5 nights in Mozambique at Azura Benguerra

My wife and I spent 5 nights at Azura Benguerra Island as the third stop of our 3 stop honeymoon in South Africa/Mozambique. We knew we wanted to have some time to relax and enjoy time together after waking up early for game drives for 5 mornings straight. We initially considered venturing to the Seychelles, but after realizing how difficult transiting would be for that, we decided we’d visit the beach in Mozambique which was just a 1 hour and 20 minute commercial flight from Kruger airport (MQP). Azura is one of just three resorts on the island (the others being &Beyond and Kisawa). Although we had a couple of small complaints about the stay and the weather didn’t cooperate for 2 of our 5 days on property, we really ended up enjoying our time on the island and at Azura.

We arrived at Vilanculos airport (VNX) and we were greeted by a Wildlife Helicopters representative who took us to an extremely small lounge and offered us water. After waiting for about 20 minutes we were told we could board our 10 minute helicopter flight to Benguerra island. We were joined by another couple for the ride. Upon landing we were escorted by Azura staff members on foot to the main welcome reception area. We were greeted by a view of the Indian Ocean and the beach at Azura (which is extremely large when the tide goes out during the day). We met with a staff member who gave us a briefing on the ins and outs of the property and had us fill out some paperwork. We also met our host Agostinho who ended up being one of the biggest highlights of our stay. He did an excellent job.

We were in an infinity beach villa (#12). The villa included a king bed, couch, desk, double vanity, indoor rain shower, soaking tub, outdoor shower (with two shower heads), outdoor deck area, private pool, and a daybed with a tiki hut roof right near the water. Azura is an eco-luxury resort that aims to blend into its surroundings as opposed to have the stark, modern look that many beach resorts have. The room was very comfortable and spacious, albeit a bit rustic. You could see wear and tear in certain areas of the villa, but nothing that would hinder us from enjoying our stay.

Lead by our host Agostinho, Azura really shined in the area of service. Like the other lodges we visited in Africa on this trip, the service was not rigid or formal, but instead it was warm and you could feel the sense of pride that the staff members had with hosting international guests in their home country. Agostinho was very helpful and responsive with requests (most of which involved meals or snacks). Birgette, the resorts guest anchor was very responsive via WhatsApp for other requests like activities, spa treatments, or other general inquiries. We enjoyed being able to utilize WhatsApp for requests to limit confusion. During our stay we had 2 days of bad weather which limited our outdoor time. There was on and off rain and quite heavy winds, so nearly all of the activities were not available on these days. We wish that the staff had done a better job overall of communicating what activities could potentially be available given the weather, rather than asking us to pick from an the activities list and then telling us one by one that none of the ones we wanted to do were available due to weather. We totally understood that the weather would impact our ability to do some activities, we just wish they might have communicated a bit better in terms of what would be or could potentially be available as they continued to assess the weather.

Azura is a place that one can easily do nearly nothing. Given that each villa has a daybed, a private pool, and the water is directly in front of all of the rooms, it can be easy to just kick back and do nothing. We enjoyed our downtime, but their offering of activities is pretty entertaining and they are all priced reasonably. Due to weather, we actually didn’t partake in every activity we hoped to, but we did do the island drive, snorkeling, the visit to paradise island, and we spent one afternoon at their Peri Peri Beach Club.

The island drive is an activity that is offered complimentary as a part of every stay and I’d encourage everyone to do it. You drive around the island for about 2 hours, getting to see various villages and the school and clinic that Azura and &Beyond have built over the years for the community. You can see the positive impact that tourism has on the life of the inhabitants of the island. A highlight of the island drive is seeing the 3 freshwater lakes on the island (home to many crocodiles apparently, we didn’t see any) and also getting to ascend a massive sand dune to get a beautiful view overlooking the entire island. It was nice to learn a little bit about the island we were visiting.

We have only snorkeled once before and it was in a location with a limited amount of marine life. Johnny was a great host for our snorkeling trip which took us on a boat out to 2-mile reef. The marine life was teeming with colorful coral everywhere and hundreds of fish in plain sight. We saw a couple of sting rays and 2 reef sharks were cool for us snorkeling novices to see.

