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Mozambique is arguably southern Africa's most up-and-coming destination, and the Quirimbas Archipelago just off its northern coastline is a largely undiscovered paradise. Krzys Piekarski views the islands from high above and far below the waterline.

I have never seen smiles more at ease and sharp and beautiful than I see in Mozambique - a country that has not had it easy. A successful fight for its independence from Portugal’s colonial rule in 1975 was followed by a devastating civil war just a couple of years later which lasted until 1992, at a staggering cost to human life. The intermittent abuse from cyclones has not helped much either.

Mozambique is still a slowly developing country, urgently in need of better schools, more AIDS awareness and more access to healthcare, clinics and hospitals. Its life expectancy rate is among the very lowest in the world. But its people are now experiencing an unprecedented period of stability and the Mozambican government has identified tourism and the country's incredible natural resources as a means to drive development and grow the economy. The path to recovery has started - investors are flocking and competing for bids on land development rights, understated resorts are popping up in the most secluded idylls, and every visitor receives a king’s welcome.
 
The portal for most visitors is the Mediterranean-style capital city of Maputo, though I only experience it from the inside of the airport and out of a plane window because I'm heading straight to the Quirimbas Archipelago, a chain of 32 coral islands off the far northern coast. Just south of the Rio Rovuma, the river that forms the border with Tanzania, this much less-visited part of the country offers an altogether more challenging experience. It's remote and rugged and lacks the infrastructure of the south, though as I'm about to find out, there are enough oases of calm and tranquility and downright hedonism here that even the tamest of travellers will be tempted to make the 1,000 mile journey north.

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