African wildlife reserve recovers from ruin of war, with elephants leading the way
Mozambique’s Elephant Coast is living up to its name again thanks to the transfer of elephants and other wild animals from South Africa to a reserve that’s as wild as they come – but vulnerable to development
“If you are charged by an elephant, you must run and throw off your clothes,” says Junhito Timbane, recalling how he escaped an enraged tusker by stripping off as he fled through the bush. Timbane is trainee manager at Anvil Bay, a community-owned barefoot beach camp that seems to grow from the coastal forest at Ponta Chemucane, on the fringe of Mozambique’s Maputo Special Reserve.
“One bull in particular is a dangerous bugger,” adds manager Dave Wylie, as we swap tales over dinner, our table a diced tree trunk atop the sand.
The rugged South African raises his pinotage to the light and swirls. “He’s sly. He saw me coming once, so he made an end run through the forest to intercept me. I got the better of him, though,” he says, laughing. “I put my foot down.”
This is as wild a place to see animals on safari as you’ll find in this part of the world
No easy matter, I muse, recalling spinning wheels in the deep sandy tracks I negotiated to arrive at this remote lodge overlooking the Indian Ocean.
Devastated by a civil war from 1977 until 1992 that decimated its wildlife, Mozambique struggles to compete in the big-stakes safari game. Maputo Special Reserve, for example, still has neither rhinos nor buffalo. No lions, leopards or cheetahs. All were poached or killed during the war. But tourist infrastructure is being spawned – Anvil Bay opened in 2015 as the first lodge in the reserve – and animal restocking, initiated in 2010, is approaching critical mass.
Mozambique’s beaches are blessed with some of the most sophisticated honeypots of indulgence in Africa, promising a resort experience to rival the Maldives and Mauritius.
The few visitors the country sees may also fly in a helicopter over the teal-blue Mozambique Channel, swirled with carnation-pink sandy shoals; sail on one of the traditional dhows – ancient holdovers from when this coast was a dominion of Arab traders – that ply the channels, their pointy sails slicing the shallows like shark fins; snorkel a pristine reef off Bazaruto Island in crystal waters teeming with parrotfish, Moorish idols and blackspotted sweetlips; or laze at beach-chic Azura Benguerra, a luxurious love-nest with rose-petal-strewn king-size beds and torch-lit gourmet dinners on the sands.