We also partook in the tour of Paradise Island. Eric was a great host for our visit to Paradise Island which we did with two other couples. This is an abandoned island which is a 45 minute boat ride from Azura. There is an abandoned hotel which closed down in the 1970’s on the island called Hotel Santa Carolina. The excursion included snorkeling upon arriving at the island, we got to see stingrays, a turtle, and Mozambican crawfish (which looked like massive lobsters) among many other fish which were extremely abundant. The coral was all colorful and vibrant. After snorkeling, we toured the abandon hotel, it was pretty cool to imagine how things used to look when it was still operational. Finally, we got to have a picnic lunch under an umbrella that another Azura staff member had set up for each of the couple, spaced out along the beach. It was a very special way to end an awesome outing.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays, they open their Peri Peri Beach Club which is about a half mile walk down the beach from the resort. It’s a great space to just relax, eat lunch, and have drinks at the bar. There’s a small pool at the beach club, it wasn’t heated, so it was very cold and not worth much more than to quickly jump into. We enjoyed getting to chat with some other couples in this setting, rather than just being bound to the daybeds at our rooms. We wish the Peri Peri Beach Club had been open more during our stay, I think we would have gone daily had it been open.

The food at Azura was overall very good. It was not elevated, fine dining by any means, but the meals were tasty and well crafted, with enough variety to avoid repeating dishes during our 5 night stay. If I had to choose, I would say that breakfast was the weakest meal offered at the resort. We tried 2 of their Mozambican breakfast dishes and were pretty underwhelmed. We also tried western dishes like the English breakfast. I found this to be the best dish, so I ended up ordering it for a couple of days straight. An incredibly personal touch for every breakfast was that our host would carve a personalized image using a toothpick into the butter in a dish which accompanied the bread and muffins that came with breakfast.

Lunches followed a menu of: small bites, salad bar, from the sea, from the grill. The highlights for us were the peri peri half chicken, the prawn skewers, and the blue swimmer crab penne pasta. I have a large appetite, so I always ordered both entrees and thoroughly enjoyed nearly all of the lunch dishes. We also got to have lunch at the Peri Peri Beach Club where they served custom pizzas for lunch. The food isn’t perfect, but this isn’t intended to be a fine dining experience. The chef produces tasty meals using a wide variety of flavors and protein sources.

All meals are served in the main restaurant, but we got to enjoy two of our dinners in a private setup directly outside of our villa which was very romantic for us. The dinner menu followed an organization of: starter, soup, then a choice of 2 main dishes, plus dessert. Our favorite dinners entrees we tried were the fried breaded chicken, the calamari steak, and the prawns with coconut rice. I always ordered both entrees, so I got to receive a full sampling of what the chef was preparing and enjoyed all of the meals to varying degrees.

Benguerra island is directly adjacent to Bazaruto Island, a handful of miles off the coast of Mozambique. Azura is on the northwest side of the island, located next door to the &Beyond Benguerra Resort. The two properties share a beautiful stretch of beach that has many sand bars and very shallow water even during high tide, allowing guests to walk very far out. The weather was very good for 3 of our 5 days at the property, hovering around 75 degrees Fahrenheit basically all day long. It really is a gorgeous place to just sit back and enjoy the sound of the waves and soak up the sun.

The resort is pretty straight forward, consisting of the welcome desk and reception area, a small boutique, the main restaurant, the 20 villas lining the beach, and a spa. My wife and I received 2 spa treatments each while we were on the island. We first tried out the African Bliss treatment which included a foot scrub, full body massage, and a head massage. We also received a full body scrub and African mud wrap. Both of the treatments were performed very well, we just wished that the spa had some relaxing music to play during our treatments to allow us to settle in even more and really get the most out of our treatments. There aren’t any other facilities at the resort beyond the spa, so the property does not have a gym. I performed my own workouts in our room and also made use of the huge stretch beach and ran 5 miles daily (I was hoping to run all the way to Kisawa to see how things looked there, but decided to turn back).

All in all, we briefly had to come back to reality following an unbelievable stay at Londolozi Tree Camp in the Sabi Sands where we were absolutely spoiled, but Azura Benguerra really delivered as an excellent beach extension to our safari honeymoon. We enjoyed our time relaxing by the beach, but also loved our opportunities to get out and explore the island and it’s surroundings a bit. The food was good and the hospitality was warm and genuine. We were happy to finish off our honeymoon with a stay at this property!