Now that internet and power are back (!) here’s some news about us:

the project
We are collaborating with an NGO, called TechoServe, and our job is to attract sustainable tourism to a little island off the northern coast of the Mozambique- Ilha de Moçambique, full of amazing historical heritage, but very much neglected now.
The format has been very much like a consulting engagement, but in a rather exotic setting!
Our Steering Committee is made of very interesting and different individuals: there is one charming historian that is a native of the island; a former minister of culture of Mozambique, highly educated man with a piercing mind; an Austrian investor, with farms and businesses in several African countries, and the country manager of the NGO, a man full of ideas and enthusiasm.
The other day we made a presentation to the local authorities, which was quite surreal/cool. We were expecting a one-to-one meeting with the Governor of the province, but, in fact, all his entourage of Directors, local dignitaries of different sorts were there to listen to us… so we presented, took questions from the audience and the local journalists and in the end the Governor invited us to do a full day seminar with the provincial government! The Governor was a very nice to us, inviting us for lunch with him, where we discussed Portuguese football!
We are now writing a tourism development plan, and after that we will be focusing on developing specific business plans for hotels and resorts and doing an investor roadshow to attract a hotel brand into the island. We are also looking into a proposal to change the property law in Mozambique, to create more security to foreign investors. All pretty cool work!
Rory is also looking into some more glamorous stuff like promoting Ilha a location for filming historical movies and potentially having a documentary shot here.

the island
Ilha de Moçambique is, in Rory’s words “post apocalyptic”. It is a tiny island (1.5km long x 600m wide) that was major trading post for Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch, French… from 15th century, and the former capital of the country, flooded with refugees during the civil war in the 1980s. It has amazing architecture with European and Arabic influences, including a 15th century Portuguese fort, a 18th century former palace of the governor, colorful mosques, baroque churches, a hindu temple, thatched huts amid the trees… all in a dramatic setting of azure waters and endless horizons. There are also incredible white sandy beaches, literally deserted in some inhabited islands and on the continent nearby. The sad bit is, much of if is in ruins, many of the people here are very poor and live as squatters.
We are very fortunate to be staying in a wonderfully renovated water-front house, where we have unbroken views of the sea, a great balcony and a house staff of 4 (Amad, Ignácio, António and Simão).

our routine
For the first time in my life, I am exercizing! Every day we wake up at 6 am (sunrise is quite early) and do one hour in front of the exercise DVD to the bafflement/amusement of our house staff and the people passing by in dhows!
Breakfast is a moment of excitement for Inácio and Amade, as they like to play with the newly bought appliances: there is a juicer for fresh juice and a blender for milk shakes. Rory has successfully implemented English tea, eggs, and toast with marmite (!), as I have implemented espresso coffee!
Then we go up to the large room upstair where we have set up our office for the day’s work.
We eat a lot fresh fish and seafood, from the market, with sweet potatoes, mandioca and local vegetables. We have had to adapt to the seasonality of food supplies. In Europe you are used to supermarket shelves that reliably always have the same stuff, but here you can’t quite plan very closely what you’ll eat: there is fish once the fishermen have gotten in from sea, bananas sometimes, mangoes in season, etc.
Sunset is usually time for gin and tonic and applying insect repellent!
In the evenings Rory does his Portuguese lesson and I read the odd chapter of “War and Peace”. Sometimes we go into town for a beer or people come by for dinner- we had a good time with the Museum Director and his stories of the time of doing his PhD in Germany.
Our staff are very sweet and never bat an eye at our weird habits. On our 18-month “anniversary” we decided to have dinner at the roof top, under the stars, just for fun! So Amade and Inácio carried the table, the chairs and the rest of the tableware to the rooftop, no questions asked J!

our travels
We are doing our best to explore the country, even though it is expensive and lengthy to travel in Mozambique.
We had a truly great safari in the Kruger, where we saw all sorts of animals (its amazing how little notice lions take of you!) and stayed in a very charming lodge inside the park, complete with a Victorian bathtub in the room, wine cellar and a watering hole in front of our balcony where elephants came to drink!
Londo Lodge was another highlight, a deluxe beach lodge in Pemba bay (north of Mozambique) where, on top of the private beach, sea-view villa and infinity pool, we had mud wraps on the beach, diving and sushi!
Around Ilha we have done day trips to the beaches nearby, which are lovely, but where there is nothing else there, no sunshades, no sunloungers, no people, no road… just the beach! After a while some fishermen appear carrying a still-live lobster or squid to sell you, putting the change in their snorkel and disappearing again.