Each to his own.
We must emphasize that the initial stimulus for seeking the place that is the theme of this article, as well as that which will follow, were a few scenes of magic and mystery in black and white from the film by Miguel Gomes "Taboo".
Sitting in one of the rooms of the old “King” cinema, we were dazzled by mountainous scenes that, according to the plot, were located in one of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa.
We identified them. In the following years, we planned two trips to Mozambique. On the first, with the exception of a foray into Gorongous, we traveled along the coast, from Maputo to Ibo Island with passage through Inhambane and by Tofo.
On the second day, we could no longer resist, so we took the train from Beira to Tete and the other side of the country. From Tete, we crossed Malawi for a few hours until we reached the border town of Milange. At Milange, we were within reach of Gurué.
If traveled straight away and without incident, the journey between Milange and Gurué takes six hours. We were, however, at the mercy of the sheeting Mozambicans.
Between the waits until the owners managed to get a full capacity and the slow times of the Milange – Mocuba and Mocuba – Gurué routes, eleven hours of travel accumulated, in the last stretch, on a road full of potholes.
Eleven Hours Later, the Night Arrival
Finally, at around ten o'clock at night, Mr. Voador – so called, we believe, because he could fly over potholes without bursting his tires – dropped us off at the door of the Gurué Guesthouse. We had made a reservation by phone in advance. When we entered, we realized that the Gurué Guesthouse was almost abandoned, overrun with crawling insects.
We left our bags and went out to the only place where the guesthouse security guard told us we could still have dinner. We found the “Arina” restaurant-bar in festive mode, with loud music and guests celebrating the end of the work week.
At the counter, Mr. Valério greets us and gives us hope: “My wife has already closed the kitchen. I’ll see if she can make you something.” Mrs. Lídia nods. It was the first proper meal we had in Gurué.
Mr. Valério tells us about a guesthouse right next door. When we take a look at it, it seems like a much more suitable and comfortable backpacking solution. After dinner, we move there. Finally, we are rewarded with a peaceful and long sleep.
We woke up to a radiant tropical sun. We climbed the steps of the guesthouse, in daytime reconnaissance mode. We walked towards the roundabout that marks the heart of the town.
The old Gurué cinema that closes the square to the east smells of popcorn.
Traffic around the old Gurué cinema
We went up one floor.
The Inaugural Walk Through the City
From almost at the top of the building, we admire the roundabout and the main artery of Gurué, also the national road N103, which we see covered by a variety of noisy traffic.
Like the cinema and the guesthouse, almost all the buildings left by the Portuguese are worn out.
Others, supposedly restaurants and guesthouses, reveal a neglect consistent with the general absence of foreign tourists, aggravated by the recent pandemic. During the days we spent in Gurué, we were the only ones there.
Businesses of various types line the sides of the road. A few mini-markets and shops run by Pakistani and Chinese families.
Further away from the roundabout, the road becomes a real African market, lively with little shops and roadside stalls.
The main street of Gurué, seen from the 1st Floor of the cinema
We return to the heart of the town. Our mission is to recharge our Internet data. We do so in a Movitel agency that is so hot and stuffy that it also serves as a sauna.
We cross the Municipal Garden. At the opposite end, a chapel with adventurous architecture catches our attention.
It seems to attract a cloud that intense evaporation caused to expand.
The Inaugural View of Mount Namuli and the Daily Life of Gurué
From there, unexpectedly, we have the first glimpse of one of the Namuli mountains, Murresse, with its rounded peak standing out and covered in a strange mossy green.
That could be Monte Tabu from Miguel Gomes’ “Tabu”.
Mount Murresse, seen from Gurué
Out of nowhere, a congregation of pilgrims leaves the chapel.
A believer, of her grace Celestina, welcomes us.
He asks us if we are Catholic, if we want to join them. We excuse ourselves with the plan of wandering around the city.
Group of pilgrims leave the chapel of Gurué
The N103 passes through there again.
Along the Gurué Rural Hospital, the road houses an extension of the market dedicated to fruits and vegetables.
Motorcycle Couriers aligned but competing, control it with an eye on potential customers.
Motorcycle couriers on standby in the center of Gurué
Nearby, we met the women's football team from the Polytechnic Institute (Ipis), newly kitted out in yellow and preparing for a clash with the Arts, which will be playing nearby.
