Bazaruto to Cobue, Mozambique

23 - 26 Mar 08

Nkwichi: remote lodge by Lake Niassa

The evening IR satellite photo showed two major thunderstorms moving south west towards the area of Cóbuè. The next morning the IR satellite photos showed signs of their residues near lake Niassa, so we were a bit worried whether they had another major rain shower there flooding the runway overnight. We called one of the Nkwichi staff members Julius in Cóbuè and he assured us that they have had no rain overnight.
Since the African skies tend to charge up in the afternoon, we took off as early as possible from Bazaruto. We did get into a few rain showers after the first 3 hours of flight but they were quite harmless. Twice we called Julius, the Nkwichi Lodge’s employee at Cóbuè, to ask how the weather was there, and he reassured us that it was fine.
Simon at Nkwichi Lodge had confirmed that although the ditch carved out near the middle of the runway by a recent rainstorm was filled, we should only touch down after the ditch, landing uphill on runway 11. To check things out, we first did a low pass and checked out the location of the ditch to be avoided. The runway was the roughest we had ever landed on but thankfully the plane did not suffer any damage. We were received by two staff members from Nkwichi and half the population of the village. Apparently it is a rare event for a plane to land there. However, they weren’t only interested in seeing the plane. A spokesman for the village addressed me and I thought he was going to ask us for a donation of some sort. I was mistaken, however. He just wanted to ask us politely if we would mind moving the plane out of the way. It seems we were occupying their football pitch, which was located at the last 100 meters of runway 11! Plenty of willing hands helped us to move the plane out of the way and we hired two guards to look after it. Soon after we had moved it, the football goal was erected again on the middle of the runway!
Then it was a 30-minute speed boat transfer over choppy water to the lodge where a young Dutch couple, Emiel and Cora welcomed us. We were most impressed with the design of the lodge. It was very African with thatched roofs and curves dictated by the natural shape of the wooden beams used. The high ceilings with open walls instead of glass windows helped to keep the rooms cool thanks to the pleasant breeze that wafted through. Our house, made of stone and wood, was called Scotland, because it was a Scottish volunteer who built it. We had a huge 4-poster bed, an outside shower and bathtub and a separate hut for the loo.

The creator of the lodge, Patrick Simkin, was born in Swaziland. His father worked for the UN and they moved around the world a lot while he grew up. Patrick came to Lake Niassa 10 years ago and spent 2 years living in a tent while building the lodge. The idea of the project is not only to make a living but at the same time help the local population by providing training and jobs. They have set up a farm to produce a variety of vegetables for the guests and hopefully motivate the locals to grow more varied crops than their staple diet of cassava.