5 Hidden Gems in Southern Mozambique

Everyone who comes to Maputo is sent to the same four places, and they are worth going to. These five are not on that list, they are all within reach of the city, and each one asks a little more of you than turning up.

1. Xefina Grande

There is an island in Maputo Bay, visible from the Costa do Sol shoreline, with a ruined Portuguese fort on it. Xefina Grande was a defensive post and later a prison, and what is left is being taken back by sand and vegetation at a speed that makes the place feel much older than it is. You get there by small boat from the Costa do Sol side, and the crossing depends entirely on the tide, so it is arranged in the morning for that day rather than booked in advance. Take water and shade. There is nothing there, which is the point.

2. Katembe, looking back

Since the suspension bridge opened, Katembe is ten minutes from the Baixa instead of a ferry ride, and most visitors cross it on the way south without stopping. Stop. The restaurants on the Katembe shore look straight back at the Maputo skyline across the water, which is the only place you can see the city whole, and the seafood is cheaper and often better than the equivalent on the other side. Go for a late lunch and stay for the light.

3. Núcleo de Arte

The oldest artists' collective in the country, founded in 1936, sits in an ordinary house behind an ordinary wall and is not signposted in any way that helps. Inside are working studios, not a gallery: paint on the floor, artists who will talk to you if you are interested and leave you alone if you are not, and work for sale directly from the person who made it. This is also where the sculptures made from decommissioned civil-war weapons were produced.

4. Macaneta

North of the city, past Marracuene, the Incomati river separates the mainland from a long spit of beach. You cross on a small ferry, drive through casuarina and sand, and arrive at an Indian Ocean beach that on a weekday can be empty for kilometres. It is a Maputo weekend institution and almost unknown to visitors. Go during the week, take a 4x4 or arrange a transfer, and be aware the sand is deep enough to strand an ordinary car.

5. The Machangulo peninsula and Santa Maria

The thin strip of land between the bay and the ocean, opposite Inhaca, has ocean on one side and calm water on the other, dunes in between, and very few people anywhere. Santa Maria at its tip is where the day boats from Maputo stop to snorkel, and most of them leave by mid-afternoon. Staying out there, rather than visiting for three hours, is the difference between a nice beach and one of the best stretches of coast in southern Africa.

Before You Go

Four of these five need either a boat, a ferry or sand-capable transport, and none of them have infrastructure waiting for you. That is why they are still like this. Plan the logistics properly, tell someone where you are going, and take more water than you think.