We traveled to Zimbabwe for my 50th birthday, the country I have so many fond memories of. I first visited Zimbabwe in 2000, went to Victoria Falls and apart from meeting the kindest and sweetest people on earth, I also met Cathy from the USA while at the Falls. She invited me to visit the States, we became dear friends and there in the US – through an acquaintance of Cathy – I met Gerry, my life companion for 22 years already.

I wanted to return to the Bvumba Mountains – also known as the ‘misty mountains’ because usually, like Table Mountain in South Africa, they sit in the clouds. We visited this area in 2017 and I had so many nice memories of this area, I just wanted to go back.  It is actually just across the border with Mozambique. So from Vilanculos it’s not all that far in terms of distance, but the road is incredibly bad and full of potholes so it takes quite a long time to get there. Because of the high mountain area it has a totally different climate than Mozambique, cool and dry with a very special biodiversity. Birdwatchers come here from all over the world to see rare and beautiful species.  

Right after the border crossing, a sense of melancholy came over me as we arrived into Mutare across the other side. The atmosphere was different than in 2017 – poorer, more restless, and more agitated in terms of atmosphere.Zimbabwe has been struggling with hyperinflation for years, purchasing power has plummeted and you clearly see that locals are visibly struggling to survive, even though there are also a many Zimbabweans with a lot of money – that too is very visible.

The 100-year-old English-style hotel where we stayed, complete with flower curtains, classic style white tablecloths and beautiful flower gardens, suited my melancholic mood. It turns out that a “big” birthday like this is full of moments when you just let life pass you by while also contemplating many moments in your own life. We had a drink in the garden and I saw a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the compost heap. I thought, “there you go”, we humans, as well as our memories, are equally as impermanent.  

I felt both melancholy and grateful at the same time. Does that fit 50? Gerry surprised me in the morning with video messages from dear family and friends from all over the world – and I felt rich with so many people around me, far away and yet so close. We ate a celebratory cake at Tony’s coffee shop – famous throughout Zimbabwe and beyond. I also spoke to the owner of our hotel who had just been back from a visit to celebrate his sister’s 99th birthday party in England. We met nice guests who told me about areas in Zimbabwe I didn’t know yet and I thought how fun would it be to organize a (small-scale) group trip from Mozambique to Zimbabwe with Unique Mozambique! I got (get) extremely excited about it and felt elated and full of energy!

After my birthday, we camped for 2 more nights in the area. The former house where now the shower and toilet breathed a state of decay, with books and posters on the wall from better times. But the place was beautiful and full of flowers, scents and birdsong. We met a nice young Dutch couple there who have been traveling through Africa for 2 years in a Land Rover and working digitally along the way. Their Instagram page has almost 25000 followers and I suddenly felt old. I’m not great with social media and frankly, quite dislike it and the couple looked at me somewhat non-comprehendingly when I said that – which made me feel even older. I thought, here I am with my Facebook page with a handful of photos and a couple of hundred followers on Instagram – I have no idea how to make a decent video and have a Chinese phone with a crappy camera. A despairing thought went through my mind – how can I ever  develop these wonderful ideas I have with Unique Mozambique and how are people ever going to find me?!!!

I was also chatting to the older guests at the campground who were enjoying their well-deserved retirement traveling through southern Africa and thought, how are me and Gerry  supposed to continue? We’re not digital nomads and we don’t have pensions. I decided to make a Gin Tonic. The nice staff in the kitchen gave me a lemon which seemed just as old as I was.

After 2 very cold nights in the tent under overwhelming starry skies, we decided to treat ourselves and stayed one more night back in the same hotel, sitting  by the fireplace and contemplating life.

There is no going back, we can only keep going forward. Everyone has a different path in life – maybe hard, maybe easier, but still unique for everyone. Not better not worse, just different. Make the most of it, if you can. Happy 50!

The north of Mozambique is beautiful and exotic. At least that’s how I remember it from when we first visited there in 2005. This year, we decided to make a ‘site inspection’ trip as it is known in the travel industry back northwards. For Unique Mozambique I prefer to visit all the accommodations and places myself, so I know exactly what I am talking about when I speak to you.

This part of Mozambique has beautiful and interesting sights. Because the roads are very bad and our car is now an elderly man and artritis, we traveled by local transport. Gerry wrote a great blogpost about it; traveling by local bus in Africa has its challenges.

We started in Beira, a large port city with a railroad line to Zimbabwe and a lot of Portuguese influences. In terms of tourism perhaps not the most interesting city, but it has a relaxed atmosphere, nice people, lots of nice restaurants and fine middle-class hotels. It’s a good base for a night or two if need be, before visiting Gorongosa National Park – about a 5 hour drive from Beira. Our local chapela (tuk tuk) driver turned out to speak excellent English, so we found a great guide for you! He was a really nice guy also and we had intense discussions about Mozambican politics, where we always come to the same depressing conclusion. Anyway.

We continued our journey to Gorongosa National Park. The local chapa dropped us off along the National Highway N1, from where it is another 30 km to the park entrance. After hours crammed into overcrowded minibuses, the pickup by comfortable private safari jeep was a real treat and the road to the park entrance magnificent – a taste of what was to come. I had no idea what to expect and had brought our own tent – lodging in Gorongosa does come at a price. But we were received with all honors, were offered a safari tent with nice beds in the main camp and invited to do as many safaris as we could fit in.

