The State of Emergency ended in Mozambique a week ago. It ended for purely technical reasons and restarted only a week later, but the brief pause has acted as a catalyst for some easily socially distanced activities to restart. As such, the Maputo Special Reserve opened for the first time since we finished quarantine in March. Sam, Harriett & Imogen had visited the Reserve on a day trip when we first came to visit Mozambique in October, but I had been working that day, so I still hadn’t been to the Reserve. The main road to Ponta D’Ouro goes through the edge of the Reserve and we had seen antelope and giraffe just from that main road, but there is much more to be seen further into the Reserve.
So, taking advantage of the opportunity and a day’s holiday from work on Friday, we went for a day trip to the Reserve. We live in the capital city centre, yet the Reserve is only just over an hour’s drive away across the impressive (and scenic) Katembe Bridge. We checked in at the entrance, paid our fees (MZN1,800 for the four of us; about GBP23), let much of the air out of the truck tyres (that is practically becoming a weekly event and we now have the procedure pretty well organised with everyone sorting one tyre each) and headed in on the sandy Reserve tracks.
We weren’t disappointed – the Reserve is amazing; it certainly doesn’t feel like a little just-outside-the-city safari park – we spent about 5 hours driving around and only covered a small fraction of the area. Despite the size, the animals aren’t hard to find. A few minutes through the gates, we saw some giraffe followed soon thereafter by zebra. Both were a couple of hundred metres away, so not very close, but still joyful to sit and watch, especially a patient giraffe mother, ambling along and waiting every few minutes for her slow calf to catch up.
The terrain is quite varied with a mixture of open savannah, forest, huge lakes and scrubland. Sam had packed a lunch and we parked at the top of an incline, with all the windows open watching the animals while we ate – it was brilliant.
One particular highlight was a huge lake. We drove down to the lakeside, past an amusing no swimming / crocodile warning sign 
and watched some birds and took a few photos to add to our growing log of photos of birds we can’t identify. Sam then noticed that a stick thing on the ground next to an egret was not a stick at all…it was pretty impressive seeing a crocodile so close and watch it get up and slink into the water. And no, it didn’t eat the egret. And even more surprisingly, no, Harriett didn’t scream!
As we were turning away from the lake, I checked a few small clumps of what I took to be nest covered tufts of reeds in the lake with the zoom lens and saw a series of very distinctive pairs of ears pointing out of the surface of the water – hippos! They kept us entertained for ages as they bobbed up and down under the surface of the water.
We drove on and saw a variety of antelope, wildebeest, zebras and a couple of lone elephants in the open plains and a few monkeys in the forests. Eventually, we started heading back towards the entrance, which was lucky because the final kilometre took us about an hour as we came up to giraffes and zebras less than fifty metres from the road. There was a large group of each and they were clearly not bothered by the other species getting close. We sat hanging out the windows (and on the roof at one point) watching the stunning animals for a long time. Editing the photos down afterwards to a sensible number was quite a big job!
We arrived back home around 5pm having seen a wide range of birds, several antelope, hippos, elephants, a crocodile, zebra, giraffes and monkeys. Most of the animals we saw from as close as you would in a British zoo, despite them having huge natural space to roam in. Only the elephants were seen at a distance this time, although Sam and the girls had had a very close (and apparently quite scary) elephant encounter when they came in October. It is fabulous having somewhere like this practically on the doorstep. We will definitely go again and it seems that the Reserve is now open for good – I think we’ll become regulars and it will definitely be a frequent visiting point for any visitors who eventually make it out here!
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