The savannah area susceptible to flooding is huge, south of Maputo Bay.
We entered the park through the Futi gate, almost 80km south of the Mozambican capital. After the due registration, Baptista, responsible for the guards who monitor him, approaches us.
“Wait a little while your man is coming!” Ernesto Mulungo, “the man”, had only been notified at the last minute.
Instead of positioning himself at the poaching checkpoint assigned to him, he was going to join us and guide our incursion into the immense Maputo National Park.
Ernesto appears. In a russet green military uniform, with an old M14 rifle on his shoulder. He introduces himself and the service. It fits into the little space left in the cramped interior of the pick up.
Ernesto Mulungo in a flooded part of the road that leads to Ponta Membene.
Valente, the driver, sets us on our way. At a glance, it is confirmed why suitcases and laptops, and the external disks stored in them, go inside and with special padding.
The Maputo PN roads are neither asphalt nor dirt. There is a lot of sand on uneven ground, here and there, furrowed by tree roots.
As the park authorities warn, only the best four-wheel drive vehicles, driven by experienced drivers and who strictly lower tire pressure, can overcome them.
Valente was up to it. He didn't perform miracles. In certain sections, the pick up's hard suspension multiplied sudden bumps.
Little by little, with effort, we got used to abstracting ourselves from them. We knew the park was special. We just weren't yet aware of how much.
Park Ranger Ernesto Mulungo and the Environmental Rehabilitation of Local Communities
Ernesto Mulungo renews the directions, in accordance with his impeccable knowledge of the park, the landscapes and the places that certain animal species preferred. Ernesto was a native of Salanca, a nearby town.
His father had previously worked for the park. Being at ease in those wild areas of Mozambique ran in his blood.
As often happens, with the development of protected areas, many of the local residents have gone from being poachers and trap setters to employees, guards and guides.
A chango, or Cobo-dos-Juncais
Or, at least, for respecters of wild life. Exceptions remain, of course.
To combat them, Ernesto and his colleagues remain alert, in their changing positions.
In Search of Elephants on the Elephant Plain
Due to the proximity of the Futi portal, the first place we stop is one of those that least requires surveillance. Valente slows down. Ernesto activates the senses.
We entered the Elephant Plain, a plain that the rainy season and the recent passage of tropical storms “Eleanora"and "Filipo” had flooded.
It suggested the name that, around there, we would give pachyderms.
Elephant walks away, in the Elephant Plain, Maputo National Park
We quickly found a few.
A young male, with his sources of testosterone drained, immediately gets angry with the presence of the pickup and with humans.
Ernesto advises Valente to retreat slightly. Enough to avoid the animal's fury. Instead of his load, we see him and the others scrambling around in a kind of reed forest, due to their bulk, with the water only up to their paws.
They were the only ones we detected there. In his dry, telegraphic and sincere way of communicating, Ernesto confesses to us that he found it strange: “but we have to see the size of this park… it is huge.
There are other lakes and areas where pastures may be more tender. Let’s find others!”
Maputo National Park and its Exciting Diversity of Species
Along the Elephant Plain, a short distance from the road, we saw juvenile and adult elephants, waterbucks, dozens of ducks swimming among water lilies.
Herons, giraffes that seem to ignore us, and blue monkeys that, instead, study us from top to bottom, from behind dense branches.
Inhalas nestled in the tall vegetation of Maputo National Park
The park's fauna continues to reveal itself.
Hippopotamus gives herons a ride on the edge of a flooded area.
A few hippos leave a lush meadow to protect the plain turned lagoon.
We see them slide in channels delimited by some type of papyrus.
Hippopotamus moves in the flooded expanse of the Elephant Plain.
We advance to the large Xinguti lagoon, the longest in the park, only surpassed in area by neighboring Piti.
We also looked, in vain, for elephants and hippos there.
Instead, two yellow-billed storks and a shy chango (juncal cob) caught our attention.
Yellow-billed stork on the edge of a pond
From Lagoas to Ponta Membene and the Indian Ocean
Despite traveling in safari mode, we had a destination to reach: the Indian coast of Ponta Membene and its Membene Lodge.
We continue northwest.
At one point, with another hyperbolic brackish body of water to our right. At the top of the Munde lagoon, with a view of the Zuali lagoon, we turn towards the sea.
We face small hills where the road proves even more challenging.
Aerial view of Ponta de Membene and Membene Lodge,
The lodge appears, shortly after, hidden in a coastal forest that covers a long dune barrier.
