The road to Niassa.

I am back!! An adventure of a life time. This is a condensed version of it and if you are a serious traveller and want to read about the whole trip I will send it to you on request. I felt very intrepid setting off to Northern Mozambique and very privileged to have been asked as I was in the best of company Bill and Janey Clegg, Dave and Margo Raulstone. Fortunately I had warned Janey that my camping skills were non existent and that I knew very little about everything, but I needn't have worried I was looked after so beautifully you would have thought I had been camping all my life. So there we were 5 of us squeezed in a four wheel drive, GPS co ordinates at the ready. Niassa here we come!!

Our first night we spent at Catapue, we stayed at a magnificent camp which deserves a special mention, owned by an amazing and colourful ex Zimbabwean. He was so good to us and on finding that Janey Clegg was in camp was so overcome, he immediately offered us free accommodation. We all basked in his admiration of Janey's birding skills. We had supper with him that night and he told us how disappointed he gets when items go missing from the lodges and what he would like to do to the offenders if he ever found them, which would have sent a chill down your spine. We shook our heads piously, disgusted at such outrageous behavior from other campers who obviously had no scruples. You can imagine our alarm and dismay when unpacking at our next destination, we discovered half the contents of his lodge had been packed unwittingly into the back of the car by David who genuinely thought they belonged to Janey. 

The Caia Ferry has turned relatively sane people into gibbering lunatics (You might have met some of them). We have all heard the nightmare stories of people waiting hours, even days to cross and then lose hope. They eventually have to turn around and drive for hundreds of miles to cross at the Shire. We were of course dreading the inevitable. So you can imagine our surprise and amazement when driving up to the ferry we were directed straight on and in no time at all we were on the other side. Hard to believe I know but the same thing happened on the way back. 

We arrived in Pemba and stayed at Russell's Place a camp just a few metres from the beach. Russell is a rather charming Australian who landed in Pemba about 10 years ago and set up a backpacker camp. It has developed and is now famous. The centre point of Russell's is the Blackfoot Bar. Here you meet amazing characters as the ex pat community congregate there. It appears anybody who is anybody drops in plus the occasional backpacker. Janey, Margot and I had a deep insight into Backpackers sexual preferences as our camp looked directly into a Norwegian's tent. Sexual behavior patterns of the backpacker in Africa would make good thesis material if one was studying anthropology and you were interested in doing something with a different slant. While we washed our camping dishes we gazed in wild eyed fascination at all sorts of antics that went on. There was even a man eating lion (I'm serious) which was prowling around Pemba while we were there. It was eventually shot but only after it had eaten a few people. From Pemba we set off by dhow to Ibo Island an interesting place a bit like a ghost town. Ibo is famous for its silversmiths and there they were hard at work but there silver seems to have been replaced by copper wires. Their work is unbelievable and their primitive tools have not changed for a couple of centuries. We had a good look at the Portuguese graveyard and were horrified to see that the tombs looked as though they have been looted as a few coffins lay open and one with the skeleton still inside. Bill took photographs with relish which he was considering sending to the relatives still in Portugal while I put my hands over my eyes and screamed. We stayed in the local telecommunication building which had beds and clean sheets but because it was so spooky I moved in with Janey and Bill. From there we went to Pangane, a palm fronted paradise with white sands and aquamarine seas. You have to see the photographs!! We took a dhow to the islands to snorkel and then watched the hump back whales from the safety of the boat. It was a wonderful experience especially when Bill egged on by Janey dived in to retrieve his cap which had fallen overboard fairly close to a hump back You will be pleased to know the hump back showed no interest in the cap or Bill for that matter.

From Pangane we headed to Niassa the last great African Wilderness. Our first night we spent at hunting camp on the Lugenda river and we were delighted when Derek Littleton, a gorgeous hunter with a heart of gold took pity on us and invited us to have dinner with him and his client. We accepted with alacrity. It was the most amazing feast. We sat at a table overlooking the river in the middle of nowhere watching a full red moon eating designer cuisine. The next day the hunters left to shoot a man eating lion( I am serious, man eating lions seem to be a problem in northern Mozambique) and we set off in search of the Beggs. This amazing couple spend 8 months of the year in Niassa studying the Honey Badger. When we finally met up with them it was like Stanley meeting Livingstone. This amazing couple live very simply but are so interesting that when it came to leave them we all felt quite emotional I had to hold back the tears. They have a National Geographic video out at the moment and an article in next month's National Geographic. Niassa is a beautiful reserve and we were privileged to meet some of the amazing people involved in it and to get swept up in their passion for this remarkably unspoiled piece of Africa. I was fortunate that I was in the company of such knowledgeable and wonderful people and could see the world through their eyes. We had a lot of adventures and loads of laughs and then suddenly it was all over. 

Mandy Retzlaff
Bvumba
Zimbabwe

This email is dedicated to Bill and Janey, Dave and Margot and the Beggs thank you for everything!!! I would leave you with the list of birds and trees I have seen but on second thoughts I won't embarrass myself and will leave that to that unbelievable boffin Janey Clegg. It was so good to be back home to hot baths and flushing loos and then I walked past the local supermarket on the main street and a young black street kid in a red T shirt ran up and spat in my face, as I wiped my cheek I thought ruefully Welcome Home Mandy you know you are back in a pre-election Zimbabwe!