Mozambique’s Polana Hotel

It’s expensive, but then it does claim to be the best hotel in Moambique. Jackie Nel put that claim to the test; Patrick Wagner took the photos.

When President Mandela visited Moambique at the end of July he stayed in a guesthouse belonging to Moambican president Joaquim Chissano while most of his entourage stayed at the Polana. Possibly security considerations made it unwise for the South African president to stay at a hotel, but I can’t help thinking he got the short end of the stick.

There aren’t too many places like the Polana left in Africa. Call it overpriced, call it a throwback from colonial times, call it a place where anyone who considers himself a new South African has no right to be, call it what you like, but you can’t deny the fact that it’s the best hotel in Moambique.

In a city where facilities for holidaymakers are sadly lacking the gracious Polana is a beacon of hope, and makes one of the few positive statements about the tourism potential of the country.

Granted, Moambique is recovering from years of civil war and tourism has had to take a back seat, but with the country’s first multiparty elections next month, prospects are looking up.

On my first day at the Polana I headed promptly for its most distinguishing feature – the huge, sparkling swimming pool – to absorb the sun and the atmosphere and observe the other guests, most of whom arrived in uniforms, stripped down to bathing costumes, then stretched out on comfortable chaise longues and began chattering away in a variety of languages.

A French group kept the waiters busy fetching beers and cool drinks; a Norwegian group ordered healthy platters of open sandwiches and croissants; a Portuguese pair enjoyed a lively conversation; an Italian threesome read glossy magazines; an American aid worker sipped a glass of South African wine; a Nigerian group walked past in flowing traditional robes; while a Chinese man swam a patient breaststroke up and down the pool all afternoon.

The scene resembled a veritable gathering of the nations which in a way it was: during the week we were in Maputo so were about 6 000 UN personnel, overseeing demobilisation and a smooth transition to democracy. It was an exciting time to be in Moambique and nowhere was the excitement more apparent than at the Polana.

There’s a saying that if you sit around the Polana for long enough you’ll eventually see everyone who’s anyone in Maputo and certainly as the sun sank below the imposing colonial faade still more visitors began appearing on the terrace for teas and sundowners. Inside, the coffee shop was also filling up with official-looking and casual people, all deep in earnest conversation, until every available seat was taken and the guests overflowed into the comfortably furnished lobby.

Much as I’d have loved to lounge around the Polana’s lounges, pool, pool bar, coffee shop, and gardens all week, meeting people from around the world, colleague Patrick Wagner and I had other stories to research so the Polana was pretty much a base. But what a pretty base it was, and we did experience enough of the hotel to ascertain that it well deserves its five stars.

Just one example of the hotel’s efficiency is the so-called locater service: you’re supplied with a note pad on which you write down your name and room number, tick off where you’ll be, then leave it with the hall porter. If anyone calls or visits the porter will send someone to find you.

The places you can tick off give some idea of the facilities at the Polana: lounge, caf, outside terrace, Terrace Restaurant, cocktail bar, grill, Aquarius Bar, pool area, sauna and convention centre.

The locater pad overlooks a few other places, such as the various shops in the hotel: there’s a hair designer, bank, tourism agency and tabaaria where you can get books, magazines, postcards, sweets, toiletries, cigarettes and Portuguese phrase books.

There’s also a Hertz car-hire agency and an art shop for expensive but truly beautiful works of art from local artists.

Just outside the Polana gates you can banter and bargain with vendors for more informal but no less delightful crafts: everything from colourful batiks and paintings to hand-carved statues and miniature 4×4 replicas in wood.

The 4x4s are a fairly recent development among the Moambican vendors but it’s quite clear where the idea has come from. About half the traffic on the streets and certainly most of the Polana carpark is made up of ‘Unomoz’-registered 4x4s, although there was also a pleasing sprinkling of ND and T-registered cars.As I studied the smart vehicles and their international registrations I was struck by the contrast they presented with a more typical Third-World vehicle just outside the gates: a rickety wooden cart full of bananas being hauled by a straining man.

The service at the Polana is outstanding. This is apparent even before you enter, when doorman Albino bids you a pleasant day or stay. Albino boasts a wonderful collection of badges and flags from around the world pinned to his hat and the lapels of his dark grey suit; my personal favourite was a badge that read, ‘I’m not a tourist, I live here.’

Once inside the Polana check-in formalities are soothed by the handing over of a flute of champagne and orange juice as you sign your name, then you’re ushered to your room or suite.

My suite, I observed with pleasure, was next door to the presidential suite. Amenities included a lounge with comfortable sofas, writing desk, vase of fresh roses and cabinet containing tea and coffee ingredients, remote-control television and fully stocked mini-bar; wide furnished balcony overlooking the pool and bay beyond; bedroom with double bed, dressing table, full-length mirror, ample cupboard space, air conditioning and another television; and a most luxurious bathroom with clean white tiles, marble basin, large mirrors, another vase of fresh roses, plenty of towels, a tray of lotions and potions in elegant bottles (there was even cologne) and a pair of fluffy white towelling robes with the green-and-gold Polana logo embroidered thereon.

There were telephones in the lounge, bedroom and bathroom, but resist the temptation to phone home: calls to South Africa cost US$8 a minute and there’s a minimum charge of three minutes. So even if you phone someone and say, “Please phone me back; I’m at the Polana Hotel in Maputo. the number is (09258-1) 49-1001″ you’ll be paying US$24 – or nearly R88!

The steep costs can perhaps be explained by the fact that Maputo doesn’t have the world’s most sophisticated telecommunications network. In fact, there are just four telephones per 1000 people, compared with 158 (excluding cellular phones) per 1000 in South Africa.

We were fortunate to be shown around the elegantly decorated presidential suite, which comes complete with a separate suite for a secretary or bodyguard.

