Ben Thompson Searches for an Unspoiled Dive Location in Mozambique
We turned south and whizzed along on silky smooth new tarmac for exactly 100 kilometres before being abruptly met by a belt of bitumen that was like Swiss cheese. Our love for tarmac quickly faded. The highway was in such a state that, again, we were down to averages of around 45 kilometres per hour., and the road surface was taking its toll on the car.
Another legacy of the war, a real and dangerous threat, were the landmines. Some clearing had been done outside a few of the major cities, but the rest of the country was still at the mercy of these hidden killers. The danger was compounded by the floods, which had floated and reburied millions of mines across the land. Every so often you would see red rags tied to trees, the occasional fenced off area and then kilometre after kilometre of little red and white signs on stakes, with skull and crossbones, announcing PERIGO MINAS! EMINA! You did not have to read Portuguese to get the gist. We learnt that you should never pull your car off the road and you should certainly not wander into the bushes to relieve yourself. We saw sorrowful testaments to the effects of these devices nearly everywhere we stopped, whether at a wayside food stall or in a village: someone on makeshift crutches or using a pathetically wonky wooden trolley as a wheelchair.
After another axle-shattering day, we finally limped into Nacala Bay, known for its deep-water port in the heart of cashew growing country. It was linked to Malawi very tenuously by rail and also to the outside shipping world. There was lots of potential here, looking at some old sea charts, but there was very little infrastructure and, despite our best attempts we found no access to any dive compressor facilities or tanks. This scenario would play out again at the next two destinations on our list: the spectacular World Heritage town of Ilha de Moçambique – or Island of Mozambique – the old colonial capital of Portuguese East Africa, and Quelimane. We had amazing experiences as we travelled, meeting fascinating people and indulging in the biggest and best lobsters and prawns I have ever seen. The cultural immersion was intense and edgy. We were experiencing the crumbling remnants of a colonial empire where time had stood still, and everything seemed to be reverting to the way it had been since the dawn of humankind.
By the time we got to the Zambezi river, which severs the country in two, we had passed well over 1,000 kilometres of coastline, virtually all of it inaccessible and as virgin as it gets. According to the map there were small settlements on the coast, but to get our vehicle down the tracks through the dense bush would have been excruciating and dangerous. Plus, these villages were nothing more than grass hut subsistence communities with no power, let alone motorboats or dive compressors. It was driving me mad that we could not explore; we were so close to one of the last great frontiers of tropical coastline but had completely underestimated that a real absence of development, the one thing we were looking for, was also our biggest restraint. We were starting to get disillusioned.
There was little traffic on the road, save for menacing, overloaded, battered trucks with the obligatory gaggle of goats teetering on top, severely decrepit buses, and shiny UN and aid agency 4x4s. We did not travel at night as it was dangerous for a variety of reasons, and we’d fuel up at roadside stores where row upon row of irregular bottles were filled with urine-coloured petrol. Our tyres had more patches than an old teddy. There was no bridge over the Zambezi as we had been led to believe – that would not arrive for another eight years. To save a three-day detour, we were left with only the precarious option of loading the car via planks of timber on to a simple, floating platform. I thought the loading would be the worst part, but as the little engine struggled to propel the unstable craft to ford this colossus of a river, with dead-eyed crocodiles as spectators, my stomach churned. I was more than happy to roll off safely on the far bank with Vic and all our worldly possessions.
The tarmac fairy had been out again as we turned off the battered Route One, striking eastwards towards the town of Vilanculos, gateway to the Bazaruto Archipelago. It had been another long, bumpy day, but we were rewarded by the teasing sight, peeping from between lush green palm fronds, of splashes of sapphire… Would this be the gem of a place that we were looking for? This town felt different. There were some signs of life beyond the usual, subsistence level: an old, decorated bus acting as a gift shop, a cluster of stalls selling carvings and knick-knacks. The guidebook had a few pages of information including a selection, no less, of places to stay, plus a few restaurants.
The smooth new tarmac ended as we entered town and a soft, sandy track ran behind the sand dunes, leading us to a spectacular view of a string of islands lying tantalisingly close. With the tide ebbing, the infinitely rippled bone-white sand of the undulating sea floor was slowly being exposed, forming a vast network of temporarily revealed sandbars leading seaward. The water pigments between these silica stepping stones were so vibrant, encompassing every hue of blue from the very deepest through to translucent, reflecting the changing depth of the channel through which the water was gushing, that it was reminiscent of the sky in Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. Seeing this maze of electric-blue inlets I had to wonder: was there really a way to sail out to the islands or would we walk? Sail you must, apparently, as in the middle distance I noticed dhows with their brightly coloured, oblique sails lazily hanging from short wooden masts. It was a sight of almost surreal quality, so sharp and crisp and perfect. The scene was also in perpetual motion, the sun falling low in the sky, its rays glancing off the ripples on the surface like a fevered artist constantly adding new hues from his or her palette. There was silence as we stared at the islands on the horizon.
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