Inhambane to Vilanculos

Walking in front of a Baobab – a very Dr. Seuss-like creature of Africa. It’s actually not a tree, but the largest succulent plant in the world. The cuts in the side are steps for the locals to crawl up. Fruit, when ripe are quite good eating.

We dropped off our photographer-videographer-African adventurer, Jeff, yesterday at the Inhambane airport around 2pm and headed northward to Vilanculos. It was about a four hour journey, half an hour longer than usual due to pitted roads and a couple quick stops for some shots of Baobabs (the largest succulents in the world), a photo crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, and a roadside chat to discuss how the landscape has gone from high-value Miombo biome to low-value dry savannah over the course of 35 years.

We crashed a friend’s pad as a stop-over before we continue the maddening journey northward to the Mezimbite Forest Centre between Beira and Dondo, thus completing my equally mad journey from my trip last year in Mozambique. That’s traversing the entire country from top to bottom- (the same length as the eastern coast of the United States), giving me a good overview of the ecological and cultural issues and solutions happening throughout Mozambique.

We are officially in the Tropics! Tropic of Capricorn.

Slash-and-burn in a local village. Mozambicans have heavily changed their landscape in the past 35 years, turning a high-valued Miombo biome resource into a low-value dry savannah.

View more photos from Coconut Oil Mozambique in Inhambane HERE at Discovery Earth Live.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 6:12 am. It is filed under africa and tagged with a.d. schwarz, africa, allan schwarz, Inhambane, Mozambique, Summer Rayne, Summer Rayne Oakes, sustainable development Africa, Vilanculos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.