Aug 2010 Survey - Pemba, Mozambique

Pemba is on the coast of northern Mozambique. It is the gateway to the Quirimbas Archipelago, some dozen islands off of the mainland that are part of the Quirimbas National Park. The Quirimbas are like a postcard, with vibrant turquoise waters, mangroves, beautiful beaches… Tourism is still developing here, and the area has a feel of being off of the beaten path – which is its main appeal if you can afford to get here.

The puddle-jumper charter on the Ibo landing strip (Ibo Island in the Quirimbas Archipelago)

Pemba as seen from the air

Views during the charter flight from Pemba to Ibo

More views

I spent two nights in the Quirimbas Archipelago on Ibo, an island that was originally a Muslim trading post (later Portuguese) that got its wealth through the slave trade. The Christian Portuguese are no longer there, but their abandoned buildings-turned-ruins are in the process of being restored. The local Muslims live both in town and in villages on the edge. There’s no electricity on the island (well, there are power lines but no power) so the place is totally dark after the sun sets at 5:30 PM. Walking around at night, it was a pleasant reminder of how powerful and generous the moonlight is, something that you forget in cities.

Ibo dusk, boats on the beach at low tide

The main street on Ibo... plenty of ruins

My hotel, Cinco Portas, was one of the renovated houses with a beautiful garden area, all right on the water. What I loved about it was that there was very much a family feeling to it – you know, in those smaller backpacker places where everyone chats at the bar and has dinner together and the manager calls you by your first name and they only run the generator for a few hours in the morning and in the evening and your door doesn’t lock… it was a welcome change from the isolation of being one in a hundred in a city business hotel.

A crab cleaning out house at low-tide... at dusk, you would see hints of movements out of the corner of your eye as they scuttled along the beach.

The manager arranged outings so that all of the guests had the option of doing the same activities together. Unfortunately I only had one full day there so had to choose… go to a sandbar at low tide to snorkel or walk through the mangroves at low tide to a nearby island and take a dhow (boat with a big sail) back. I opted for the mangroves as I’ve always been fascinated by them ever since kayaking through one in Costa Rica in 2006… and how cool would it be to WALK through one?! I did snorkel in Pemba, and learned that I am a little too tense to be a good snorkeler… although this location peaked my interest in getting certified for diving… maybe… if I can relax…

Anyhow, the mangrove walk was beautiful. It’s sand, mud (that sucks in your Tevas), vegetation at low-tide… and at high-tide it’s submerged under 2-3 meters of water. We had a guide as there’s no way we would have found our way alone. A walking route was cut from Ibo to Quirimbas Island (yes, it’s confusing – the archipelago and national park are called Quirimbas, as is this particular island), and the route that we sailed back was through a canal that was dug by slaves back in the day.

Low tide...

... and high tide

These mangrove trees are the only ones that can survive in saltwater. The different species of trees deal with the salt in different ways: one sacrifices specific leaves, turning them yellow with all of the unwanted salt; another stores all of the unwanted salt evenly on the back of all of the leaves. The roots of the trees extend well beyond the main trunk so that it will have a 2-3 meter radius of roots sticking out of the ground. At low-tide these are exposed but at high-tide they disappear under the water. And the roots above ground twist and bend in beautiful arches – if this were a horror fantasy the trees would come alive and be multi-legged walking creatures.
After passing through the mangroves, we had to cross several channels to get to the island of Quirimbas. At one point the water was chest-high… and then you’d be across and skipping through shallow pools of water.

Roots reaching out beyond the tree

Local women collecting wood at low-tide

Our young guide pointed out various crabs, spider fish, a shrimp (that he then carried with him to cook for lunch, although he teased it an awful lot before changing his mind and leaving it in a tide pool). He picked a fight with a rather large crab, trying to show us its movements as it actually jumped out of the water to attack us. Our guide epitomized for me the fact that, yes, we are in a national park, but the idea of a national park protecting the flora and fauna was a lost concept on him. He did not see the wildlife as something to respect and protect but rather as a source of food and/or entertainment.

We spent the afternoon on Quirimba Island, basically walking around the village as we waited for our meal of fresh fish and coconut rice to be prepared. White people are still enough of a novelty that we attracted attention everywhere we went and little children would run after us shouting “Mzungu” (white person). Our dhow ride back to Ibo was calm and peaceful, although we later found out that it was riddled with corruption, as our guide’s “friend” charged us 200% of what the boat should have cost (and that was after we had negotiated it down). It was our little Ibo tourism soap opera as the whole story came out (and our money came back), involving deception and fights.

The village on Quirimbas Island

Back in Pemba, it was time to get to work. The town is a mix of paved, dirt and sand roads. It was a new location for us, so I had to go everywhere in person since I didn’t have phone numbers to call… and the landline/cell phone network was unreliable anyway. There are no chain stores, just smaller independent stores and the markets. I had my second big store manager encounter here. I had planned to stealth one of the favorite expat supermarkets but when I saw how small it was (imagine your living room with one set of densely-packed shelves in the middle) I realized I would have to ask for permission. I handed my business card to the guy at the door and asked for permission in Spanish/Portuguese. He didn’t really say yes, I didn’t wait around for him to specifically say no… When I was maybe five prices from finishing, the actual manager got really upset with me, telling me in Portuguese that I couldn’t just copy down prices. I, having nothing to lose and having reached the end of my survey tolerance, shot right back at him in Spanish that I actually had asked for permission and it wasn’t my fault that he wasn’t there to give it. He was calmer by the end of the conversation, but the encounter soured my mood.

Otherwise I really enjoyed Pemba – I met wonderful people on Ibo and in Pemba, in a way that you can’t meet them in cities. You know, interesting locations attract interesting people! Although my Mozambican experience was almost exactly book-ended by corrupt officials – the bribe I mentioned in Maputo and then an almost-bribe at the Pemba airport. The immigration officer stamped my passport and then asked for a 100 MZN (approx. 2 EUR) fee. As I reached for my wallet I asked if I could get a receipt (business expense!) at which point he shooed me away. Thank you Mozambique -- I love you, too!!