The register
Everything on the site
Thirteen pieces in three sections. This page carries the complete list; the front page carries a selection.
The tide decides when anyone leaves
The tide decides when anyone leaves
Off Vilankulo the channel empties twice a day and the dhows sit down on the sand until it fills, which sets the working day.
Bazaruto, and the last dugong
The archipelago holds the largest remaining dugong population in the western Indian Ocean, and the surveys that establish that are published.
Ilha de Moçambique, half stone and half reed
The old Portuguese capital is a World Heritage site that is two towns on one small island, built of different materials.
The Quirimbas, further north than most people go
A chain of coral islands with a mainland park behind it, and very little infrastructure.
What a dhow actually is
A lateen rig on a shallow hull, built locally, and still the working boat of the coast rather than a tourist prop.
Maputo argues with the light
Maputo argues with the light
Pancho Guedes built here for twenty years and the concrete still misbehaves — the Saipal bakery, the Smiling Lion.
The iron station, and the attribution that stuck
The CFM terminus was credited to Eiffel's office for most of a century on very thin evidence.
The grid, and the bay
The Portuguese laid a rectilinear plan down to the water, and the city still runs on it.
Marrabenta on a Sunday
A guitar music that came out of the city's suburbs and is still played in them.
Gorongosa publishes its numbers
Gorongosa publishes its numbers
The park's large mammals were almost entirely lost during the civil war and have been counted back over two decades, with the counts in the public record.
Counting from the air
Aerial transect surveys are how the numbers are produced, and the method decides what the number means.
Miombo, and the mountain above it
Above the floodplain sits a rainforest on Mount Gorongosa that supplies the water the whole system runs on.
Niassa, which almost nobody visits
One of the largest protected areas in Africa, with very little written about it.