The Land Remembers
“LEELA AND GILLI HAVE HAD BABIES,” Jacqui says. “Leela and Gilli?” My brow arches. “No wait, Lolly and Gilli… let me check,” Jacqui, White Pearl Resorts’ Activities Manager, is ever diligent. “Yes please, it’s essential to get the names of the dolphins right,” I aver.
Rowdy winds have sabotaged my Ocean Safari, aimed at spotting whales and dolphins. The weather has been ghastly since I arrived at 11 pm at White Pearl Resorts when, incidentally, at check-in, a bottle of sparkling wine was popped, I was handed a champagne flute that my butler refilled across stretches of wooden way under arches of kissing trees, past a brilliant cobalt pool, to my pool-suite on stilts.
Day One. No Ocean Safari. I am dispatched instead to Ponta do Ouro where I whisk Domingos, my illustrious guide, to that wild wave-smashed point where Mozambique ends and South Africa begins for a spot of unscripted adventure: to stand with one foot in Mozambique and the other in South Africa. “Let’s go!” Domingos frets. “If South African Marine Patrol catches us, we’re in trouble and even bigger trouble if the tide suddenly walls us into the cliff!”
Day Two. No Ocean Safari. But White Pearl Resorts makes up with land safaris in Maputo Special Reserve, which turns out to be very special. Here’s jungle extraordinarily hemmed by lacy seas. This is the real Africa, with unvarnished roads undulating like camel humps
