It's bizarre to
find that there's a rush hour every day on what is seemingly a sleepy little
coral island, where fig trees grow from the ruins of old buildings that date
back to boom days of slave- and ivory trading. The rush happens at high
tide-maji mwingi in the language of Ibo's residents, whose home is one of 27
small islands in northern Mozambique's Quirimbas Archipelago.
Maji
mwingi is when the ocean provides enough water for fishermen to be able to sail
their dhows to their fishing grounds and for traders to guide their vessels
through a gap in the mangrove swamps that leads to the mainland. "If you run
out of water you can be stuck on a sandbank for several hours," says Kevin
Record, who, with his wife Fiona and her brother James Ashton, is a pioneer
tourism operator on the tiny island (3km long by 3km wide).
The trio
have restored to pristine condition a once-ruined, high-ceilinged Portuguese
colonial house, formerly used as an administration office. Fixing the Bella
Vista Guest House has been a logistical challenge, involving seizing the moment
every maji mwingi to bring over dhow-loads of cement, bamboo, wood and food
supplies from the mainland. They'll keep on doing these runs each high tide for
some time, as their plans still involve building further accommodation, a
swimming pool and vessels for dhow safaris. The house has a roof deck from
which to watch magical sunsets with all the ingredients of paradise: coconut
palms, happy children splashing in the shallows, fish eagles and, of course,
dhows. Coral reefs and other islands, some uninhabited, make up their guests'
playground. The archipelago has recently been declared a national park and is
home to birds including the Madagascar heron, plovers, storks and
pelicans
Beyond coral reefs inhabited by turtles and colourful tropical
fish, the sea around the Quirimbas is also home to pods of dolphin, whales and
the rare dugong. The ruins of Ibo Island date back to the early 1500s. Africans
share its history with Arabs, Indians and the Portuguese, and there's no one
more delightful to walk visitors through this story than the elderly Joao
Baptista. Behind huge spectacles, the expressions of his wrinkled face tell
half the tale. He conducts his tours armed with a handwritten notebook in which
to look up detailed answers to questions. He pages through it to find a
reference to Chinese graves bearing the date 1614.
"They were in the sea
cucumber trade," he says in Portuguese, wagging his finger to catch everybody's
attention, hardly giving time for a fellow islander (who has learnt English in
recent months) to translate. In the largest of the island's three forts, built
in 1791, Joao Baptista tells how Portuguese colonialists mistreated rebels
fighting last century for Mozambique's independence when they were held here as
prisoners. In a dingy cell he points to a wall on which, he claims, was written
"entra vivo, sai morte" -enter alive, leave dead. Joao Baptista says he was
himself imprisoned there by the Portuguese. His tour brings to mind those
conducted by apartheid's political prisoners on Robben Island off Cape Town,
where Nelson Mandela was held.
The rest of Ibo town is a mixture of
ruined Portuguese buildings blended with traditional homesteads, or a
combination of both, as thatch roofs and matting made from palm fronds fill the
gaps where the once-elegant facades have rotted away. The population is highly
itinerant as people leave on trading and sailing expeditions, while others from
as far away as Nacala and Tanzania come to Ibo to set up temporary fishing
camps. Kevin believes there are far fewer people here than UNESCO's figure of
4000-more like 800 to 2000 at any one time.
On the water, Bella Vista's
rubber duck proves seaworthy as it ploughs through the swell beyond the shelter
of the coral reef into the wide open ocean. Ahead there's a blur of what
appears to be dark smoke-something you would expect to see emitted by a steam
train. In fact it's the spray let out by a Humpback whale cow. Her calf is with
her and the rubber duck keeps a safe distance as they stir up the water,
prompting fears that they could capsize the boat with a flip of their tails.
Then they appear ahead, jumping straight up out of the sea and into the air.
After some time Kevin leaves them to go on their merry way, "otherwise we'll
end up following them all the way to Madagascar". Underwater, the depth of the
ocean changes dramatically, with a sheer wall drop making this a popular
deep-sea fishing and scuba diving location. Bella Vista will offer diving early
in 2003. The best dive sites around are on Ibo's eastern shore, facing the
Indian Ocean, near a derelict lighthouse situated on the tiny island of Majaca,
separated from Ibo by a mangrove swamp. "This site has an excellent wall dive
with a maximum depth of 20m. Shark and turtle sitings are common," says Kevin.
"At other points along the edge of the Quirimbas the walls can be over a
hundred metres deep -there are just innumerable dive sites all around."
Game fish, sharks, turtles, rays and kaleidoscopic reef fish are
abundant in these waters, as are corals-both hard and soft. The shallower sea
before the shelf offers wonderful snorkeling. To the south of the Quirimbas
Archipelago is a bay reputed to be the third-largest natural deep-water harbour
in the world. On its shore lies the town of Pemba, which took over from Ibo as
provincial capital back in 1928 and is today the gateway for a growing tourism
market in the far north of Mozambique. The luxury 62-bedroomed Pemba Beach
Hotel, built in Afro-Arab style, opened here in April. "This hotel should
kick-start the tourism industry in Pemba," says manager Eduardo Perreira, who
came to the job having run a hotel in the Cape Verde Islands. His deputy,
Fernando Benane, has come from the Polana, Mozambique's equivalent of
Singapore's Raffles hotel, in the capital, Maputo.
The hotel is also the
base for the Fantastique, a splendid yacht that carries eight guests in utter
luxury on five-day diving and leisure trips through the Quirimbas. Underwater
itineraries include extreme wall diving down sheer cliff faces flanking the
Mozambique Channel.
Backpackers and overlanders on more shoestring
budgets chill out at the Black Foot bar, creation of Australian art collector
Russell Bott who dropped anchor at Pemba in 1998 during his travels and bought
a piece of land. "Zimbabwean families asked if they could camp at my property
and paid me a fee, and from there on it grew," he says. It's not unusual for
passing travellers to make Pemba their home. Former aid workers Baart and
Lesley van Straaten have also chosen Pemba to start collecting and exporting
local art, from dark wood carvings made by Makonde tribesmen to silver
jewellery melted down from old coins by silversmiths using ancient Arabian
methods on Ibo Island. The growth in tourism in the last six months has even
diversified the type of art available. Pemba woodcarver Sevarino Marcelino has
switched from making souvenir dhows from ebony to making them from coconut wood
and fibre, creating a new niche in the market. "Higher numbers of tourists have
been coming this year than ever before but we still need more," he says.
Meanwhile, back on Ibo, property buyers are apparently snapping up the ruins.
Maintaining the archipelago's charm, derived from isolation and timelessness,
will be a challenge for the future. But every day will still be ruled by the
tides.