We met the passionate PR Director of the park, Vasco, who had wanted to go to Gorongosa even as a little boy when he saw a promotional film about it. He actually showed us the film – complete with VW vans used as safari jeeps!

Vasco told us all about the history of Gorongosa, its decline during the civil war in Mozambique, the restoration afterwards and the numerous community, research, scientific and innovative projects happening there. It was inspiring to see how it has been developed. Now there are professional and cheerful guides, overwhelming nature and landscapes, huge numbers of wildlife, beautiful accommodations and camps, breathtaking colors, peace and silence.

We made some fantastic safaris, laughed with the guides, visited the beautiful camps inside the park, watched the warthogs mindfully walking on the runway for the private charter flights, saw a Pangolin for the first time in our lifes and were educated about this amazing project, had a sunset Gin Tonic surrounded by hundreds of animals, got up very early for early morning drives, slept like a baby with the sounds of the bush, sat by the campfire gazing at thousands of stars.

Just for a brief moment I felt that I had reached a feeling of complete oneness with nature, which made me very emotional.

I can write a lot more about Gorongosa National Park. But you really must experience this for yourself.

It’s special, it’s exclusive, it’s overwhelming and it is certainly unique.

In my next post we travel to the cultural-historical and beautiful Ilha de Mozambique (Mozambique Island), UNESCO World Heritage Site. See you there!

Africa Calling – Why Africa?

I was always mad about Africa and the tropics. As a child, I read exciting books about monkeys in jungles and tropical flowers and fruits. I dreamed of having a Papaya tree in my garden after my childhood friend moved to Indonesia with her parents and sent me letters about this fruit I had never heard of. Since my first visit to former Vendaland in South Africa in 1995, I kept wanting to go back to Africa. I was lucky that, when I met Gerry, he was quite willing to come along. Many trips and holidays to Africa followed, and here we are, living in tropical Mozambique.

What makes Africa special?

People often asked me, what attracts you so much to Africa? What makes it so special? Why go there? I could never put that into words very well. I had a strong feeling to return to this ancient continent. It is something that touches you, an abiding attraction, perhaps a longing for the unknown and a world we seem to have lost in Europe? A world where the concept of time has a completely different dimension, a world of primal nature, with primal trees and primal animals. But above all, it’s the people.

So why Mozambique?

When we returned to Mozambique in 2021, we decided to start Mindwise, to put mindful living more into practice and help people learn more about their minds. We felt Mozambique offers the perfect setting for this: One of Africa’s best kept secrets it’s still unspoiled, peaceful, warm, relaxed and simply beautiful. I have always admired Africans who, often in very ordinary conversations on the bus or somewhere along the way, mention things that make me think; gosh, we do all kinds of academic studies on this very topic. They are a wise people and it seems like we have to learn that wisdom all over again.

It’s as if the basic human values that everyone has, are more visible here, simple but purer; in Europe often snowed under or buried under a layer of external factors and distractions such as a profession, job, status or position. The difference between doing and being. Gerry pays a lot of attention to this in his mindfulness work and we developed a beautiful retreat together to learn more about this.

Vilanculos, Mozambique

We have been living in Mozambique for three years now and I am sitting and reflecting on the veranda of the house we rent here, overlooking the Indian Ocean. Many beautiful birds and butterflies pass by. I am not much of a morning person – never have been – but the mornings are the most beautiful here and I get up much earlier that I used to.

The sun rises in the east. Here, that’s the ocean side, a red ball climbing up from the sea. From our garden runs a dense path full of bushes, plants, trees, and butterflies all the way down to the beach, where fishermen in the morning cast their nets or repair the dhows (traditional fishing boats).

Vilanculos lies in a bay behind the Bazaruto Archipelago so there are no waves really, and it is lovely to spend the mornings to sit on the little boat in front of our house and listen to the sounds of the birds, the water and the chatter of the fishermen. Low tide brings me back to ‘the Wadden Sea’ in The Netherlands, though I am a ‘ waldpykje’ as they call it, having grown up in the Frisian woods and not by the sea.

Ubuntu Philosophy

Recently I read Professor Mogobe Ramose’s book Ubuntu. Ubuntu is the root of African philosophy. “The spirit of Ubuntu, that deep African realisation that we are only human through the humanity of other human beings, is not a local phenomenon but has contributed globally to our common quest for a better world.”

In the book, Ramose seeks the connection between African thought and Western science and way of thinking in which vital tenets of Ubuntu as a lifestyle can be incorporated into a new setting. He sees this as a creative process: translating Ubuntu’s traditional core values into modern organisational forms. An inspiring endeavour.

More and more I am beginning to see that our kind of thinking is what creates distinctions and classifications between ‘us’ and ‘them’,  ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

Connection

Ubuntu is about connection like truly everything else in life as we are all connected. Being and living here makes me more and more aware of how everything is connected and cannot be separated from each other. And, also how my mode of thinking works and, especially, how it often doesn’t work. Africa feels like a mirror and some days you look more beautiful than others.

Inspiration for our work

I like this way of thinking and see it as an inspiration. The thought of working on that (re)connection through Unique Mozambique  and Mindwise, in a broader sense. is very motivating. There is no short of inspiration here and I am very excited to share that with you!