Nkwichi Lodge is a six-chalet (14 bed) eco-tourism lodge on the shores of Lake Niassa. The lodge is located in 1600 acres (650 hectares) of untouched wilderness, which forms part of the Manda Wilderness Community Nature Reserve.

The Manda Wilderness Project was first established in 1999 on a 100,000 hectare site on the eastern shores of Lake Niassa. With three components – responsible tourism, conservation, and community – the project has demonstrated that responsible tourism can benefit local communities. In this case, 14 local communities directly benefit (through wages or selling products and services to the lodge) from Nkwichi’s growing popularity.

ACCOMMODATION:
Each of Nkwichi Lodge’s spacious open-plan chalets look out onto individual white sand beaches. Each chalet is unique and has been designed to blend in with the surroundings and to cause minimal impact on the environment.

The central feature in each chalet is the enormous, sturdy 4-poster bed, made of old tree trunks and covered in a beautifully crafted white mosquito net. The sheets are freshly pressed as are your beach and bathrooms towels. Alongside bedside tables with flowers are carefully arranged by the lodge’s staff. In the evenings there are electric lights in each room tastefully decorated with local lampshades.

Each chalet has its own en-suite bathroom, which has been cleverly designed so that guests can bathe outside under the tree canopy in complete privacy. All of the bathrooms have showers hung from overhanging branches with hot and cold running water. A few of them have bathtubs so that guests can lie back and relax as the sun goes down around them.

Out in front of the chalets is a veranda covered with a thatched roof to shade guests from the midday sun. Guests can either sit in the comfortable armchairs or swing gently in a hammock reading a book or taking a siesta.

ACTIVITIES:
Nkwichi Lodge offers a wide variety of activities such as canoeing, guided bush walks, birds and wildlife watching, snorkelling, surfing, and kite flying. Alternatively, guests are welcome to simply relax in a hammock and read. The lodge can also arrange fully equipped and catered sailing, canoeing or portered walking safaris of up to 12 nights in the wilderness. Walking and canoeing/sailing trips can be combined, enabling guests to experience a wide variety of the region’s fauna and flora. More activity information is available on the lodge’s website.

COMMUNITY PROGRAMS:
The Manda Wilderness Project helps the communities in many ways:

- Manda Wilderness buys all construction material locally.
- The company is the largest employer in the Province.
- All staff are from the surrounding area.
- Manda Wilderness arranges funds for community development projects (on the condition that the communities contribute to the project through free labour.)
- Manda Wilderness works closely with the community and involves them is all decision-making.

Examples of community projects include:

MALA VILLAGE
A school has been built with funds from UK churches and schools.
COBUE TOWN
Funds have been raised through the German Embassy in Maputo, to pay for a maize mill and a building for the mill. Funds are also available for the construction of a well. Work is already underway and it is hoped that this project will be soon finished.

MANDAMBUZI
Funds have been raised through schools in London to pay for the construction materials for a new school. The Governor of Niassa donated a roof and the community have made bricks. Manda Wilderness used the funds to buy cement and to pay for professional builders.

AGRICULTURE
Manda Wilderness has a volunteer, Nadia Bowes, who works with five communities to improve and diversify their agricultural and horticultural production, in a project, which is funded by the Irish government and individual donors. She has resources to buy 2 oil presses for early next year and is busy encouraging people to plant oil producing plants.

UCA
Manda Wilderness works closely with a local NGO, UCA, to mobilize, train and to generally organize the village development committees, which have been set up in each community. Funds have been raised through the Irish Aid office in Lichinga to pay for this project.

RATES:
Nkwichi’s 2005 prices are as follows for full board accommodation:

Per couple sharing US$230
Per single person US$120

This includes all meals, daily activities and overnight safaris (trekking or canoeing). Special group & off peak rates available.

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