Mohéli Getting there & around

Getting there & around

Transport throughout the island is very, very slow and patience is mandatory – even the aeroplanes don’t always fly if they’re not full. Bring a good novel or four.

Air

The Mohéli airport is in the north-coast village of Bandaressalam, about 4km east of the capital Fomboni. Taxis-brousses run sporadically along the road past it into town (CF100) or you can try to hitch.

Mohéli is served by both the Comoros’ internal airlines, Comores Aviation (72 03 86) and Comores Air Service (72 01 55). Flights go at least three times a week to Mayotte (CF50, 000), Anjouan (CF20, 000) and Grande Comore (CF20, 000). Both airline offices are in the main street of Fomboni.

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Car & motorcycle

Car & taxi-brousse

All car hires places on Mohéli cost the same – CF15, 000 per day plus petrol. Most sleeping places can either hire cars themselves or find you one. Just ask at reception. Try Akmal Bungalows.

Taxis-brousses go from Fomboni to points across the island, including Miringoni (CF500, 1½ hours), Ouallah 1 and 2 (CF600, 2½ hours), Itsamia (CF300, one hour) and Nioumachoua (CF600, two hours). Most places only see one or two taxis-brousses per day, so it’s hard to do a day trip to any of them, but there are simple bungalows in each of these villages if you need to stay the night.

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Boat

Mohéli isn’t as well served by boats as the other three Comoros islands; its small size means that it is often ignored by cargo boats. Nonetheless, some boats arrive and depart reasonably regularly to and from the neighbouring islands – try Alliance des Iles to Grande Comore (CF9150, four to six hours).

To find out about boat movements, look for bits of paper on the ‘message trees’ in front of the police station in Fomboni’s main street. Boats usually come in to the port at Bangoma, 1.5km southeast of the town centre.

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