THE WINNER
Beside the Mozambique seaside
An African beach is not at all the same thing as a beach in Greece or the south of France or Phuket. Its role is different. Maputo beach on the outskirts of Mozambique's capital illustrates this in many ways.
To escape the heat and humidity of Maputo, many people head to the beach in the afternoon, especially at the weekends. They don't go there to swim – few know how to – but to play and socialise.
They jump up and down in the water and frolic at the edges. Groups of young boys and girls play football as they howl and scream. Anyone can join in – they shout "come and play". There are children scooping the sand for the tiny crabs trapped in dips in the sand at low tide.
Women and their children grill fish or chicken to serve with xima, a dish made from milled maize; some sell oranges, peanuts or cashew nuts; young men carry around the full panoply of nail varnishes and paint people's toenails and fingernails; there is a photographer or two strolling around hoping to sell a photo; some young men tote around a trampoline, which kids can jump on for a few cents; a young man is pulling the strings of two gaudily coloured wooden puppets as he has them jerk and jump in some obscene dance.
In some ways it is also a huge singles' bar. Few young people have the money to go places where they might meet the opposite sex, so the beach serves this purpose. They come to see and admire and maybe acquire. There's always some serious flirting by both sexes.
Churches, particularly evangelical ones, use the beaches for baptisms, prayer meetings, exorcisms, etc. These are colourful occasions.
The beach is the most democratic institution in Mozambique. Nobody is refused admission. Dress code is informal: street clothes, swimwear, underclothes, collar and tie, religious robes ... Girls squat down to urinate wherever there is a dip in the sand – there are no toilet facilities. After nightfall, walking on the sand, you watch out for robbers, and amorous couples.
I often take a book, buy a beer and sit on the sand to read. But I am seldom left alone for long. It surprises people to see someone reading on the beach, or anywhere else for that matter. Somebody will sit down beside me and try to show off their English. A girl may flutter her lashes, presumably to see whether I am really concentrating on my book. Would she like a drink of something? Of course she would. Would she like a lift back to town? Of course she would.
Donal lives in London
The judge Ian Thomson, author of The Dead Yard, published by Faber (this year's Dolman Travel Book of The Year), said: "I liked the mixture of politics and sociology, as well as the more usual travel content (food, swimming). It paints a very vivid, very human scene in a few deft strokes, and is humorous, too."
The prize A three-night spa break for two to Norway, staying at the Hotel Union Geiranger (hotelunion.no), in the Unesco-listed Geirangerfjord, including spa entry and massage, and an outdoor activity organised by visitnorway.co.uk.
THE RUNNERS-UP
Nova Scotia: so little, so much
"It's a messed-up world," my new friend says, reclining against a backdrop of rampaging forest and assorted blues, the mainland twinkling through the fog. "Good job we don't live in it!"
Rabbits playing at my feet and hummingbirds above, I feel like I'm in Bambi. In London I run away from pigeons but I am calmer here. I think, how can a place lack so much and lack nothing at all?
Pictou Island in Nova Scotia doesn't have a shop or a restaurant. I take a ferry to the mainland and bring food back in boxes. The community I'm staying with produces its own energy using sun, wind and generators, and I pump water from the earth. There is a B&B, open some months. I am privileged to live in a world of many choices, and I am so glad I chose to come here.
I explore the desolate beaches with Tom, for this is his childhood playground. He still thinks a BlackBerry is a fruit. We trundle through a forest trail peppered with ripe blueberries, remnants of farming equipment from the days of export, and cow skulls nailed to trees. I wave at seals and laugh at periwinkles that have grown seaweed hairpieces.
We pitch a tent on the beach for "star night" and I really see the night sky for the first time. It is so clear we can see Andromeda, our neighbouring galaxy, fading in and out. Somehow I feel closer to that than to the world I am used to. The sea's rhythm and the steady percussion of sand shrimps against the bottom of the tent is punctuated by my gasps, in time with the shooting stars. I didn't think it was possible to run out of wishes.
I feel close to nature in a way I have only read about. I giggle like a child in the afternoon sun, feeling naughty for being so peaceful. And naked. "I'm not leaving," I decide. "Let's stay here and open a beauty parlour. I'll call it Pictou Perfect."
But it will never happen. She is simply too beautiful as she is.
Aisha Mirza, London
Sierra Leone's world apart
"The rebels tried to attack us five times," my guide, Joseph, told me as we looked back at the mainland, about 2km across a breezy channel. "But UN boats patrolled through here," he added. "The rebels never made it across."
I was standing on the shores of Banana Island, a scrap of beach and jungle just off the coast of Sierra Leone. Such stories are common in this small west African country, even though the civil war came to an end nearly a decade ago. But for me, on holiday to the verdant, fruit-strewn island, the conflict seemed remote.
A blustery boat ride a few hours earlier had brought me across that very channel, littered with shipwrecks new and old. I was dropped off at the beach in front of the Banana Island Guesthouse, a community-run eco-lodge that aims to revive tourism in this pristine, but largely forgotten, corner of the world. Joseph – one of several young locals who manage the place – waded out into the water to greet me. He grabbed my bag and led me to my bungalow, a basic structure with a thatched roof, a solar-powered light bulb, and a mosquito net draped over the bed. Standing on the front step amid a grove of palms, I felt like Robinson Crusoe settling into camp.
