CI
Email john v | 65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
an easy and rewarding trip to Maputo Special Reserve
The Maputo Special Reserve is an important link in the regional wildlife conservation efforts and great efforts have been made to re-establish wildlife, virtually extinct after the civil war, and infrastructure. The combination of the shore with beaches and the park with ist wildlife make it especially attractive. There are resorts and campsites and one finds many weekend/holiday visitors from SA with their boats and tents.
Our visit was a short one from Maputo in between work, on a Saturday. Arranged by the owner of our bed and breakfast with her own 4WD. Costs were US$ 200 for the two of us, including park entrance fee. Renting a vehicle or have a travel agency do the trip will be more expensive. A 4WD is needed, the area is mostly very sandy and a normal vehicle will get stuck in no time and isn't allowed in the park. The new Maputo-Katembe bridge (opened end of 2018) and the completely renewed road from Maputo south to Punta de Ouro and the SA border make that the trip from Maputo to the park entrance only takes just over an hour. We spent some two and a half hours in the park, mainly driving to the Lagoa Chinguto, the largest lake in the park. On this short trip, we saw elephants, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, hippo's, impala, southern reedbuck, natal duiker, greater kudu and crocodiles. Birds were abundant, especially waterfowl with both resident and migrant species: spoonbills, yellow-billed stork, egrets, herons, various terns and waders.
The park is espcially interesting for those with little time to spend but still want to see wildlife, and for those who have more time to spend and combine a beach-park-camping/lodging trip.
ES
Email Javier Ventosa (homolobis) | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
road to the Indian Ocean
MY trip to Mozambique is actually the end of a trip that started in Zambia and after crossing this country and Malawi, I reached the Mozambique border to cross the country from west to east until I reached the Indian Ocean. Mozambique is not a country that stands out for its wild fauna, greatly diminished by the effects of the civil war suffered by the country. The best parks are located in the state that border the borders of South Africa and Zimbabwe. But if it is endowed with a great scenic beauty, with extensive wooded plains on which protrude gigantic rock of rock, some of almost a thousand meters, that break the uniformity and give a magical aspect to the environment. The beaches of its coasts and islands are totally of very white sand and have nothing to envy to those that can be found in the Caribean or in the Pacific. The water of the ocean is of an intense and warm blue and it is easy to find whales jumping on them or approaching the boats, especially in the area of Ilha de Mozambique. Mangroves are also frequent, where the movements of the tide reveal an intricate labyrinth of channels on the sand, very rich in small marine fauna and birds, at low tide
People are generally friendly and curious about foreigners, and unlike in other African countries, there is an effort to recover part of the colonial splendor, of some settlements which are accompanied by restorations and the appearance of very well-kept hotel establishments. a high level of comfort and services that are promoting a tourism of greater adqusive power and very focused on relaxation or aquatic activities such as coral reef diving or navigation. It is possible that if the political stability of the country is maintained, Mozambique is called to be a country with a strong attraction for its possibilities. If we add to this its culinary culture, mixing the local with the Portuguese, the attractiveness of the country increases remarkably.
As security, it is not a troubled country in general and keeping with minimal care especially in the cities at nightfall as it happens in many Western cities, you should not have problems. Some guerrilla centers have appeared in the north near the border with Tanzania, linked to the appearance of oil in that area, but of little and infrequent activity
