Cyclists travel the Park

2005/10/25

A trip of cyclists that moved about 200 tourists during four successive days had the privilege of waking up thousands of established people in the National Park of Limpopo for the new reality of tourism that, this way, it is practically thrown, in this conservation area, integrated in the regional project of the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park.

This event was promoted with the objective of publishing the route of the Park, in a leaning initiative for Wilderness Safaris. The resulting funds of this expedition will support the children in South Africa and the other part will be reverted in favor of the Park. The Administrator of the Park describes the cyclists' trip as an expedition of discoveries, so that these excursionists will bring inputs on the product that the Park supplies in this rout.

The established communities' activities in the heart of the Park, has implication in the tourist product. Though, the presence of the population inside of the Park it won't create direct implication in the tourist activity. The tourists who come to the Park they make it with conscience that there exist population inside it. In fact, in this phase, the presence of the human population inside of the Park can be one more tourist attractive, because the tourists will go by some villages and talk with them.

Relatively to the estimates on visitors that can frequent NPL, the Administrator prefers to wait and see the tendency of tourists' flow: "Probably in the first months we will not have a considerable number of tourists to come and pass some days in the Park. Maybe for the next year or for the following two years, when great reasons will be created for the personnel to be on this side, especially with the improvement of the attractive in the lagoon of Massingir. The other attractive is the fauna. But we can take a risk saying that by the first years we can have about 100 thousand tourists passing through the Park, because many of them will use the position border of Giriyondo to arrive at Bilene, and they will use the position border of Phafuri to arrive at Inhambane, and those tourists will be counted”, said the Administrator.

In relation to the national ones, the main access for NPL is the entrance of Massingir, taking in account that many of them will be coming from Maputo and other areas of the Country, entering through Macia and Chókwe and from there to Massingir. There must be a fee payment position in Massingir. The other entrance beside Mozambique will be in Mapai, for tourists that enter through Chicualacuala, Mabalane and still for foreign tourists that enter starting from the frontier position of Pafuri.