NORTHERN MOZAMBIQUE - PART 3

Ilha de Moçambique was beautiful in the daylight. The decked wooden terrace of Villa Osmanli looked out over Mossuril Bay, a sole white wooden boat with a red stripe bobbed not far off the shore. A beach lay either side of the long stone jetty that jutted out from the once customs house, the water deeper, and sand smoother, on the beach to the right. I asked the security guard, Manuele, to open up the locked iron gates, and ran down to swim in the cool calm water. Back inside the villa, the light streamed in through large wooden shuttered picture windows that spanned the walls of the main living and dining area. I made coffee and sat on the terrace in my white cotton Chuiba Bay robe, a gift from Maria. I seemed to have a friend. A little boy sat legs swinging on the jetty, waving and smiling at me. He wore a faded red and purple adidas t-shirt, bleached jeans that were filthy, and a pair of Nike sliders on his feet. Before long a couple of men selling jewellery started making their way toward me from the beach on the left. Word had clearly got around that Villa Osmanli had guests.

Shomita, the maid, burst through the front door around nine. She was a force. She wore a colourful printed pareo and matching headscarf. I asked her about a masseuse. She was on the phone in seconds, commanding a lady called Catizia come now – right now! Shomita addressed everyone as though issuing orders and conducted most conversations whilst looking at herself in the mirror. Luckily for her there were quite a few on both the indoor and outdoor walls. Not long after, Catizia arrived, her long kaftan floating in the breeze, her face was painted white with musiri, the chalk-white striking against her dark skin, I liked it. She massaged me with coconut oil on a towel atop the outdoor table and was pretty good, albeit with her and Shomita chatting loudly in their mother tongue across my naked body, the entire time.

Outside the grand doors of the villa lay a dream-like world. Portuguese colonial buildings in good nick lined winding streets, each painted a different colour – deep pink, burnt orange, sage green. The imposing church on the square was rust red. Facing the church, a mere fifty metres from ours, sat a bistro-style restaurant Anchoradouro. We ended up dining there a few times. The chalked blackboard menu read as if we were back in Bahia, Brazil – stuffed crab, shrimp empadinhas, grilled fish in coconut sauce, and all delicious. There was also a coffee shop, a couple of bars, a few other restaurants housed in small stylish hotels that backed onto the water. The strange thing was there was just no one really there. There must have once been tourism, or at least people that lived in all of these beautiful houses.  It dawned on me that perhaps we were, yet again, the only tourists in town.

I couldn’t blame the locals for all wanting to make a quick buck out of foreigners appearing on their isle but quickly dismissed those who thought it was OK to linger outside the front door and try to pounce on us each time we went out. Manuele, who sat there all day long with a tabby cat at his feet seemed frustrated by it too. Instead I put my trust in two young lads I had met on my walkabouts: Felix, who had a fabulous smile and a large wooden dhow, we instantly warmed to one another, and he was trying to set up a tourist transportation business; and Selemani, who introduced himself on a street corner with entrepreneurial flair, and desperately wanted to be a tour guide. I met Selemani the morning after we met and he took me around. We ventured further than I had before, and Ilha got more intriguing with each step. Despite being barely three kilometres long and a few hundred metres at its widest, there were actually two towns. Stone Town where we were staying, Portuguese with an undeniable – now that Selemani had pointed it out – Arab and Indian influence. And a giant fort, Fortaleza de São Sebastião, at its northernmost tip. South of a wide road however, that literally cut the island in half, lay Makuti Town. There, music played all day long, smoke seeped into the air incessantly from charcoal grills, and rows and rows of stone huts with Makuti thatch lay tightly packed. There were so many people. A striking bright green mosque was clearly a hub of activity and lay just before a bustling fish market on the beach, covered with small fishing boats. I suppose its juxtaposition was not dissimilar to that of Ibo Island, but there was a rhythm to the place, a joviality, and much less despair.

That night we sailed out with Felix and his skipper, just before sunset. They circumnavigated the whole island in a way I had not seen before, pulling a hard left to catch the tide and then with it, swing a fast right. The east coast was wilder, more rugged, the waters choppier. We ended back on the west, the waters of Mossuril Bay calmer, protected by the mainland not far off. We swam in the water with a pearl-like surface as the sun finally set. Every other sunset we watched from our villa, we were perfectly located, it set in the centre of our horizon. A deep dark pink, every night.

One day we went out to explore early, with my newfound knowledge sought from Selemani. We wandered the streets of Makuti Town before the heat of the day, got lost in amongst the close-knit homes, no one seemed to care we were there, it was fascinating. We then bought a large fish for dinner from the market on the beach, it was a minefield to figure out which fish would be easiest to fillet and cook, as each fisherman told us his was the finest catch that day. We then went for lunch at a place I fancied on one of the prettiest streets, its exterior pale lilac, The Feitoria Hotel. Inside old photographs exposed Ilha in times gone by, and colourful fabric adorned antique wooden furniture restored to perfection. The friendly waiter wore a fake Gucci t-shirt, and led us outside to a spectacular waterside terrace, where we dined on crab rissois and grilled papagayo with siri-siri – the local sea vegetable cooked with coconut and nuts. We seemed to be the only customers that day.

Our days flew by on Ilha de Moçambique. I never missed a morning swim, the water early on crystal clear, almost a lavender blue, and refreshingly cool but never cold. A fisherman always seemed to appear at the same time, in a tiny bright red mango wood canoe, with Benfica painted on the side. He had dreadlocks down to his waist and would chat away to me warmly in words I couldn’t follow. The young boy who sat on the jetty often swam with me too, along with two of his friends. I had seen them playing football in the square, although the ball was a bundle of old cloth tied up with string. I decided I would buy them a proper ball before I left. Buying a football was way more of a faff than I anticipated. The only one for sale on the island was flat, so the stall owner said he would get one brought over from the mainland. It took a lot of running back and forth to the stall in the midday heat, to only be told it wasn’t there yet, but in the end, I got my hands on a rather nice one. The boys were shocked when I gave it to them and looked extremely excited.

The day we checked out I had cash tips at the ready. Nadia, the owner of Villa Osmanli, had told me to give all tips to Shomita – she would share them out. I mentioned this to Manuele when he had opened the gate for my morning swim. He laughed, looked me straight in the eye, and said – she does not give them to us. Us being a team of security manning different doors, and a gardener. I tipped Manuele healthily there and then. He had been great and I was fond of him. As I brought my luggage to the door, Shomita was pretending to clean the large island in the kitchen. I leant across the counter, cash in hand, about to explain the tips. Her eyes caught sight of the money, flashed like a devils, and her hand shot over – she grabbed the cash and stuffed it into her pareo before any of the others could see. We were headed to a place called Villa Moringa, a mere 30 minutes’ drive away. And not intentionally, only because Nadia had cancelled the last two nights of my stay saying she was planning on staying there, and we had nowhere else to go. It was the only place I could find on the map to stay between Ilha and Nampula Airport. I had arranged a transfer through Felix, to be supportive of his new venture, and off we went.