“Why should I go  on holiday to Mozambique”? “What does it have to offer”? “What is unique about Mozambique“? These were the most frequently asked questions at the Fair for Adventure, Luxury & Cultural Tours in Amsterdam, in the beautiful Beurs van Berlage, an architectural work of art with a rich past, in which I took part for the first time this year.

This fair focuses on small-scale providers of holidays and unique destinations and is organised every year in January. I had only just finished decorating my stand with Mozambican capulanas (sarongs), plugged in the monitor with my presentation on this beautiful destination, when visitors started to pour in.

“Because it is stunningly beautiful!”, I answered enthusiastically to the most popular question of the day. Mozambique is stunning and off the beaten track – an undiscovered destination with few tourists, beautiful beaches, snorkelling and diving with stunning coral reefs and small-scale and very nice accommodations. 

Still somewhat hesitant, people watched my presentation on the monitor which showed beautiful images of the Bazaruto Archipelago and its alluring turquoise ocean, and our safari in the magnificent Gorongosa National Park in July 2024. What a contrast to this rainy grey cold Dutch Saturday in January! 

It was busier at Marjon’s table next to me. Like me, she organises personal tailor-made trips to Africa –  to Madagascar,  destination somewhat better-known in the Netherlands than Mozambique. I visited it myself back in 2010 with Gerry. Back then we met no less than five tourists on the whole trip, a beautiful country with unique nature.

In between all the larger agents and tour operators with professional promotional material, fancy banners and free promotional gifts, it was surely no coincidence that Marjon and I were located beside each other; small-scale one-man businesses (one-woman businesses to be precise) with similar visions such as a personal approach and a passion for the countries we represent.

I noticed our approach did appeal and we were even getting questions whether Mozambique and Madagascar could be combined in a single trip! Indeed, geographically they are not that far apart and both unique destinations in their own right, but logistically still a challenge to combine in one holiday package.

During the course of the morning, my helpers arrived – my mother and father in his Mozambican shirt, custom-made at the local market in Vilanculos when he visited us for two months; my sister and my niece in her Mozambican trousers; and my brother-in-law who had made a nice promotional banner for me.

My father enthusiastically told visitors everything they wanted to hear about Mozambique. Yes, that it is very safe, yes, that it is easy to get there via Johannesburg and Airlink; yes, that the Mozambicans are so kind, sweet and friendly, and very talented artists and yes, that he women in the local market all wanted to marry him!

Moreover, he repeated that it is lovely, warm, beautifully green and tropical and above all, very relaxed and laid back.

It got busier and busier, and I talked my heart out about this still unknown destination in the Netherlands.

This former Portuguese colony is still a lesser-visited destination in southern Africa, with its tropical and warm climate, small-scale boutique hotels and lodges and exclusive safari opportunities.

Although often combined with a trip to South Africa, there is enough to see and do in Mozambique for a full two- to three-week holiday. The laid-back capital Maputo, located on the Indian Ocean, is a fun city to spend a few days. Visit the beautiful art galleries, colourful markets and historic buildings and get a taste of Mozambican cuisine with its famous ‘peri-peri chicken’ and fresh tiger prawns.

Safari opportunities are abound in Mozambiue and are available in Maputo National Park, Zinave National Park and the spectacularly unique and remote Gorongosa National Park. Those interested in cultural history will be indulged on Ilha de Mozambique, (Mozambique Island), a UNESCO-protected World Heritage Site where the past and present intertwine in its mysterious streets –  one of my Mozambique highlights

On Sunday, the second day of the fair, it was a lot quieter but my public presentation on Mozambique was well attended. It wasn’t easy to summarise the uniqueness of this country in 25 minutes, but the striking images captured the imagination of everyone and the reactions were enthusiastic. ‘How stunning!’ ‘The beauty!’. ‘It has so much to offer’ and “How did you end up living there?” were just some of the comments. A couple of people came back to my stand to find out even more. Mission accomplished!

The fact that Mozambique is still relatively undiscovered and has no mass tourism – it is still in its infancy, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this brings – appealed to many people. It’s a special and unique destination, with the fair living up to its name.