With Joseph as my guide, I set off to explore the island. We headed down a red-dirt trail into the jungle. The island has no roads, cars, electricity or running water, but it does have more than 900 inhabitants, mostly descendants of freed slaves who settled the island in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Wandering through the dense undergrowth, we came across little stone churches and clapboard houses. Locals sat on their front stoops mending fishing nets and cooking rice.
After a few more bends, we emerged into bright sunshine on a sandy arc of a beach, deserted except for the crabs scuttling away in the surf. I eased into the water, which felt blood warm on that sizzling afternoon. Looking across to the mainland, I turned my mind to Sierra Leone's recent troubled past. It seemed fitting that this little gem of an island had not seen any fighting, I thought. Tucked away off the coast, it seemed to be in a world of its own.
bananaislandguesthouse-biya.org
Paige McClanahan, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey
Spanish boulder dash
On our first morning in Salobreña, on Spain's Costa Tropical, we ambled the 5km along lanes winding across the bluffs to Salobreña to find a local cafe. The sun emblazoned the white houses skirting the Moorish castle, and Janet and I toyed with a crossword while enjoying an aperitif. We walked back along a quiet lane where donkeys grazed in the grounds of isolated villas, and we picked September-ripe figs and drank in the strident colours of bougainvillea and hibiscus.
The lane petered out into bare ground, following which were 10m of rocks before a trail led round the back of a villa. The debris had fallen from a small plateau above, most crossing the path to plummet onto the sea's edge, 40m below. Ahead of us was a bed of giant's teeth, unpredictably loose.
Janet started off, testing rocks with her FitFlops and I followed. Midway across I heard a grunt of heavy machinery. Looking up, I saw a bulldozer nearing the edge of the plateau. It was nudging a spherical boulder as high as its blade, one metre in diameter. The strewn debris and broken rocks round our feet marked its route.
I screamed at Janet to move fast. There was a sharp whine from the bulldozer's engine. The boulder was teetering on the lip of the plateau. I was coldly aware of the dreadful mass of the thing. This was Indiana Jones – for real.
The boulder toppled, gathered pace, shattering rocks in its path. I frantically scrambled backwards. I fell, throwing hands behind to protect my spine and head from hitting the chisels of rock.
The boulder smashed through the undergrowth to the sea. Two tons of stone hurtled between Janet and me. We were not 4m apart.
The shock was our mutual lack of trauma. Neither of us experienced shakes or shudders. We joked about shipping our bodies home in a jiffy bag. No bad dreams followed, and it seemed a minor incident in our relaxing week. Twice more we strolled along the bluffs to our local cafe in Salobreña.
W O Campbell, Slough, Berkshire
Muddy waters in Bulgaria
In Burgas, on the Black Sea, the crowds arrive early with their sunshades to claim crammed square inches. But walk away from the cafes churning out chalga (Bulgaria's dubious gift to pop music), and as the buildings thin out there is no one but yoga enthusiasts and naked men playing chess. Cross the weed-strewn lines by the derelict railway station and there it is. The biggest free spa you have ever seen.
Walk down the slippery duck boards and choose between two salt pools. Join the cognoscenti pensioners who float like crocodiles, covered in salt crystals. It's a scene Chekhov would have recognised, apart from the chalk- white tower blocks of Burgas in the distance, and the planes coming into land at the airport a kilometre away.
Watch hundreds of black storks circling overhead, planning their migration to Africa. Let the salt seep into your bones. Then squelch into the mud pool, and cover yourself from head to toe with mineral-rich black slabs.
"You'd pay a fortune for this in a hotel," said my partner, trying not to get the mud on her lips.
Then walk back along the beach, like nighttime commandos in daylight, or players from a primeval carnival. Then dive into the warm sea and rinse the mud off. Then relax over honey and tea in the quiet cafes in the park.
Do this every day and feel the glow in your skin and the zing in your blood. But hurry. There are plans to privatise it. Soon there could be entrance fees, paved walkways, chill-out music. Posers not pensioners. Go now.
Phil Madden, Abergavenny
Goa before it's packed away
Go to most resorts out of season, and you find empty restaurants, silent hotels and an air of bored anticipation. Go to certain villages in Goa, and all you find are palm trees. By law, everything else has to be dismantled and packed away before the monsoon.
We arrived in Patnem two weeks before the season ended, and more than one beach cafe a day was disappearing. Patnem's beachside cafes all serve a similar mix of east and supposedly west: chai and something resembling cappuccino; curry and something similar to pizza.
Behind each cafe, a few steps from the beach, sit a handful of simple but clean wooden huts for rent among the palms, with plumbed-in bathrooms and bamboo walls. They're basic but clean, and at around £8 a night for a double, a bargain.
As the days passed, the number of tourists dwindled. The waiters weren't too bothered: every afternoon they played cricket on the beach; every evening they kept one eye on the Indian Premier League on TV. If there weren't enough customers, they would close for the evening. But at my favourite cafe, the chef would stick around long enough to cook our dinner, and his succulent spicy fish, cooked in a banana leaf, was the best on the beach.
At sunset, we walked along the beach, keeping pace with a lone dolphin that swam lazily across the bay, until the sun had turned from gold to blood, and dipped behind the sharply silhouetted palms like a clichéd photo of the paradise it was. If they hadn't packed up the resort around us, we might have stayed forever.
Jonathan Bennett, Brighton
