Catapu Forest, Dinner with Sr. Tejas, and Gorongosa

From Caia we were on the tarmac for a beautiful ride through the Catapu forest at sunset. We were passed by maybe four cars during the three hours of riding, and it was mostly down hill so I kept an average speed of about 20mph. It wasn't all roses though, I got my first case of Mozambican diarrhea during this ride which got progressively more violent that night, but I'll spare you the ugly details, any Peace Corps friends reading this can look forward to that story over a beer next time we meet.

We read about a cool forest lodge in lonely planet that turned out to be an awesome surprise. It was tucked away in the Catapu forest and is run by a company that is making furniture from the native forest, I don't know how sustainable their business is, but the forest surrounding the lodge and all along the road looks pretty virgin. The lodge was really nice, like one of the high end chalets in yellowstone or Yosemite, but with very few visators, and we got our own bungalow for $12. Wiz ate a fantastic dinner with good Beer, while I stuck to rice and soup. The restaurant had a great ambiance, it was outside and warmed by a fire pit. The owner came and talked to us, and when he heard we were heading to Gorongosa he told us he had a truck heading that way in the morning, and offered to load us and our bikes in the back.

We're no purists about riding our bikes so we took the 270km ride to Gorongosa town, which gave me a chance to recover from my stomach ailment, and gave us a full day to search for a guide to take us up Gorongosa Mountain, which is known for it's spirits and needs a series of ceremonial rituals in order to climb...hence the guide. We had no luck finding a guide and decided to proceed to Gorongosa National Park, before we attempt to climb.

That night we had dinner with an extremely interesting old Mozambiqan man of Portuguese decent named Mario Tejas. His father moved here in 1905, and he was born and raised in Northern Mozambique. He loved telling us the stories of his life and travels to the Americas, where he worked in the cruise line industry. His eyes were full of expression, especially when talking about women; "Oh that Mexican women! What can I say?...She was truly like an angel...I'm saying she glowed!" He explained to us that red wine keeps mosquitoes away. And told us the story of the South African couple in a pristine Cadillac that found him when he was eighteen and had him get a mining license. They went to a remote corner in the bush and they walked out with a small bag of rocks the women called crystals. They gave him a small sum of money that seemed like a fortune to an eighteen year old, and dissapeared. It wasn't until he was in Miami many years later that he realized that they were uncut diamonds and the couple walked away with a real fortune. He went back to the same spot years later, and nearly died from Malaria while looking for diamonds. He said he promised God he would leave and never come back if he could live. A promise he has kept, until now. He's almost eighty years old and when we saw him he was on his way back from Maputo with another mining license heading back to that same spot. At the end of dinner he said, "When I look back at my life I'd say it's been 85% suffering, and 15% enjoying...you know with women and wine and dancing." When I asked him if the 15% was worth the 85% he simply shook his head and said "naw." But something about the smile on his face told me he was lying.

The next morning the ride to the Park Gates was beautiful. Over the sound of our own tires on the path we could hear Baboons barking in the distance mixed with the birds singing in the trees over head. As we got closer to the gate the forest got denser and more tropical looking. We couldn't bring our bikes into the park, so we locked them in an office and loaded our katundu into a passing park truck to get to Chitengo camp.


We camped at Chitengo and did a game drive this morning with a local guide. It was the first real Safari I've taken in Africa and it was incredible. Gorongosa is beautiful, and even though most of the animals were poached during the long civil war by Renamo troops which were based near the park, it is now making an amazing comeback. Mostly thanks to a foreign consessioneer called the Carr Foundation (No relation). They have been working very well with the surrounding communities to rebuild animal populations, reforest the area around Mount Gorongosa, and generate income for the people who have been living here.

Now Gorongosa is an up and coming National Park that I would recommend to anybody passing through Mozambique. We saw tons of Waterbuck, Warthogs, cCrocodiles, Baboons, Vervet monkeys, Oribi, Nyala, Impala, and Reedbuck. We also saw Lichenstein Hartebeest, and Sable which are very rare in Gorongosa. They are both massive muscular animals. Watching their fluid bounds in between the trees was really like watching poetry in motion. We also saw some amazing big birds like fish eagle, marabou stork, and white backed vultures that were preying on a giant tortoise carcase. It always gives me a big rush when I see big birds like that spread their wings and take flight.

The Safari was worth every penny, and afterwards when we were telling our driver about our trouble finding a guide he told us that there are no organized guides going up yet, because the park is still negotiating with the local communities, but he hooked us up with a guy in Gorongosa town who knows the mountain real well, so tomorrow we are going to back track a bit and go see the chiefs to do the pre-climb ceremony. All we know so far is that we are supposed to bring wine, tobbacco, and cloth as offerings; we can't wear red on the mountain, and we have to do the two day hike barefoot. So that will be our next adventure!