The IPIS women's team, moments away from setting off for a challenge against the Arts
Despite some visual decline in its buildings and colonial architecture, Gurué boasts serious evolutionary assets.
In addition to IPIS, there are the campuses of the Catholic University of Mozambique and the Dom Bosco Institute, responsible for training the next generations of Mozambicans, from among the almost 300.000 inhabitants of the district and those who move from lands not always close to Zambézia.
View of the relief of Zambézia, seen from a slope of the Namuli Mountains
Num Mozambique still hostage to Marxist ideology and its post-Marxist corruption, opportunities are scarce.
From Foundation to a Tea Production Domain
There will be more than the Portuguese had predicted for them, in a colonial regime in which black people's work was paid little or nothing, in which education, leadership and prosperity were reserved for white people.
Tea baskets and the workers who picked them up at a UP4 station
It was the Portuguese who founded the non-tribal Gurué during the 19th century. Some theories claim that they named it by adapting the local dialect lomué (western macua) for boar or, alternatively, ikurué, translatable as powerful.
Another, quite different one, is the one evoked by the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane. It inspired, in fact, her work “O Alegre Canto da Perdiz”.
Paulina Chiziane recalls that, in the mythology of the Lomué people, the Namuli Mountains – which are considered the African Eden and the cradle of humanity – were born from the egg of a partridge. Gurué, the city, is said to have received the mythological inspiration for its name from the song of the partridge, which sings “curué, curué, curué” or “gurué, gurué, gurué”.
Now tea arrived in the city shortly after its colonial foundation.
Following the example of what British rivals were already doing west of the Malange massif (present-day Malawi) and which, since 1914, the Lugela Agricultural Company and the Oriental Tea Society had been transferring to the Milange district, the authorities offered land at the foot of the Namuli Mountains.
They encouraged wealthy Portuguese to establish large Mozambican tea plantations there.
Aerial view of tea plantations above UP4 in Gurué
From 1930 onwards, the Zambézia Company, SDZ Chá, Chá Moçambique, Chá Gurué and Plantações Manuel Saraiva Junqueiro all had headquarters in Gurué. They grew rich through the production and sale of teas that gained international prestige.
These were the cases of Licungo, Gurúè, Sto António and Monte Branco Junqueiro, exported to the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
In the 40s, the Portuguese tea barons served the presence of more than three hundred family members, friends, colleagues and employees in Gurué.
Tea provided work for thousands of natives from Gurué, Lugela and Ile.
Tea pickers work on a plantation next to UP4
It generated profits that financed new homes, infrastructure and other agricultural investments. Soon, even a few luxuries were built, such as the cinema, built in 1950.
In order to resolve the issue of the town's interior, Zambézia Air Transport provided flights to Nampula and Quelimane, the provincial capital.
In 1960, Zambézia, with an obvious concentration in Gurué, held one of the largest tea areas in the Southern Hemisphere and produced around 20 thousand tons per year.
Tea, along with cashew and cotton, has become one of Mozambican's main exports.
Baskets of freshly picked tea.
The Colonial Re-baptism as Vila Junqueiro
One of the drivers of this growth was Manuel Saraiva Junqueiro, owner of SDZ, Sociedade de Desenvolvimento da Zambézia and, as fate would have it, at the end of the 50s he died in a plane crash.
In his honor, in October 1959, the authorities renamed Gurué Vila Junqueiro. This name was only used on paper. Among the people, Gurué prevailed, as it still does.
Despite the wars and Mozambican independence, Portuguese history and genesis are far from being erased. We continue down the EN103. We pass the Episcopal Palace of the Diocese of Gurué.
Shortly after, we come across two service stations.
The second is a GALP.
Registered as belonging to Manuel Ferreira & Filhos, one of the Portuguese families that remained in Gurué. Unsurprisingly, a few Portuguese people with jobs in the city and Zambézia frequent their convenience store. We also stock up on food there and improvise semi-meals.
We do this, for example, before the inaugural foray into the surrounding tea plantations, the first of several that we will tell you about in the supplement to this article.
HOW TO GO
Fly from Lisbon to Maputo, with TAP - flytap.com from €800 round trip. From Maputo, you can fly with LAM to Quelimane where you can rent a jeep or pick up and travel to Gurué.
Book your wider Mozambique programme with Travel Quadrant: quadranteviagens.pt