Besides the 131 rooms and suites in the four-storey main building there are 66 rooms in the Polana Mar section, which is separated from the main building by the swimming pool. “Every room has television, mini-bar, hot and cold water, air conditioning and balconies, although yes, the Polana Mar rooms are more basic,” agreed front-office manager Depinder Samrow, known as Sam.

On a previous visit to Maputo I stayed in the Polana Mar section – when it was literally being built around me – and must say I preferred staying in the main building. One off-putting aspect of the Polana Mar is the long, dark-floored, low-ceilinged corridors you have to trek through to reach your room. As Sam says, “Some people call it the bunkers.”

The upside is that it is more affordable.

“It’s the budget accommodation,” agrees Sam. “The UN and World Bank people who are here for extended periods usually stay in this section.”

There are plans to convert one of the rooms in the Polana Mar into a glamorous honeymoon suite, complete with huge windows offering wraparound views over the bay. At present, the room is being used as the chefs’ canteen.

Which brings us to the cuisine. The Polana’s catering also deserv
e five stars and must rate among Moambique’s finest. There’s a choice of three restaurants: the caf or coffee shop (the place to be seen in Maputo), the informal Terrace Restaurant and the elegant, candlelit, silver-laden dining room.

Meals are la carte or buffet. Breakfast (pequeno almoo) is a lavish affair, from sumo de laranja natural (fresh orange juice) to ovos sua escolha (eggs of your choice) – with a full range of fruits, cereals, breads, pastries, preserves, hams and cheeses to go with it – and a champagne breakfast on Sundays. If you do any sort of justice to the breakfast buffets you’re guaranteed not to need lunch, but if you are peckish at midday the light meals served around the pool or the selection of freshly-baked pastries at the coffee shop are recommended.

A gastronomic programme is offered in the evenings: Italian dishes on Monday, candlelight romantic dinners on Wednesday, a ‘touch of Portugal’ on Friday and a fisherman’s buffet on Saturday.

The seafood (mariscos) is a traditional Moambique highlight, and whether your tastes run to peixe do dia (fresh linefish), camaro grelhado (grilled prawns) or lagosta (crayfish), you won’t be disappointed.

Bife and frango (beef and chicken) eaters will also find more than enough to satisfy their appetites.

The menus in the Polana are happily bilingual but if you venture away from the hallowed halls of the hotel you may well end up at a destination where the menu is Portuguese only. At least the above will help as pointers to what you should order.

The cocktail list in the Polana is another highlight with special drinks from round the world and snacks of cashews and, during happy hours, hot canapes to go with them. If you do enjoy the odd drink happy hours on Mondays and Thursdays are recommended, since drinks at the Polana are not cheap. Beers which cost US$1 (R3,65) everywhere else cost US$3 (almost R11) at the hotel.

Whether you want to keep up with international affairs or simply take in a movie or two, Moambique is not a country that springs to mind as being a frontrunner in the area of arts and entertainment.At the Polana however, you can at least keep up to date with world affairs. There’s a choice of international magazines at the tobacconist (about the only place in Moambique to get Getaway), The Star and Business Day are flown in daily by Metavia Airlines and at breakfast you’re given a copy of Timesfax, so you can digest world news courtesy of the New York Times with your muesli and ovos.

That’s not all. The Polana has a choice of channels from CNN, BBC and M-Net to in-house movies; the week we were there they acquired two more satellite dishes and even got switched onto TV1, which some might consider a mixed blessing.

I tuned into early-morning television, flicking between ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and the D-Day 50th anniversary celebrations in Normandy, trying to decide who was worse: Hannibal Lecter or Bill Clinton. Another form of entertainment – or possibly education – is the two-hour city tour offered on Saturday mornings.

By the weekend the entire character of the Polana had changed, with an influx of South African visitors on a package tour. They flew in on the Friday night and by the Saturday morning appeared to have taken over the hotel; they even outnumbered the UN people.

I joined the South Africans on the large hotel bus for the city tour, armed with an itinerrio that one of the staff had kindly given me. Unfortunately it was in Portuguese only but I could make out some of the names: Costa do Sol (although our tour didn’t go there); Artedif (where high-quality artworks made by handicapped people are sold); and the mercado da baixa (downtown market). The prices quoted by the vendors were steeper than I remembered; no doubt they’re substantially raised when potential customers appear off a large tourist bus.

Ferry trips to Inhaca Island, 24 kilometres from the mainland, were offered on the Sunday but all the South Africans spent the day relaxing round the pool.

“Maybe if this had been a 10-day package we’d have gone to Inhaca,” explained one man. “But it’s only two days so we want to make the most of the Polana. It’s a beautiful hotel.”

Indeed it is. Its architecture is reminiscent of Cape Town’s Mount Nelson Hotel, and it offers a similarly winning blend of luxury, history, unhurried hospitality and colonial charm. Since 1990 it’s been managed by the South African-based Karos group which also runs the Indaba, Wilderness and Mont-aux-Sources hotels, and carried out extensive renovations on the Polana.

However, it’s very much a colonial oasis in a Third-World city – although in the better part, where the embassies and ambassadorial residences are found. Even this stately, dignified old hotel is not immune to the problems that frequently beset such a city.

One evening, for example, I returned to my room to find a letter from management advising of a “ruptura da bomba de agua”. The ‘bomba’ part caused a moment’s anxiety until I read the English translation and realised the management were warning that the main pump of the Maputo Water Supply Company had ruptured; guests were being asked to save water to avert full water rations.

Despite the odd problem resulting more from its location than any fault with service or standards, the Polana, in the words of one of its brochures, offers “a combination of elegance and ease that has created a certain mystique over the years.” I can’t put it any better.