The story of Travessia Lodge is the story of Senhor David, who was collecting coconuts from his piece of land, 60 km north of Inhambane as the crow flies, when he bumped into two mzungu strangers in a Landrover, asking all sorts of questions about his plot. This is also the story of Dave and Anne, who spent two years in a tent in a palm grove in Mozambique, working their way through stifling hum
idity and African bureaucracy in order to acquire the piece of land they would later get married on. And it is the story of Heye and Angela juggling their lives of kids, careers and coffees in Cape Town whilst dreaming about getting away and the idea of a creative and purposeful adventure in far-away lands. But lets start from the beginning…
The story of Travessia lodge began not in Mozambique, but in Malawi . This is where in 2000, a backpacking Dutch girl met a backpacking South African guy, fell in love with his old series 3 Landy and decided to hitch a ride with him. Six weeks into the ride from Malawi into the north of Mozambique, they started to share more than just the petrol cost, the dream of starting a lodge emerged and in the end, Anne’s love progressed from the Landy to its handsome owner…
Fast forward to 2006: Dave and Anne are once more making their way up to the coastline of Mozambique. They had packed up their belongings in South Africa and headed back up north, to realise their dream of six years before, to start a beach lodge somewhere in Mozambique. Six weeks into the trip, after much location scouting and 1000’s of kilometres later, heading south, they had almost made it as far as Inhambane. Looking for a spot for the night, they took a sandy turn-off from the mainroad to get to the sea. A short bumpy track through thick vegetation towards the beach, and they emerged in the middle of a beautiful grove of cocoa nut palms on a stretch of never-ending coastline. They had not even gotten out of the Landy when they were greated by a local villager, who had been collecting coconuts. After exchanging the obligatory courtesies and getting to know each other, he proudly told them, that he had planted these coconut trees more than forty years before, that his name was Senhor David that this was his piece of land. Dave and Anne set up camp in the palm grove, which would turn out to be their home for the next two years. Senhor David had expressed an interest in selling his plot and so had other villagers owning pieces of land close by. Together, they walked the perimeters of all connecting plots, from one tree to another, from one bush to the next. Twelve landowners, including local chief Senhor Antonio Madeira, set down with them to agree on a price for each piece of land. The bureaucratic journey of forming a company, getting land titles and project approvals then began. The transfer of the land turned out to be a somewhat more complicated process than initially anticipated. Once the 12 rightful owners of the land had been established among the extended families of the village, they all had to have IDs. Now, as you may be able to imagine, adhering to western administrative processes is not a pre-requisite for leading happy and fulfilled lives in the Mozambican country-side and therefore, having accurate birthdates, birth certificates or even ID documents , is the exception, rather than the rule. Senhor David and his colleagues were no different. Nevertheless, through much determination and standing in queues at local government offices, Anne and Dave eventually managed to prove and document the existence of their future neighbours to the state. Three months after first arriving under Senhor David’s palm trees, twelve villagers were in possession of shiny new ID documents, including birthdate (well, sort of…) and ID picture, and a contract for the purchase of the various pieces of land, intended for the development of a beach lodge, could be signed at the Notary’s office in Inhambane. Needless to say that by now Dave and Anne were so integrated with the people of the loc al village, that they had almost become villagers themselves. On September 11th in 2006, the Mozambique Government Gazette published the statutes of the newly formed Mozambican company, called “Travessia Lodge”. It would take another eight months to receive the provisional land title and a further nine months for the Environmental License. Finally, in July 2008 the Ministry of Tourism issued the project approval, thereby providing firm title to the land, and approval to begin with the construction of the lodge. By now, Anne and Dave had been roughing it for over two years in their tent. Luckily, the “manager’s house” they had been permitted to build before project approval was finally ready. Getting building approval from the local government in Morrumbene was nothing compared to the previous journey. In July 2009, after government inspection of the progress of the project, Travessia was awarded “DUAT definitive”: Definitive land titles. With all formalities in place and the first event – Dave and Anne’s wedding – successfully being held at Travessia, the building of accommodation could have started with full force. However, if the bureaucratic stumbling blocks had not succeeded in wearing down Anne and Dave, it did have an impact on their funding. The arrival of baby Tristan in April 2009 also required a revision of their plans. In January 2010, they took the hard decision to move back to a regular income and set-up in South Africa, knowing that they would eventually have to sell Travessia. Stay connected for scenes of our next episode!
