South Africans wanting to visit Mozambique over the festive season had better hurry.
According to Maputo-based Mozambique Tourism Fund promotions officer Gildo Neves: “The good
accommodation in Maputo is filling up fast.”
Maputo is not the usual tourist destination for South Africans, but a stop over for travellers on their way to the islands of Bazaruto and Inhaca, and the unspoilt coastlines north and south of the city. Which means that overnight travellers probably don’t get to see much of Maputo. Since most of these travellers are white they probably bring with them the attitude that the city has just about as much to offer as a stroll through Hillbrow on a Saturday night. Is this true? Well, yes and no.
“The capital attracts mainly business people. A lot of companies are opening up,” says Neves, who advises that first time travellers to Mozambique do their arrangements through travel agents. “Security-wise though,” Neves says with a sense of glee, “we are much better than Johannesburg”.
Security-wise, Maputo may well be safer than New York this December. “With international tourism growth increasingly under threat, domestic tourism is being cited as the key to the prosperous future of the South African tourism market,” reads a press release from Southern Sun this month. The hotel chain recently gave the hotel Polana some opposition. On the palm-tree-lined coastal road, the Avenida da Marginal, they opened their Mediterranean style Holiday Inn, and this Christmas are hoping to net a bit of trade.
As a destination, Mozambique seems to straddle two fronts. On the one hand its proximity to Johannesburg and Durban makes it akin to domestic destinations for travel punters. On the other hand the fact that it really is a foreign country with a favourable exchange rate makes it an attractive place for South Africans, with depleting rands, to go to.
But is there really anything of interest to see in Maputo?
The city’s dereliction is, perhaps, the first aspect one confronts upon arrival. Once one’s initial reservations have thawed the country’s capital has many surprises in store. Unlike Johannesburg (and more like Cape Town) Maputo is built upon strata traversing a broad expanse of time.
There’s the mid-nineteenth century fort, the Fortaleza da Nossa, with a centre court that now functions as a sort of graveyard for colonial public sculpture. There’s the world famous peppermint green Caminho de Ferro city railway station, built by none other than Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. And then there are the peeling and faded liberational murals depicting the heroes of the country’s struggle, dating back to the mid-Seventies.
A testimony to the sweeping changes that have taken place in the region, and across the world, must be the large, white, flat-roofed suburban mansion belonging to Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel.
Amid the grime and poverty there is a quaintness, a strange sense of continuity. Older South Africans talk about Lourenço Marques with nostalgia for the little Portugal in Southern Africa that once was. One thing, though, has remained. In Maputo you can still get a killer plate of LM prawns.
Maputo Holiday Inn is located on the Avenida da Marginal. Tel: 09258Â 1Â 49050. Fax: 09258Â 1Â 49770