Maraja.

Maraja is a massive area of wild bush, purchased by an eccentric German called Dominic. He basically bought the area ten years ago, paid the local villagers to leave started to employ rangers and to create his own personal national park. We went along for a few days cos the thought of seeing Elephants in the proper wilds and going for walks in the bush sounded interesting.

The place is beset with problems, there are Chinese logging companies trying to cut down all the hard wood trees. There are people setting snares and poisoning the animals to eat them and to get the ivory. And it seems likely one of his own rangers nicked his mobile phone while we were there. In summary, he’s a nutter. A really good person with endless energy and dedication, sure. Fun to be around and fascinating to listen to, yes. But in the end a true eccentric.

He picked us up in town, and after waiting 3 hours for a mechanic to join us he drove us out to Maraja via his farm, and a roadside village fruit and vegetable stall. See photo.

Sadly, it appears that despite our best bargaining powers, we were still paying double or treble the price for fruit and veg at the market. Still, I can live with that when the whole days food shopping costs a quid.

His house in Maraja is a rebuild of an old Portuguese colonial place, which at one time included a fort during the fight with Frelimo for control of the country. It’s a lovely place to stay with stunning views out over the surrounding bush. The main house at the top has a great breeze and stays cool all day. A very nice place to relax and chill. There are Isleburgs around too. Little mountains of granite left standing tall when everything else around them washed away.

The first night there we climbed the nearest Isleburg. Check out the shadow in the background for an idea of the shape. Sundowner beers at the top (to bring beers the ranger had to leave his gun behind and bring the beer cooling box - who wants warm beers?!) and a first view of what we imagined Africa should look like (endless trees and bush as far as the eyes could see with no sign of human habitation). We both loved it, Vicky was really really happy. I think we were both glad to escape the sand of the beech too.

The next morning we were up at 5am with the dawn for some safari walking. The old man guiding us was still drunk and we though the animals would be scared off by the smell, but we actually saw 2 elephants. They’re really hard to spot because the undergrowth is really thick and you have to get within 20m to stand a chance of seeing one. Plus, because they’re still hunted here all the elephants have been shot at, wounded, or seen a loved one die, so they head off at the first sign of man. In truth, I saw an elephant’s head and Vicky saw an elephant mooning her as it headed off into the trees. So between us we only saw 2/3s of an elephant although searching for animals on foot is really good fun and the build up of excitement as you realize you are getting close to the animal is pretty cool. Also saw local deer like things, some wild pigs and a few little things.

We spent the afternoon doing nothing, sleeping and admiring the view and then headed out for another walk.
Saw a wild pig and didn’t see the really cool deer like thing because we thought the guide was pointing at some fowl. He was rather too excited by the sight of birds in our opinion, but that’s what a language barrier does for you. Despite not seeing any animals it was a beautiful evening walk.

We had our evening meal in the old house and then watched the stars for a while which were amazingly clear – the milky way looked like a mass of dust in the sky. Next morning we were up again and went for another walk. Saw baboon butt after 3 hours of hard walking. Not the best but still a pleasant walk.

Then we got dropped off at the road junction to start hitching to Tanzania. That is a whole new story, but we're out of time on the internet here, so it'll have to keep for another day.