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Covane Fishing & Safari Lodge provides accommodation and camping facilities for adventure travelers and backpackers, and is a good over-night stop for people travelling between the Mozambique coast and South Africa's northern provinces. Houseboats on the Massingir Dam provide ideal accommodation for self-catering holidays or fishing trips.
For those looking for access to the Massingir Dam, it is an ideal destination for Tiger fishermen. The Massingir Dam, with a 5km wide wall, stretches 20kms into the Elefantes Gorge, and can be explored by boat all the way up to the South African border with the Kruger National Park. Travel up the Gorge for boat-based game watching to see pods of hippo and crocodile as well as an extraordinary array of birds. Covane Fishing & Safari Lodge is owned by the local Canhane Community and is commercially managed by Barra Resorts. Covane Fishing & Safari Lodge was originally established with the support of Helvetas, a Swiss NGO, which was subsequently been taken over by Lupa, a Mozambique-based NGO.
Under new management, and with additional financing, the Covane Fishing & Safari Lodge is currently being transformed into a 3 star lodge through an innovative and transparent process between the Canhane community and private investors.
HISTORY OF THE CANHANE COMMUNITY AND THE NAME 'COVANE'
Situated in the Canhane Village, the Lodge was originally called the Covane Community Lodge. With the redevelopment plans, a decision was made to rename the Lodge to better explain totravellers what they would experience at the Lodge. In deciding to keep the name 'Covane' the community explained the significance of
Covane:
Apparently, Covane, who came from another village, was the first explorer to discover the Canhane area. He married the chief of Canhane Village’s daughter and later also took a second wife before returning to his village. His wives were jealous of each other however and argued often. After his wife’s brother passed away, Covane returned to Canhane village, so that they could pay their condolences, but one of his wives contaminated the gift of condolence (of nuts) by placing a dreadlock on it. The father of the dead son was so upset about this that he passed away. Following these events, Covane left, but the Canhane area was hit by terrible droughts. Consequently they called on Covane to come back in order to set right what happened by performing a traditional ceremony that consequently resulted in rain. The community therefore needed him to stay in order to rid them of the droughts. They gave him the land on which the lodge is currently built and he lived there until his last days. He was also buried near this site. The community thus decided to give the lodge the name 'Covane' (Information from Open Africa)
LOCATION
Covane Fishing & Safari Lodge is 14 kms outside the village of Massingir, which is situated near the wall of the Massingir Dam, on the southern border of Mozambique’s Parque Nacional do Limpopo.
GPS co-ordinates:-
Decimal: 23.895883 (east) 32.080078 (south)
hh:mm:ss -23° 53′ 45.24″ (east) 32° 4′ 48.36″ (south)
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