’ poor eyesight, we were safe, but if we looked like a collection of vulnerable individual animals … he didn’t finish the sentence.

And then, a large female, one of her tusks turned sideways in some unfortunate incident, trotted out of a cluster of trees, heading straight for us. Forgetting Presley’s advice, I let out a gasp and leaned in; further into the open Land Rover. She passed, mere inches from me. She neither broke stride nor looked at me and in a second, was gone.

That’s when Presley decided to break the road block. He gunned the motor, and took a run at the female on the left. She raised her head, flapped her ears and took a step back. Then two steps towards us, swinging her head. The tight cluster of elephants on the right seemed to shift, opening up space, and as we watched, the sheltered baby, no more than 4 feet high, ran through the corridor of legs and into the bushes.

Presley backed up. This seemed to relieve some of the pressure. A few of the mature elephants followed the baby into the bush. But the one with the shaking head, and the massive bull remained, facing us, still blocking the road. Presley gunned his motor again, and 4 wheels spinning in the sand, started to move slowly towards the bull. Towards his hind quarters. The female seemed to rear slightly, then backed, shook her head one more time and turned into the bush. Presley didn’t let up – continuing to head towards the bull. And then, with what might have been a derisive toss of his trunk, he too turned and trotted off into the forest.

The road was clear. It had taken only a few moments, but the images will forever be burned into my memory.

This challenge, this close contact been vulnerable humans and the migrating wildlife, is what makes Chobe National Park in Northern Botswana so special. The Park sits on the banks of one of the main tributaries of the mighty Zambezi River, and contains one of the most concentrated collections of African wildlife in southern Africa – drawn to the meandering river and broad, green floodplain, particularly during the dry season.

Over the course of two game drives and a river expedition, we watched a lone male giraffe strip new leaves off the tops of a tree a few feet off of the track, looked into the gaping mouth of a Nile Crocodile as it sat on the bank cooling itself in the breeze, felt the surge as huge Hippopotamuses, moments earlier grazing peaceably on the riverbank slipped clumsily into the river and submerged. We slowed as a family of Warthogs ran single file across the road in front of us with their tails held high in a ‘follow me’ signal and paused to watch hundreds of Zebras trot across the open grasslands, and three Black Backed Jackals cross an opening in the woods in single file.

And the African (Cape) Buffalo, like a big cow in a funny headdress, but really one of ‘Big Five’ because of its short temper and sharp horns, sar in the shade of a tree watching us. Or the metre long Water Monitor, looking for croc’s eggs with a darting tongue.

All around us, so numerous that they became common, were herds of Impalas, Waterbucks, Kudus, Red Lechwes, Steenboks, and the very rare Roan and Puku antelopes.

And the birds: the magnificent African Fish Eagle, coppery Carmine Bee Eater, Red Billed Hornbill (flying chilli pepper), the turquoise Lilac Breasted Roller, the Go Away Bird, and the Red Billed Francolin, the hovering Pied Kingfisher, the tall Saddle Billed Stork, the ‘pinging’ Blacksmith Lapwing, the really stupid looking Helmeted Guinea Fowl, the African Harrier Hawk, Hooded Vulture and Mariboo stork. And the list goes on. All names are my interpretation of Presley’s beautiful accent.

Our base for this intriguing expedition is the beautifully situated Muchenje Lodge, a row of wooden cabins with steep thatched roofs arrayed in a line along the crest of the valley ridge. From the front porch of each cabin, guests enjoy an almost endless vista over the broad Chobe floodplain. The staff join guests for communal meals where the days sightings are compared, questions are answered, and informal political discussions are sparked – like the one we had about the potential impact on South Africa of Nelson Mandela’s eventual passing, or on Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe’s eventual “end”. Our fellow guests were Belgians, Australians and Americans and every day, a new cast of characters arrive.

Chobe is one of Africa’s lesser-known parks, lacking the accessibility of Kruger, or the popularity of Serengeti. But the concentration of wildlife, and the ability to drive for 5 hours and not see another tourist, makes this a secret worth keeping.