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In the early 1970s, Mozambique was entrenched as one of southern Africa's top travel destinations. Sunshine, warm weather and long golden stretches of palm-lined sand made Mozambique beaches a paradise. However, independence from Portugal in 1975 sparked a brutal and protracted civil war that reduced the stream of visitors to a trickle. Yet despite the country's earlier woes, a triumphant spirit has prevailed since a ceasefire was signed in 1992, and travelers are again drawn by Mozambique's many charms and increasingly sophisticated infrastructure.

The major attraction is the country's 1,500-mi/2,400-km coastline, which is replete with idyllic beaches, tropical islands, crumbling forts, fascinating architecture, a culture steeped in African and Arabic heritage, and delicious seafood.

The country is being rebuilt at a rapid pace. Developers have moved in with ambitious plans to build luxury vacation resorts and re-populate the national parks with wildlife. And Maputo, the nation's capital, is no longer a devastated shantytown, but a lively city that is on the upswing.

One symbol of this recovery is Maputo's Polana Hotel, once a majestic monument to grand colonial style. Allowed to decay after independence in 1975, the Polana has been restored and is now one of the most expensive hotels in Africa. It's the kind of place where arms dealers rub shoulders with World Bank financiers and Gucci-clad tourists tucking into champagne breakfasts.

Although the evidence of recovery is undeniable, the nation's game parks, whose animal populations were almost wiped out during the war (one game park was even used as a rebel base), are still far below the standards of those in neighboring countries, but infrastructure and accessibility are steadily improving, along with the size of wildlife herds. Construction of a Chinese-funded and directed national highway running the length of the country is well advanced and will further boost Mozambique's presence as a viable safari destination.

Geography

Almost twice the size of California, Mozambique is a large, elongated country covering an area of 309,495 sq mi/801,590 sq km. The country has lowlands near the coast, rising to high plateaus in the interior and, near the western border, mountains reaching as high as 7,925 ft/2,415 m.

Three of Africa's major rivers flow through the country—the Limpopo in the far south, the Zambezi in the center (pouring into the Indian Ocean south of Beira) and Rovuma along the northern border with Tanzania. The immense Rift Valley lake known to Malawians as Lake Malawi and to Mozambicans as Lago Niassa forms part of the border with Malawi.

A number of offshore islands haloed by magnificent white-sand beaches concentrate in two archipelagos: Quirimbas in the north, and Bazurato in the south.

History

Mozambique was first populated by Bantu-speaking people whose ancestors arrived in the first century AD. Arab traders set up posts along the coast, and in 1505, soon after explorer Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese made Mozambique their primary trade center on the eastern coast of Africa.

This Portuguese colony was one of the most exploited on the continent: Almost every resource was taken from Mozambique, and everything that its colonizers "contributed" was simply put into place to better serve them. After plundering the country for gold, ivory and slaves, the Portuguese virtually turned Mozambique over to private companies that made profits by controlling transportation routes to neighboring landlocked countries and providing cheap (often forced) African labor for the mines and plantations of nearby British colonies. Little attention was paid to the local economic infrastructure or the skills of the country's population.

With this legacy, the stirrings of resistance and the decades of fighting that followed were predictable. Following the shocking Mueda Massacre in 1960, in which Portuguese troops opened fire on peacefully protesting villagers, the independence movement quickly gained momentum. In 1962, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, known as Frelimo, was formed.

After more than a decade of civil war, Frelimo, led initially by the charismatic Eduardo Mondlane, finally succeeded in overthrowing the Portuguese regime. However, when the Portuguese suddenly abandoned the country in 1975, they did so without preparing Mozambique for the change. Frelimo became the new Mozambican government and decided to embrace socialism, establishing close ties with the Soviet Union. A sudden, rapid exodus of more than 300,000 white, mostly Portuguese, residents followed.

Frelimo's socialist leanings alarmed the white governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). In the late 1970s, the Rhodesian Special Branch founded Renamo (Mozambican National Resistance), a guerrilla organization designed to "destabilize" Mozambique.

After Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, Renamo was backed by South African Defense Force (SADF) and although it was never successful in overthrowing the government, it did destroy a tremendous number of roads, schools and telephone lines, and its soldiers killed more than 100,000 civilians in the process. The conflict evolved into a full-scale civil war (1977-1992) that killed as many as 1 million people.

Prompted by changing events in South Africa and the global collapse of socialism, Renamo and Frelimo signed a peace treaty in 1992, but by then the country's infrastructure was in tatters.

The rebuilding process got off to a good start: In 1994, the country held its first free elections in years. Frelimo won, securing 44% of the vote as opposed to Renamo's 38%. A free-market economy replaced the old socialist programs, and foreign aid has been generous, most notably considerable investment by China in recent years.

Nonetheless, in 2013 a resurgence of Renamo insurgency has led to sporadic localized violence in six central and northern provinces, and government forces have been implicated as the main aggressor in recent atrocities.

Discovery in 2011 of large gas fields off the coast promise to boost Mozambique's economy. But for all its evident regeneration, Mozambique remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Many of its modest successes have been negated by droughts, famine and floods.

If you go, you're likely to have an entire pristine beach to yourself. Visitors should be aware that there is still tension between political parties, and sometimes violent clashes occur, though rarely in touristic areas. Land mines and unexploded ordnance may still be present throughout the country, though it was declared "mine-free" in 2015.

Snapshot

Among Mozambique's chief attractions are beaches, African culture, quiet islands, Portuguese-style architecture and deep-sea fishing.

Mozambique will appeal to adventurous travelers who love beaches and African culture, who have experience traveling in developing nations and who have already visited some of Africa's more accessible countries. Outside of Maputo, do not expect service and sanitation standards to be very high (except in small enclaves such as the Bazaruto Archipelago, which has upscale lodgings).

Potpourri

Maputo's Polana Hotel was a favorite of British author Graham Greene, who used it as a setting in The Human Factor. Villa Algarve, another beautiful old building in Maputo, has a more sordid history: It was the headquarters of PIDE, the Portuguese secret police that terrorized Mozambique when it was a colony.

Fertilizer companies don't send their salespeople to Mozambique—the country's soil is so good that it rarely needs to be fertilized.

Joaquim Chissano, president of Mozambique from 1986 to 2005, was an ardent follower of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the former spiritual guru to the Beatles who died in February 2008. Chissano believes transcendental meditation helped end the civil war and the country's worst drought in a century.

More than 750,000 people were killed in the country's civil war, and the nation is still polarized by a political divide.

The main exports of the country are coal, bauxite, shrimp and cashew nuts.

When Mozambique's game parks were closed during the war, no one guarded the animals. As a result, many of them were slaughtered for their skins and horns. The white rhino can no longer be found in Mozambique.

Mozambique's first-ever Olympic gold medal was won by female track-and-field athlete Maria Mutola at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Known as the "Maputo Express," Mutola, who began her sporting career playing football on an all-boys team in shantytowns around Maputo, snared her victory in the 800 m sprint and raced her way into the hearts of her fellow countrymen. A street in Maputo was even renamed in her honor. Mutola held the 800 m African record from 1994 until June 2008, when her time was bettered by the young Kenya runner Pamela Jelimo.

In 1986, Samora Machel, the first president of independent Mozambique, died in an aircraft crash in South Africa. The official cause was pilot error, but many people believe that the error was induced by a decoy radio navigation beacon set in place by the apartheid government of South Africa.

In 1998, Graca Machel, wife of the late president Samora Machel, married Nelson Mandela, then the president of South Africa. She remains unique in having been the first lady of two different nations.