“The Limpopo toll bridge.” Mozambique.
“You want how much?” I ask incredulously.
“70 South African Rand for each vehicle that wants to cross.”
I am not unused to paying a toll to cross a bridge. It costs about the same to take a car across the Severn Bridge in the UK. Granted this bridge does not have the same amount of traffic but after a brief glance at the structure, neither did it require the same amount of engineering or cost to put it in place.
I look again at the local Mozambiquan who is charging us toll to cross the Limpopo and decide not to argue. A goat carcass hangs in the tree next to him swaying gently in the mid morning breeze, blood still dripping into the sand at his feet. These guys are definite entrepreneurs. They have built a make shift causeway spanning the river and have a barrier at one end. We are 12 vehicles in our convoy and I am guessing that, once we are through, the revenue generated as well as the recently departed goat is going to make for a fun evening of revelry on the banks of this great African-arterial river.
I look again at the river and suggest that we just ford it without using the bridge.
“Nice idea” says Frank, our convoy guide. “But what you don’t realise is that these lads have already thought about that and have dug trenches alongside the causeway in the river to prevent just that type of practice. We go into one of those holes and they are going to charge a heck of a lot more to help us out of it.”
“Crossing the Limpopo.” Mozambique.
We pay the toll. One at a time we ford the river following the sticks sticking out of the sand and trying to keep the vehicle on the wooden pole causeway beneath the swirling, silty waters. Once across the tour continues. It is an 8-night ‘Bhejane’ 4×4 adventure tour that started the night before in the Kruger National Park. We crossed the border from South Africa to Mozambique at the Pafuri border post and have driven for 90kms through some of the most beautiful riverine forest I have ever seen. Yellowish-green fever trees are everywhere rising from the dry river marshes like ghostly apparitions. And the sinister feel is not unwarranted; before the discovery of malarial parasite, people used to believe that it was the trees that gave them a terminal illness associated as they were with swampy, dark areas that are now known to be excellent breeding grounds for the mosquito vector.
“Fever tree forest.” Mozambique.
Once away from the river the ground becomes harder and the oranges and yellows of the shedding mopane trees once again replace the green of the fever trees. We travel for another 130km that day passing rural Mozambiquan villages and crossing the main railway that runs between Maputo and Harare before pulling off into the bush to wild camp for the night.
“Convoy” Mozambique
Bhejane 4×4 adventure tours specialise in this type of trip. Once off the road we find that the logistics part of the crew have already pitched tents and are busy preparing the evening meal, chicken curry, rice and fresh bread all cooked in cast iron pots on the open fire that is already crackling as we park up. The fire becomes the centrepiece of the camp with the whole group congregating around it to eat, drink and discuss the day’s trip. I sit and listen to my fellow travellers and hear the words stunning, breathtaking and intriguing used on numerous occasions.
‘Bush television’ Mozambique.
Yet, hard as it is to believe, the best part of the drive is still to come and we wake in the morning refreshed and eager to get on the road again. Road is a term used loosely in this part of the world and for over 200km we follow two solitary wheel ruts through pure wilderness. There is nothing but trees, bush and a cloudless sky. The road is so sandy that is like driving on a bed of marshmallows, the ruts doing more of the steering than the vehicle operator; it feels like being on a relaxed roller coaster ride. I love it; drink it all in like an alcoholic, unsure when the next fix will come. That the road exists at all seems strange. There is no real reason for it and if I had been on my own I would have turned back long ago, not having the confidence to continue on into the bush. But Frank has recce’d this trip several times and has been guiding it for several years. This level of proficiency coupled with the confidence that Frank exudes in this type of environment allows me to really sit back and enjoy the ride.
“Mopane tree road” Mozambique Wilderness.
It is not just knowledge of the road that Frank possesses. His history as a section ranger in a South African game reserve means that his grasp of the flora and fauna is spot on. Couple this with his mechanical experience – a back brake drum is stripped and re set within an hour on the side of the road – and you feel in capable hands. However, for me, his ‘coup-de-grace’ is when he fashions a cooling system out of the air conditioning unit in our car so that our Mars bars maintain some semblance of shape in the African sun. Who said African travel was tough?
Then suddenly in the middle of the 200km stretch, there is a small settlement. Some thatched mud-huts sitting by the side of the road, maize cobs drying in the sun and semi naked children running towards the car. Friendship seems their only intent as they wave eagerly with both hands.
