African Community Tourist Projects

LUSHOTO
Lushoto, about six hours north of Dar, a richly-forested, highland town founded by German colonialists as an idyllic summer refuge from the heat. It’s a comparatively affluent and tranquil town with elegant old lodges set in the hills where you can stay for about €15 in retro splendour.

It has become a base for hikers and botanists with three separate community tourism agencies offering hikes, village tours, flora & fauna hunts and forest picnics for roughly €12 a day - about a third of which goes to community development programmes.

The best known trails lead one along the precipice of a high escarpment overlooking the sweeping Maasai plains that run northwards to Kenya and beyond. One can walk for days in the gently-sloped hills staying in local guesthouses. It’s one of the few places in Africa where it’s safe and easy enough to walk without a guide, although having one with you invariably enriches the experience. Lushoto is a place you will want to spend longer in than planned.

Staying in Lushoto town is most practical, but to get the real flavour of the place it’s worth lodging in one of the surrounding farms. Irente Farm Biodiversity Reserve is run by the Swedish Lutheran Church, with a range of fruit farming and dairy projects to aid the local community, and cottage accommodation for guests, including wonderful meals based around their homemade jams, juices, rye bread, vegetables, yoghurt and cheese.

Amani Nature Reserve
From Lushoto, head to Amani Nature Reserve, which is not far as the crow flies but one needs to get a bus down to the Maasai plains and right around the Usumbara Mountains to access it. It is a vast tract of mountainous wilderness that was set aside by the Germans a century ago and is now protected from hunters, loggers and exploiters.

Like the Galapogos up a mountain, it’s an exotic realm of pristine old-growth high-montane forest, with a quarter of the species rare and endemic.

Guided walks and night safaris reveal a range of monkeys, sunbirds, eagle owls, chameleons and tree frogs.

A day-long walk costs about €16 – with 20% going to the community, 20% to conservation and the rest to the guide. The area has been preserved primarily by the 18 surrounding villages, and your fees help support them.

Accommodation is in government lodges, nestled deep in the forest – cosy places with clean sheets and hot showers for €12 a night, including home-grown meals of vegetables, chicken and lentils.

PANGANI
While you’re near the Armani Reserve, consider heading out to the beach at Pangani. If this is you’re first trip to Tanzania, you’ll want to visit Zanzibar, but if you’ve already seen it, try Pangani instead, a dilapidated Swahili dhow port with great snorkelling and few tourists. Stay in the seaside chalets of Peponi Holiday Resort. www.peponiresort.com, and, again, if you want guided tours or dhow trips which benefit local community projects contact the Pangani Cultural Tourism Programme.

MOROGORO
Morogoro, about 4 hours from Dar Es Salaam, at the gateway to the Uluguru Mountains. It’s another prime hiking, strolling, rock-climbing area with a pleasant temporal climate, and trails through verdant, pastoral landscape and richly-forested mountains. Chilunga Cultural Tourism can organise visits to local tribes, dance ceremonies, cooking demonstrations and multi-day hikes, again with a percentage of their profits going to the community.

Flights
Kenya Airways: London – Dar Es Salaam RTN €710. London -Nairobi RTN €610.
Ethiopian Airlines: London - Dar Es Salaam RTN €594

Mozambique Community Tourism projects
Tsakane ka Madjadjane in the heart of Reserva Especial de Maputo, a vast elephant reserve on a stretch of coastal wilderness 2 hours south of Maputo, offers community walks and tours of local village life with accommodation in well-built thatch cottages. The project was established with great éclat by a Dutch NGO, but has since failed to thrive because of lack of visitors.

The second offering is Covane Community Lodge (covanelodge.com) on Mozambique’s sweltering, arid western border with South Africa. It was established by the Swiss agency Helvetas to support the local tribe and offers beautiful chalets amidst savannah scrub above an enormous river overlooking Limpopo National Park. They provide game-watching in the national park, traditional Shangaan dances, fishing trips with tribal fishermen, herb collecting trips with healers and cultural tours, but again lack of tourists has caused everything to atrophy a bit. If you wish to support them, and don’t mind a dose of Fawlty Towers, take an 8 hour bus ride from Maputo to the frontier town of Massingir where someone will come fetch you and bring you out to the remote lodge.

Note on flights and travel

Dublin to Mozambique via London and Nairobi, Jo’burg or, Addis from €800 kenya-airways.com, flysaa.com, ethiopianairlines.com or (Ethiopian Airlines Irish agent: ethiopian@premair.ie 01-6633938)
Flights to Inhambane (near Tofo) from Maputo or Johannesburg available from LAM (Mozambique Airlines).