You might not know this, but Mozambique is one of the fastest growing tourist destination in the world.
Its wild beauty and untamed nature has been drawing visitors since its pre-independence days.
Visitors instead preferred the Bazaruto Archipelago, located nearby, which has beautiful beaches and coral reefs.
Less than a decade later, the Grande Hotel was shuttered.
In its eight years of operation, the hotel never made a profit.
Many refuges took up residence in the abandoned Grande Hotel.
The hotel has been stripped to bare concrete.
The furniture fixtures and fittings have been sold off a long time ago.
Even the cables and pipes from the walls have been pulled out and sold to scrap.
The Olympic swimming is now used for bathing, while the bar pool serves as a urinal.
More than three thousand squatters occupy the building today.
The locals call themWatha muno, meaning not from here.
Most of them are unemployed; others work as maids and truckers in the city.
But things have started to go south in the last few years.
Now crime is on the rise, and the area is rife with garbage and disease.
Photo credit:Robertcruiming/Wikimedia
Photo credit: Lisa King
Sources:Wikipedia/the Atlantic
