Flying Adventure: Mozambique Zimbabwe – Day 6 (FQLU – FQNP – FQChitengo):

We depart early this morning, as we have a long flight ahead of us. Time to leave the shore and fly into the interior. Our destination for today is the Gorongosa National Park. A place he has been wanting to go since a long time. The park has been closed and just recently re-opened to the public. Needless to say, he is pretty excited to go there.

But as he has mentioned in the previous post, we expect some delay as we meet our friend from the airports company at Lumbo Airport. It shall not be so.

As we arrive at Lumbo he cannot believe what he sees. Someone has been cutting grass. And it wasn’t a meager job, it was a serious job. Taxiway plus part of the runway all cleared, in essentially one day. Who would have expected that? We meet our friend and his boss who assist us with the departure paperwork swiftly and also drive us down the runway to measure the cleared distance. A good 400m. That’s enough for us.

He suspects that this gentleman was in fact the person responsible for this airport and instead of doing what he was supposed to do, he was probably enjoying life in Nacala. Knowing that he’d be in trouble if we raise a complaint with the Civil Aviation Authority or his employer about the condition of a licensed airport, he was keen to keep us in a good mood. But anyway, we were happy and ready to go. Next time we know who to contact before we arrive.

Lumbo to Gorongosa

From Lumbo we first fly back to Nampula. We have a longer distance ahead of us until the next available refueling point.

It’s very quiet at the airfield and we are the only aircraft on ground. Things go therefore pretty smooth, and we are off again within less than an hour.

We route over the northern interior and over the mighty Zambezi River. It’s an impressive scenery and reminds us once more, that flying is just so much more exciting than driving. It’s a veritable privilege being able to do this.

After crossing the Zambezi we can soon see the flood plains of Gorongosa National Park.

The Chitengo airfield is just at the park border and our guide is already awaiting us as we land. After a quick check-in at the Main Camp, we set off by car to the Wild Camp, where we will stay for the next two nights. It is a very comfortable wild camp, and the staff and service are top class. We are being spoilt with great safaris, lion tracking by foot, awesome sceneries and fantastic food.

Gorongosa National Park

Gorongosa National Park is over 4000 square kilometers large and situated at the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley. The area receives a lot of rainfall due to the mountain range, including Mount Gorongosa on the eastern and northeastern side of the park. This creates a unique environment and ecosystem, with mountains, floodplains, dry forests, rain forests and seasonal flooding and waterlogging of the valley. It is an absolutely stunning place and totally different to the parks we have been in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia or South Africa.

At one-point Gorongosa had one of the densest wildlife populations in Africa. It was probably therefore, why the Portuguese Mozambique Company declared it a Hunting area in 1920 before it was expanded and became a National Park in 1960. Sadly, most of that wildlife was decimated during the Independence War and later Civil War. After the war ended in 1994 a survey over 68 square kilometers counted only a handful of elephants, waterbucks, zebra and reedbucks.

Serious restoration of the park began in 2004 with the help of the Carr Foundation in partnership with the Mozambiquan Government. Despite major setbacks due to cyclone Idai and Covid, the restoration has been a tremendous success. Many species have been re-introduced and wildlife populations have stabilized.

The poaching during the war has also created a unique mix of genetic material that makes up the wildlife, fauna and flora. For example, poachers were not interested in tusk-less elephants, and they survived. The park is thus home to a large number of tusk-less African elephants. Their behavior is also relatively more aggressive compared to their counterparts in neighboring countries. Similar genetic concentration can be observed across other species. It makes the park truly unique and for every nature and wildlife lover a must go destination.