Need more Flamingoes in your life? Head to Mozambique

The sky above is hot-pink and black, and it’s moving. Flapping, actually. I’m standing on a ridge of sand looking up as hundreds, maybe a thousand, flamingoes soar overhead en masse—a flamboyance it’s called. And flamboyant it is. My mouth is agape, my trigger finger jumping to action on the shutter-release button of my camera.

A moment before, all these fanciful fuchsia birds had been standing in the near distance, and I’d been trudging through shallow crystalline water and over undulating sand with my three-year-old daughter to get a closer look. Now, they show off their vibrant wingspans, beaks like arrow tips leading aerodynamic bodies to the same destination: a new patch of sand and water in which to graze. Again, we walk closer, with our Kisawa Sanctuary guide, Q, and after a bit they take off again. Rinse and repeat.

Had that been the sole mind-blowing experience of our week in Mozambique—orchestrated beautifully by the Africa- and family-travel experts at Stanley Safaris and split between two incredible resorts—I already would have been overjoyed. But there were more. For instance, the island-hopping cruise Stanley Safaris owner Shaun Stanley strongly encouraged us to take.

We boarded Santorini Mozambique’s Aphrodite catamaran and zoomed across supernatural East African waters through Bazaruto Archipelago National Marine Park—teeming with marine life including the Big Ocean Five (whales and dolphins, sharks and rays, sea turtles, dugongs, and bony fish)—for a deliciously fresh beach picnic paired with rosé, and the entire stretch of powdered sugar sand to ourselves.

There we found sand dollars, a crimson-flecked starfish so perfect my husband thought it was fake (planted there, he supposed, for our kids), and a special, rare dugong sighting—the cherry on top of a flawless day. We knew it was time to move on when the tide rose to meet our chairs, and we thought, Isn’t it amazing how far you have to travel these days to get a piece of the earth all to yourself? We felt privileged.

En route to the sustainable 300-hectare Benguerra Island retreat Kisawa Sanctuary, the hot African sun was shining, salty mist glistened on my face as the wind whipped my hair, and spinner dolphins jumped beside our boat in rainbow arcs, fins gleaming as they cut through the most surreal and saturated turquoise expanse.

In so many moments it felt as though I was dreaming, and yet I came to realize that Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago is not a mirage, but paradise found. It is the kind of natural beauty that cannot be done justice by a photograph. Yet that didn’t stop me from trying.

At both our resorts I had “this can’t be real” moments. First up was Santorini Mozambique, a beachfront property in the mainland town of Vilanculos built in the Greek island’s architectural style with pale-blue domes, all-white everything, and coastal decor featuring shells and driftwood. I couldn’t believe my eyes when our butler Alberto led us into our three-bedroom villa and I saw through the large living room to the infinity pool bleeding into an endless aqua seascape beyond.

We savored meals at our outdoor dining table served with butter into which Alberto etched sweet messages (he also hosted us for a lovely barbecue lunch in the veggie garden), had all the wine we could possibly imbibe in our kitchenette, and took in impeccable views of the islands. One morning I awoke in our giant bed and gazed out to an ocean that looked exactly like my baby’s eyes—pale blue with a deep sapphire bordering the horizon.

Santorini’s beach is composed of bright-orange sand that shines so magically with iridescent shells that at some points I was almost blinded by their light. The dramatic tides made for impeccable beach combing in the rippled sand and tide pools, as groups of young people trekked out to deeper water to hop boats and net small sardine-like fish at sea.

Meanwhile, my older daughter was in heaven with the toys delivered to our palapa, a small, open-air pavilion, and beanbag chairs alongside a cooler of chilled beverages—however a pair of kites provided us with the most thrills as we giggled, ran and tripped our way across cushiony sand flying them in the steady wind.

At Kisawa Sanctuary, my architect husband and I were both agog over our sprawling, wavy thatched–roof residence with a prized 360-degree panorama of white and cerulean, a separate pavilion for dining, a sand-hued bathtub and sinks with ripples that mimic the sand at low tide, and our own dune-top, ocean-view swimming pool that matched the Indian Ocean beyond.

Dubbed Cove 2, it’s one of just eight on the entire property and we swooned over and over: at the vintage wooden chairs collected across the continent; at the record player and throwback vinyl selection that put us in a mood for dancing; at the his-and-hers bathrooms, closets and even toilets; at the Moet Champagne on ice with globe-like coupes; and at the way sunrise-hued light passed through the Italian stained-glass triangles in our gargantuan wooden front doors and illuminated the living room early every morning.

Neima, our butler, had greeted us upon arrival and showed us around the property in our cute magenta Mini Moke, an open-sided electric go-kart of a vehicle that was a blast to drive—we even let our daughter steer in daddy’s lap, her first time “driving.” As we tooled around on the sand road we’d spot adorably tiny dik-dik gazelles feeding.

Then there’s the food. It felt like every abundant meal was its own event, set in one of the three unique restaurants or somewhere special, such as beneath a marula tree in the permaculture farm or even in our own cul-de-sac where one night the pizza tuk-tuk was set up—fairy lights, bar, dinner table and all—just for us, its oven blazing for the chef to cook bespoke pizzas for each of us under twinkling stars and a sliver of a moon upturned like a bowl.

There is enough to do at Kisawa Sanctuary to last a month—or more if you block out time to simply be. Under a periwinkle sky we fit in an ocean marine-life experience by boat, with a colorful snorkeling excursion that turned up a wondrously patterned six-foot-long honeycomb moray eel and a blue stingray, and a visit to the resort’s sister Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies, to learn about the incredible research projects taking place, ranging from plastic monitoring to whale behavioral studies. We didn’t actually see whales—of which there are four types including humpbacks migrating through this area—because they arrive around July to birth their calves and make their way south slowly throughout September.

Because even island time isn’t endless, I had to leave lots on my wish list, but fortunately found a moment for the Iyashi Dome treatment, combining an infrared sauna bed with an intuitive massage targeting my particular pain points and, just before departing, squeezed in a luscious candlelit sound bath in the transportive Natural Wellness Center.

The sanctuary is one of those all-inclusive places where the vibrantly dressed staff say, with a smile, “anything you want,” and where they use a word, mwamuka, from the local language, Quihoka, to ask not just how are you, but how are you really doing?

It was hard to leave our cocoon of quiet luxury, in a landscape that’s constantly shifting and redesigning itself so that every day is truly once in a lifetime. We waited until the very last minute to hop in our Mini Moke for the short last drive to the helipad. And in the blink of an eye, the time it took to buckle up, we were off, soaring like those flamingos above a dreamscape of shimmering, swirling azures and eggshells. The five-minute flight to the Vilanculos airport made me a bit envious of the birds, for they get to fly over this ephemeral environment every single day.

Photography by Kathryn Romeyn; 

santorinimozambique.com; 

kisawasanctuary.com;