African adventures at Gorongosa National Park

Gorongosa National Park is in the heart of Mozambique. It has over 4,000 square km of valley floor and some surroundings plateaus.  The rivers spread over the area originating at Mont Gorongosa.
Three main vegetation types support the Gorongosa ecosystem's wealthy of wildlife: savanna, woodlands and grasslands.

                      

During the long civil war the number of animals specially mammals was dramatically reduced as Gorongosa was one of the battle fields of the war.
Elephants were slaughtered for their ivory, lions and other carnivores died of starvation when their prey zebra, antelopes, wildebeest, buffalo were eaten as bush meat by hungry people.  Many of the park large herbivore populations were also reduced by the war and poaching. However more than 400 kinds of birds and reptiles survived.

Since 2004 the Carr Foundation's Gorongosa Restoration Project, a U.S. non profit organization is helping the Mozambique Government to protect and restore the ecosystem of the park.  Animals  are being reintroduced to their land.

Bob and Flavia and their friends Eric and Alison, Nick and Annie got into their 4 x 4 wonderful 1998 Toyota  Land Rover Prado Active Vacation and headed over to this beautiful land.   Of course it took us a while to get there (about 5 hours) because neither the potholes  nor the police let you speed in this part of the country.
We had a great time. As money is short now in our lives we opted to camping over staying in one of the fancy and must say beautiful but very expensive roundale guest houses.  The camping facilities were great with a very nice hot shower.

Poor Eric the picture was not good and the cake was not pretty, but was delicious.

It was Eric's birthday.   We had a wonderful barbecue with vegetables
(otherwise Flavia would have gone hungry), t-bone steaks, potatoes and grilled pineapple. The delicious meal culminated with a birthday cake baked by Flavia ( sorry Eric as Flavia is not a good baker, but at end the cake was a success). Our feast ended with smores. Alison was able to find pink marshmallows at the supermarket in Beira. They were pink but according to the human carnivores in our group  tasted really delicious.  The weather was pleasant and even a little hot during the day but chilly and comfy at night by our fire.

Here are some of the pictures of our great adventure. Gorongosa is one of the most beautiful places that we had visited so far in this side of the world.

The entrance and our great car ACTIVE VACATION perfect for the occasion

This was the first wildlife we saw as soon as we entered the park.  After that Flavia's desire for camping went down the drain, but Bob and Flavia managed to sleep inside the car very comfortably. All the sits unfold nicely and we had 2 comfortable beds.

The swimming pool at the park. However it was a little cold for swimming and we did not have enough time since we opted to spend our time going on safaris

We saw many antelope types, unfortunately the Nyalas were very difficult to find and to photograph. We only say 3 of them but they quickly disappeared in the forest.

Bambi was a little hot and found  shade and let us give him a closer look.

We did not see a lot of elephants but this guy was nice enough and stayed around us for a long time.

We saw 8 lions including the male of the pride.

Another advantage of our 4X4. You can have a better view of the  area.
Don't worry we were very civilized and did not fight for the best spot in the house. We took turns!

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This little fellow was thirsty and did not care at all for the 2 cars   he had to go by to get to the water.

He was very interested in finding out more about us.  This waterbuck was an artist and enjoyed being photographed.

This is an example of the trails we had to go through in our safari. Great Toyota car.

Our versatile car. If you do not have a table, you should not worry if you have a Prado Active Vacation Toyota.

One of many lakes we saw. Just have to be careful with the crocodiles!

Beautiful landscape. We could stay here forever! 

Most beautiful sunset.

This is huge crocodile! We saw many of them! scary! No swimming in lakes or rivers in Africa for Flavia for sure.

This bird quickly drank water and disappeared before the crocks could get him!

We were just amazed by the landscape and the wildlife.

End of the safari day and heading off to a nice barbecue and birthday party. We almost got stuck inside  the safari area because we were late and had to stop to take pictures of the most beautiful sunset ever. Believe or not , especially our girls Mommy  was the one who took this picture.

Another lovely view. But don't get fool by the passivity of the scene. The crocks are there!!!!

The landscape was beautiful and very diverse. We could stay forever looking at the trees and grass.