“Rural housing.” Mozambique.
Subsistence farming can be their only mode of living out here. Water is nearby and the bush provides all sustenance. It is then that I realise I have seen very little wildlife, infact I have seen very little signs of life whatsoever.
“It is a war ravaged country,” Frank explains. I don’t quite understand how this relates to the total lack of wild life, bird or animal until I realise that the level of poverty is so high in this country that all the wild life has been trapped and eaten. Desperate measures in a country where war has cut off all supply chains.
We pass a section of the road bordered by red and white canes placed at regular intervals. This is yet another sad reminder of the civil war that decimated Mozambique. Land mines. Tipped indiscriminately out of overhead helicopters these devices are all over the land and no one has any clear idea where the mines lie. This is bought forcefully home to me on passing through one of the villages and seeing locals deprived of limbs. Still living, yet a horrific memento of a time gone by.
‘Locals’ Mozambique.
The track eventually deposits us on the main highway running north- south parallel to the coast. Gratefully we welcome the tar until the potholes make themselves apparent and we are back down to the speed of the sand road with the added danger of swerving the large potholes and avoiding the oncoming weaving lorries. Darkness is upon us as we finally reach our destination of ‘Estrelle de Manuinesi’ camp in Inhassoro. Located right on the coast, it is a beautiful haven with the view from the accommodation looking directly across a turquoise Indian ocean with sailing dhows adding a picturesque elegance.
The next few days are spent in idyllic luxury. We obtain beach permits allowing us to take our vehicles 30 kms up the beach. It is a fantastic drive with the local fishermen hard at work pulling in their drift nets by hand on the beach. Mozambique is renowned for its seafood and that evening we get to sample some of the local catch. Huge king fish, red snapper and dorado cooked over hot coals adorn our plates with bucket loads of prawns served as a side dish. The taste is sensational and afterwards I sit, completely satiated, watching the stars come out over the ocean with the sound of the inky wavelets gently lapping at the shore.
“Ocean road.” Mozambique.
On another, particularly halcyon day we take a speedboat to an offshore island lying between the mainland and the outlying Bazaruto Islands named, rather originally, Paradise Island. However it does live up to its namesake with wonderful snorkelling on a coral reef, the typical white sand beach and perhaps not so typically the remains of a Portuguese holiday resort abandoned in the 1950’s. Another poignant reminder of Mozambique’s violent, recent history; such was the haste of their departure that the Portuguese abandoned it, leaving everything from tables set for dinner to the grand piano standing in the corner of what would have been a very resplendent ball room overlooking the utopian view.
‘Previous Portuguese heyday’ Mozambique.
It is an absorbing day; after lunch and a siesta we zoom back across the ocean with dolphins gambolling in the boat’s bow wave.
It is difficult to tear ourselves away but after 4 nights we pack up our steeds and head south towards one of the main towns in Mozambique: Xai-Xai. This is one of the only other crossing points of the Limpopo and again we have to pay a toll, albeit for a much better tar road bridge that actually is what it proclaims to be.
Once across we head for the ‘Parque Nacional do Limpopo,’ a million hectares of land set aside between the Kruger Park and the banks of the Limpopo River. It is a game reserve with a difference. Local people are encouraged to live within its borders and to share its bounty with the natural wildlife. From the outside this seems to be an excellent idea although the local elephants seem to have paid no attention to the park’s symbiotic decree and have killed four human inhabitants in the past month; yet another ironic twist in the conservation conundrum.
We camp on the shores of the Massinger Dam and rather than a cockerel awaking me, it is a fish eagle’s distinctive cry that heralds the dawn. The tour is over as we deliver ourselves to th Giriyondo border post that disgorges us back into the Kruger Park and South Africa. I am left with a feeling that Mozambique is a land of complete contrast, from paradise to intensive human suffering, untouched wilderness to the possibility of oil being drilled within its borders. I am not sure quite where my hopes lie. Then I remember: I am in Africa. This is life.
Fact File
Frank Carlisle runs ‘Bhejane’ 4×4 adventures. There are numerous tours throughout Southern Africa for most of the year. Check www.bhejane.com for further details.
This tour: Mozambique: Big game to Coral Reef.