Mafia Island
While Zanzibar has started to bloom as a tourist resort, Mafia Island lying only 160km south, remains virtually unknown.
Despite the name ‘Mafia Island’, it is one of the safest places in the Indian Ocean and there are no hustlers to spoil a holiday.
The Mafia Islands are scattered over the Indian Ocean 21km off the Rufiji sandbars. Mafia Island is approximately 50km long by 15km across and is surrounded by a barrier reef swarming with marine life of which 822km² has been made a marine park by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Natural vegetation on Mafia ranges for tidal mangrove thickets and scrubby coastal moorlands to palm-wooded grassland and lowland rainforest.
While Mafia makes an ideal holiday for people interested in nature and outdoor activities, it’s a big attraction for many visitors is that it remains locked in a time warp of the early 20th century.
The population of the Archipelago currently estimated to be around 40,000, living in rustic fishing communities and farming villages dotted all over Mafia and the smaller in-shore islands. The majority are Muslim but there are many Christians, Voodoo also manifests itself in ritual dances linked to the lunar cycle.
|
 |