We re-register entry. We settled in one of the chalets lined up in the shade of vegetation.
Then, we walked along the walkway that connects them to the communal and dining area, always with the waves of the Ocean washing over the sand.
Ponta de Membene Beach, with the waves of the Indian Ocean caressing the sand
A few years earlier, we were amazed by an area higher up on the map of this same magnificent coastline, that of Machangulo and Inhaca.
The fact that we explored and could bathe in its extension to the south encouraged us to double down.
For that, we had the next morning.
Giraffes graze on top of thorny trees
That afternoon, we dedicated it to looking for other specimens and species among the lakes that dotted that area of the park.
It added little or nothing to the inaugural safari, least of all other elephants.
Sunset over Maputo National Park
After a sunset in which dense clouds filtered the exuberance, we returned to the lodge. We had dinner by the sea. We slept, rocked by the waves and a shrill croak.
In search of the Immense Changos Plain
The next day was sunny. Begging for a walk along the beach, above and below the dunes.
And long dives that refreshed us, that rewarded the effort of such endeavors.
We left the Membene lodge about noon.
The time was one of the worst for us to resume safari mode, but, among others, Ernesto Mulungo maintained the challenge of revealing more numerous herds of elephants to us.
The park ranger knew exactly where to look for them.
Park ranger Ernesto Mulungo on the ridge above the Changos Plain.
We followed the path to the lodge in the opposite direction.
Having left the Munde lagoon behind, we arrived at a point in the Maputo PN marked as 11. Ernesto dictates a detour to the north.
For twenty minutes, we meandered between hills crowned by pockets of vegetation, here and there, under the suspicious gaze of “goats”, as Ernesto called the smallest antelopes.
We have reached a crest.
Ernesto informs us that this is the highest point in the park and, as we quickly realized, it offered an unobstructed view all around.
We focused on the lower immensity to the west, a semi-flooded and grassy savannah that we saw dotted with herds, especially zebras and wildebeests.
Zebras move in a herd near a lagoon in the Changos Plain
Many More Elephants. Herds of Zebras and Others
But not only.
“They’re there!” shouts Ernesto, out of nowhere, from the depths of his lungs and soul, relieved by the sudden accomplishment of his mission. In fact, they were there.
At the foot of the same hill, dozens of elephants grouped together and with calves, in herds darker and more numerous than those listed by zebras.
As Ernesto suspected, the pachyderms had exchanged “their” plain for that of the Changos, where the water, the succulent grass and the space proved to be endless.
From that top, we could see a few. A mere sample.
Herd of elephants roaming the grassy expanse of the Changos Plain.
The Historical Degradation of a Mozambican Land of Elephants
In times gone by, the area around Maputo Bay was home to thousands of elephants.
Once the colonial era arrived, natives and the Portuguese became accustomed to profiting from their ivory which they exported to Europe for astronomical values, it is said that from Ilha dos Portugueses, north of Inhaca, even more so from PN Maputo.
In 1932, the first hunting reserve was created. And, in 1960, a protective reserve was created to recover the elephants from the previous slaughter.
Even more so, because, at a certain point, the authorities discovered that they were part of a distinct subspecies, as it was coastal, used to living between tandoos, lagoons and the ocean.
Aerial view of herd of Elephants roaming the Changos Plain meadow
In 1977, the Mozambican Civil War broke out. The massacre returned, spreading to many other parks, for example the Gorongosa National Park, today, returned to its previous richness and exuberance.
Towards the end of the conflict, there were already less than a hundred elephants.
And the Pronounced Recovery of Maputo National Park
With Mozambique at peace, authorities were able to once again establish a vast protected area. Little by little, the number of pachyderms increased.
It is estimated that, at the end of 2023, there were over five hundred.
In such numbers, without insurmountable fences, elephants began to approach nearby villages and destroy crops.
Ridge above the Changos Plain, Maputo National Park
The authorities were forced to transfer almost fifty to other parks and reserves in Mozambique.
At the rate at which elephants have been reproducing in the “comfort” of Maputo PN, additional solutions may be necessary.
At the expense of other Mozambican parks that could receive more specimens, contraceptive measures are likely.
HOW TO GO
Fly from Lisbon to Maputo, with TAP - flytap.com from €800 round trip. Book your Mozambique program with Travel Quadrant: quadranteviagens.pt
WHERE TO STAY
Ponta Membene Lodge: https://www.membene.co.mz/
Email: [email protected]
Whatsapp: +258 87 016 2730
