STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY: Christopher P. Baker
The truth is, anyone who has been on safari will tell you to go exactly where they went - because here is a fun little secret; everyone has an amazing time on safari. A lot of people therefore flock to the famous names to check them off a list, whilst casually glossing over some of the lesser-known and most spectacular experiences on the continent.
“If you are charged by an elephant, you must run and throw
off your clothes,” says Jonito Timbane, recalling how he escaped an enraged
tusker by stripping as he fled through the bush. Timbane is trainee manager at
Anvil Bay, an upscale beach camp that seems to extend from the coastal forest
at Ponta Chemucane on the fringe of Mozambique’s Maputo Special Reserve.
We are swapping tales over dinner, our table a sliced tree
trunk atop the sand. “This is unspoiled, frontier-experience Africa,” adds Dave
Wylie, the property’s burly South African manager, as we dine on a gourmet meal
of Swaziland beef steak, Greek salad, roasted potatoes, and fresh-caught crabs,
prepared by our jovial local chef, Julio Ngora.
Recently devastated by a civil war that decimated its wildlife,
Mozambique struggles to compete in the big-stakes safari game. Not least,
lodges are few and far between—Anvil Bay, the first and only in the region,
opened softly in 2015 as a community project staffed by locals, who were
trained at the South African College for Tourism. And Maputo Special Reserve
still has no rhinos. No lions, nor leopards, nor cheetahs. All were poached or
killed during the brutal 1977 to 1992 bloodbath.
While efforts to re-inhabit the national parks with Big Five
game are a work in progress, the ecologically-enlightened nation excels in
marine park conservation. Pristine coral reefs teem with colourful fish. Pods
of dolphins ride the surf. Whale sharks forage the Mozambique Channel. And the
stillness may be broken by the splash of whales breaching offshore. Plus, the
country’s coastline is studded with islands haloed by jaw-droppingly beautiful
beaches with some of the most sophisticated honeypots of indulgence in Africa,
promising a resort experience to rival the Maldives and Mauritius.
Barely a 60-minute drive south from Maputo, the capital,
1,040-square-kilometre Maputo Special Reserve is as off-the-map a destination
as I can imagine. In my three days here, I only see four other vehicles. But
not for lack of game.
Just five minutes into the park, a herd of gazelles bounds
across our path. Then a tower of five giraffes emerges languorously from the thorny
scrub. We stop, and I approach on foot through the grass (there’s a benefit to
no predators) until they turn and lope off in gaiting strides.
Two hours into our visit, we arrive at Lagoa Chingute. A
yellow-billed stork, colourful as a crayon, patrols the shore. Hippos wallow 50
metres from shore, their metallic honks echoing across the still water like
church bells being tolled.
Then a hippo emerges some 100 metres away and begins playing
in the foam at the water’s edge. I grab my camera and, screened by reeds,
approach unseen for a close-up shot. But the hippo gets wind of me, spins to
face me, and flings wide its jaws. Two logs, innocuous amid the lakeside
flotsam, suddenly rise on four legs and slither into the gunmetal lake. Nile
crocodiles.
Adrenaline fuels my rapid retreat, with frequent views over
my shoulder. I see elephants, too. Dark blobs, half-hidden amid a vast
seasonally-flooded plain of lime-green grass that rises to their shoulders. A
close encounter, indeed.
“You were lucky,” says Wylie at dinner that night. “People
come here thinking it’s like Kruger [National Park], and that elephants will
react as if humans are part of the landscape. They were traumatized during the
civil war. They have long memories. Here, when they come at you, they come at
you.” He pauses. “In time, MSR [Maputo Special Reserve] will be spoiled as a
genuine safari experience. You’re privileged to enjoy it while it’s still raw.”
My log-and-canvas casinha stands atop a stilt platform
within the coastal forest, its thatch roof peeking over the treetops. I lay on
a sumptuous king bed until the lullaby of the wind and the waves soothes me to
sleep.
My après-safari wind-down destination comes into view: Azura
Benguerra resort, in the Bazaruto Archipelago—a cluster of tiny islands a mere
75-minute flight via the town of Vilanculos from Maputo.
As I step from the chopper, a beaming concierge offers me a
chilled handcloth and a fruit cocktail. He welcomes me into the
stone-and-thatch lodge, earthily African in inspiration, with the open lobby
framing the still-as-glass ocean beyond. The silence is absolute but for the
giggles of local women clad in colourful sarongs, carrying fish freshly
purchased from dhows careened on the nearby beach.
There are no paved roads on Benguerra. Just primitive tracks
connecting hamlets of conical huts. But beach-chic Azura Benguerra is a
luxurious love-nest, with 20 thoroughly romantic thatched seafront villas,
rose-petal-strewn king beds, and torch-lit gourmet dinners on the sand.
As the helicopter whisks me back to Vilanculos, I realize I
have fallen in love with Mozambique’s raw, unfiltered charm. This is an African
experience found nowhere else. -