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THE PARK
The rehabilitation of Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique represents one of the great conservation opportunities in the world today.
The greater Gorongosa region is ecologically unique situated at the southern most end of the Great African Rift Valley; as a result it is a region with high species diversity and environmental features found nowhere else in the sub-continent. The key to continued biodiversity and habitat preservation on the planet is to protect areas of ecological importance, such as the Gorongosa National Park and the surrounding water catchments, such as is found on nearby Mount Gorongosa.
Seasons
The weather at Gorongosa is – like the Park as a whole – something of a mystery. There is officially a wet season and a dry season, the longer latter season encompassing the bulk of the year from May through to mid-December, with the Park closed to all from late-December to late-February. However, as we are discovering this year, these seasons are not entirely rigid and fluctuate somewhat such that you can have rain in July and dry cold spells in February.
We will only be operating from mid-April through to mid-December although we may run some wet season trial safaris in early 2010 (March/April) to see what is possible in this fertile time full of migratory birds and sticky cotton soil mud!
Park Facilities & Activities
The Park has a long history of providing an incredible setting for photographic safaris in Mozambique. Despite over two decades of conflict, much of Gorongosa’s infrastructure remains. The Park’s original headquarters in the south - Chitengo Camp - is also a public rest camp, comprising 18 comfortable air-conditioned cabanas as well as a shady public campsite and Chikalango, Chitengo's new and improved restaurant serving breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. There is a swimming pool in the camp - a welcome addition on hot summer's days! - and the camp is currently able to host conferences for up to 40 delegates. Currently, Chitengo offers guided game-drives and village visits although a series of fresh new activity offerings are in the pipeline.
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Our authentic and utterly unique Explore Gorongosa safari experience is based from an exclusive seasonal tented eco-camp and a series of light wilderness fly-camps...
Although the trend these days is for safari camps to provide seventeen imported Mongolian cotton facecloths per person, delicately soaked in endangered highland yak milk and served chilled with a skinny moccachino presented in Italian marble coffee cups with gold inlay... we at Explore Gorongosa like to think it is more the experience that counts and that, like the wrapper around a yummy Swiss chocolate, the camp is simply the outer layer which keeps the whole thing together.
Mixed metaphor's aside, our personal, friendly and conscientious approach to the authentic African safari experience means we prefer to focus on what our guests get to feel, see, learn and do, then on the labels on our frilly bits. (For the record, wherever possible, our labels happen to be eco-innovative, recycled or renewable...)
The Explore Gorongosa experience is hosted from our exclusive seasonal tented bush camp - known to the inner circle as Explorers, or just "Our Camp" - situated in a beautiful private operational area within the Gorongosa National Park. We can also take you out for a night or two at our light wilderness fly-camps, the Gorongosa SkyBeds, which we set up at a few stunning sites in and around the Park such as at the Murombodzi waterfalls and on top of Mount Gorongosa.
Whichever way you end up spending the night, you are of course looked after in the wide-open embrace of our great team of Mozambican camp hands, with suitable reinforcements provided by our camp host and our professional safari guide (we like to think he's one of the regions finest!)
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Explorers Camp
Featuring a handful of spacious and quirky tented suites, Explorers is not your average bush camp. In fact, we hope you’ll treat it as your home away from home, as long as you don't associate televisions, telephones, newspapers, recessions, screaming kids, broken pool pumps, high power bills, and the neighbour's annoying yapping dog with home! No, Explorers is a simple place, a gentle haven of {sigh} peace and space; a place based on our keep-it-supremely-friendly-and-simple recipe.
Each suite has an alfresco 'en tent' bathroom comprising an eco-innovative waterless loo and a fantastic wash-in-the-wild shower designed to give you privacy and a feeling of freedom all at the same time. Enormous king-size doubles or extra-length twin single beds are available with snug down duvets and cotton linen and towels of highest quality (although for the sake of the yaks, we unfortunately do not have yak-milk-soaked Mongolian cotton!) One of our main aims in the design of the camp was to have as much of it home-made as possible, with much of it being sourced from the region. Apart from the odd bit here and there, we like to think we have achieved this, right down to Mrs Janisch's home-made plum jam which, on a loaf of freshly baked pot-bread, goes down faster than a homesick mole.
The eating, chillaxing and social area of the camp features an open-air library and lounge, as well as a spacious canvas mess tent for general...er...mess, when the weather is not too friendly. Dining takes place pretty much anywhere it is requested with the focus on excellent taste and even better company. If one wishes to get away from the high energy pursuits of lounging, dining, sleeping or abluting, there are hammocks to swing in, trees to climb, and a campfire to muse over... all in all, Explorers is an experience within an experience. And that’s the way we intend to keep it.
Gorongosa SkyBeds
If you have the time and inclination, three, four, seven or seventeen (!) nights at our camp works quite well with a night or two out and about using a light fly-camp sited on secret big-tree-covered spots around our exclusive operating area within the Park and elsewhere in the region. This fly-camp - the Gorongosa SkyBeds - is set up in keeping with the pioneering camps of old, providing very light yet comfortable temporary accommodation whilst the camp’s inhabitants busy themselves messing about in the bush. The basics of great food, cold drinks and hot showers are taken care of by our excellent team.
The "rooms" are actually simple mosquito-gauze bow tents housing a snug bed complete with down duvet and cotton linen. The ablutions are a shared hot bucket shower and a waterless eco-loo, and the dining and lounge area comprises a campfire with some comfy stools scattered around it... But as quickly as you can say paradise, you're lying in bed in the middle of a sweeping floodplain, under a canopy of stars, with only a thin layer of gauze and canvas between you and... well, heaven really.
When camping on the summit of the Gorongosa Mountain, the Gorongosa SkyBeds are tailored to suit wet weather through the application of a light trekking bow tent. (It is advised if you are planning on climbing Mount Gorongosa, to bring wet weather gear... it is a rain-forest after all!)
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