With a map in one hand and a chilly beer in the opposite, I sat alone on the bar of the Baobab Beach Backpackers Lodge in the coastal city of Vilankulo, gazing out on the sweeping sandbars and vivid turquoise waters that encompass Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago. I’d deliberate to go away the next morning for Zimbabwe, and I used to be chatting with the bartender in regards to the logistics of my journey. Then, all of a sudden, a automotive’s headlights lit up the bar, and I noticed a well-recognized face heading towards me. I had a sense my plans have been about to alter.
I’d met Mandy Retzlaff a number of days earlier; she and her husband, Pat, former residents of Zimbabwe, are the founders of Mozambique Horse Safari, a family-run horseback safari firm that I’d had the pleasure of driving with in Vilankulo as a particular deal with for my birthday. My pal Alice and I had traveled some 200 miles from Tofo — a small coastal village well-known for its diving, snorkeling and whale shark sightings — for a trip with the corporate after we’d heard about their extraordinary story and the magnificent excursions they supplied.
On the morning of my birthday, Alice and I had loved an exhilarating trip at low tide alongside Vilankulo’s palm-tree lined seaside. Pat was our information, and his introductory phrases — “We’ll have to ride fast to reach the red dune before the tide comes in” — have been music to our ears.
Riding facet by facet atop spirited and exceptionally well-trained horses, we thundered over the white sand, pausing to present the horses a break earlier than cantering up the steep purple dune. From the highest of the dune, a palette of vivid blue hues stretched over the peeping sandbars towards the 5 islands of the Bazaruto Archipelago. Traditional dhow boats dotted the seascape. We watched as fishermen pulled in their nets and native girls carried their catch ashore.
A few days after our trip, whereas I used to be seated on the bar, Mandy drove to the Baobab Lodge to ask if I’d have an interest in serving to run their horse program on close by Benguerra Island for a number of weeks due to an surprising employees scarcity. Promptly abandoning my plans to journey to Zimbabwe, I discovered myself on a ship heading out to an island paradise.
About eight miles from the mainland, Benguerra Island — the second largest island of the Bazaruto Archipelago — is a scuba-diving haven that’s well-known for its white-sand seashores and luxurious resorts. Though their primary herd of over 40 horses relies in Vilankulo, Mozambique Horse Safari additionally maintains an outpost of six horses on Benguerra, the place they cater to the friends of the unique resorts.
During the weeks I spent on Benguerra Island, I obtained to know the horses below my care. Their histories have been chronicled in Mandy’s memoir, “One Hundred and Four Horses: A Memoir of Farm and Family, Africa and Exile,” which tells the exceptional story of a farming household’s devotion to their animals — together with their journey throughout Zimbabwe to Mozambique, with 104 rescued horses.
In 2001, Mandy and Pat acquired a letter informing them that they’d should vacate their farm in Zimbabwe; it now not belonged to them. As a part of then-President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reform insurance policies, the household was amongst these pressured to go away their houses. Determined to not abandon their beloved animals, and agreeing to take in animals from different displaced farm homeowners, the Retzlaffs moved from one place to the following with an ever-growing herd, finally reaching the border of Mozambique.
As evictions continued, it turned more and more troublesome to maintain their horses in Zimbabwe, so the Retzlaffs determined to cross the border into Mozambique. “As Mozambique was opening up after a civil war and people were looking to invest in the country, it seemed like a good idea to move the herd there and start a new life,” Mandy defined. “We had no idea of the difficulties we were going to face, but it seemed like freedom.”
After a protracted and difficult journey into Mozambique, the couple created a horse-riding outfit to assist pay for the maintenance of their exiled herd. In 2006, Pat, who comes from a protracted line of horse lovers, headed to Vilankulo with six of the horses and began organizing seaside rides — and so the horse safari was born.
The enterprise had began to take off when Cyclone Favio hit Vilankulo in February 2007, inflicting widespread destruction and bringing tourism to a standstill. Three years later, in 2010, half of Mandy and Pat’s herd died after ingesting Crotalaria crops, that are lethal to horses and had grown in abundance close to the lakes the place they grazed the animals. The pandemic has been one other main setback.
Despite the challenges, Mozambique Horse Safari affords spectacular horseback driving adventures, attracting vacationers and vacationers who’re desperate to discover one of many world’s most stunning coastal areas.
On Benguerra Island, I shifted gears from vacationer to path information, and spent my days main rides alongside the island’s untouched seashores, wandering via its diversified landscapes and waterways with friends from everywhere in the world. In the evenings, I took the horses into the ocean to wallow and swim because the solar set, one thing they appeared to take pleasure in as a lot as I did.
A horse named Tequila rapidly turned my favourite. A charming and mischievous character, he was despatched to the island after orchestrating a number of escapes on the mainland: He realized take away the halters from different horses, Mandy defined, and would collect them up and head towards Zimbabwe. “It became tiresome,” she added, “so he was dispatched to the island where he now rules the roost.”
I additionally turned very keen on a candy however temperamental mare referred to as Princess who was rescued by the Retzlaffs after struggling a horrible harm from a bullet wound via her withers, the best a part of a horse’s again. “It took years to heal her,” Mandy stated.
The Retzlaffs’ dedication and affection for his or her horses resonated deeply with me and is a supply of inspiration. “When you take on the responsibility of caring for animals, there is no turning back,” Mandy instructed me. “They rely on you for everything. Our horses were saved — and, in the end, they saved us.”
“They provided a family of refugees with a living,” she added. “Every day is a happy day surrounded by my horses.”
Claire Thomas is a British photographer and photojournalist who focuses on battle, humanitarian and environmental crises and social points. You can observe her work on Instagram and Twitter.