If you like beautiful beaches, diving and snorkelling or fancy a lovely relaxing wellness holiday after, for example, a safari holiday in South Africa or Botswana, Mozambique is not an inferior destination to places such as Mauritius – often chosen by agents or tour operators. But Mauritius is more touristy, much busier and with many large resorts.  Mozambique, on the other hand, has unspoiled beaches, almost just for yourself.

Several visitors asked me if I organise adventure travel tours to Mozambique for small groups. The idea that came to me when I was in Zimbabwe last year was confirmed. Something I will definitely look into this year – a small group trip starting in Vilanculos all the way to Gorongosa National Park is definitely a possibility. What an adventure that would be!

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 United States, we became dear friends and there in the USA – 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 uncomprehendingly when I said that. I felt even older. Here I am I thought, a 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. Another despairing thought crossed my mind. How are we 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!

We decided to go on a trip north to Mozambique and check out Gorongosa National Park, Beira, and further north, Ilha de Moçambique. 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 part of Mozambique has beautiful and interesting sights. But the roads in this part of the country are very bad and our car is now an elderly man, so we decided to travel by local transport. Getting up at the crack of dawn we left in the very early hours from Vilanculos for Beira. The road after crossing the Save river is absolutely dreadful. I don’t think I have ever seen such big potholes in my life. But with a front seat in the chapa (local minibus) it wasn’t too bad, the driver drove carefully and once we reached Inchope, a beautiful new highway built by the Chinese, loomed before us. This road connects Beira to land-locked Zimbabwe as Beira has an important port. From here it’s only another 2 hours drive to Beira.

Beira is Mozambique’s second largest city after Maputo, with a lot of Portuguese influences. In terms of tourism perhaps not the most interesting city, but it has a relaxed atmosphere, friendly people, lots of nice restaurants and fine middle-class hotels. I really liked Beira. It has an international airport with direct flights from Johannesburg and is a good base for a night or two, before visiting Gorongosa National Park which is about a 5 hour drive from there. Our local chapela (tuk tuk) driver turned out to speak excellent English, we found a great guide! Fransisco was also really nice guy and we had intense discussions about Mozambican politics.

He took us around the city in his chapela, exploring the city, visiting hotels and enjoying the good seafood here. He showed us the fishing port with the old fishing vessels, the old town, the train station with a daily connection to Zimbabwe and the impressive cathedral of Beira. We saw the former Grand Hotel, an institution during the colonial time but now a dilapidated slum. Hotel Estoril is a nice mid-range hotel which offers a comfortable stay at a reasonable price. Hotel Tivoli, a sister hotel of the one in Maputo is another good choice here, located in downtown Beira with a colonial feel, old wooden floors and a good restaurant. We stayed in a private house from a lovely couple who run a sustainable forest for Mozambican hardwood in the Gorongosa area called Levas Flor. Nothing is coincidental and I was getting excited about Gorongosa!

Off in an early chapa again as we continued our journey to Gorongosa National Park. Though they promised us to go to the park’s  turnoff, the driver dropped us off back in Inchope from where we had to find another chapa to the entrance of the park. From here, it’s another 30 km on a dirt road 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 Vasco, the passionate PR Director of the park, who had wanted to go to Gorongosa even as a little boy when he watched a promotional film about it. He actually showed us the film – complete with VW vans used as safari jeeps back in the sixties! With great love and passion, 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’s an understatement to say it was inspiring to see what has been achieved here in twenty years. I was completely overwhelmed. After the ecosystem had been restored, wildlife returned, and now the area is bursting with animals. There are professional and cheerful guides, beautiful accommodations and camps, breathtaking colors, and there is peace, silence and just pure beauty.

We visited some of the amazing projects in the park like the Saving Pangolins project and I saw a Pangolin for the first time in my life. What a sweet and beautiful animal, but sadly the most trafficked mammal on Earth. We sat by the campfire at night gazing at thousands of stars in the main base camp, Chitengo Camp. Montebelo Gorongosa Lodge in the main camp offers nice and clean double rooms at an affordable price and the restaurant has a very varied menu. We slept like a baby with the sounds of the bush. On one of the safaris, just for a brief moment, I felt that I had reached a feeling of complete oneness with nature, which made me very emotional.

I was deeply impressed and this is for me absolutely one of the highlights in Mozambique.

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!