Muzungus in Malawi

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It took us a day or two to slip into Malawi’s renowned relaxed vibe, but a couple of days in Blantyre were a slightly weird start to the country. It is a very sleepy city in which the only industry seems to be banks, aid agencies and mission stations. It made us conscious right from the start of a side to Malawi (and probably other African countries as well, but very obvious here) that is probably worth an entire blog in itself. That is the impact that continuous good-willed foreign interventions of aid and religion missionary has had on the country. It seems to us that all this “help” is doing very little good and worryingly is creating very obvious dependencies and distortion in the local economy. Perhaps most disturbing is an ingrained “gimme” mentality we are coming across in a lot of the people. In our previous travels in Central America we saw the marks and hardships left by wilfully destructive international meddling so it is a little heart breaking and frustrating to see that for all the good intentions focused on this country, the benefits are not more obvious, if they are there at all. Anyway, we won’t bore you anymore with our pseudo-political ramblings…not today, anyway….

Off our Butts

After Blantyre, first stop on our circuit of Malawi was Mount Mulanje, which is a crown of peaks that juts suddenly out of the landscape in the southern tip of the country. Linking, and in between, the peaks are a series of high mountain plateaux. The peaks are encircled in the deep green of pine forests, which are in turn encircled by the lighter, sharper green of tea plantations. Really beautiful and dramatic. Just perfect for some leg stretching hikes.

We did a well-trodden three day/two night hike - the Chambe-Lichenya Loop. We had both a guide and a porter for our hike, so a little different from hiking back home. Guides were recommended because the paths can be vague and the plateau misty. The porter was a bit of a luxury - both for us and, a little strangely, for him since they work by rotation and there are so many they can often go for two months without any work (all guilt therefore easily assuaged).

The route started with a gut-busting 4 hour climb to a hut in the shadow of Chambe peak, which is a striking comb of rock, some 2500m high. Apparently on the steeper side of it rock jocks can enjoy a sheer roped ascent of some 1700m of cliff face. Despite guide and porter it wasn’t all luxury and easy going, however - about a third of the way through the first day (just beyond the point of no return) we discovered that we hadn’t packed the pasta in our food bag, which was a bit of a downer since we’d planned to have pasta on both nights of the tramp. Fortunately, we did have two loaves of fresh bread that, smeared with cheese and/or peanut butter, we used to flesh out inventive dinners of “pasta sauce soup”.

For most of the first day as we were going up we crossed paths with women and children coming down with massive bundles of firewood on their heads, which are a pretty common sight over all of Africa. Previously I’d always held on to the idea that at the beginning of each trail of women with wood there would be men with axes. It turns out that at the beginning of each trail there are woman with axes - often minding children while chopping the wood. We did see some industrious gents however. On the plateau is another pine forest, which is semi-commercial, and these guys hew large rough oblongs of raw pine from a tree and then, with these balancing on their heads, trot back down to the village where the wood is milled and then turned into furniture (soft wood furniture is a popular Malawian export). These lumps of wood must be about two meters long, by 50cm wide and 50cm tall. God knows what they weigh, but it can’t be anything less than 40 or 50 kgs.

Days two and three involved less strenuous bouts of walking (thankfully - I am not sure how sustaining pasta sauce soup is), and some brilliant views. Invigorated, energized and off the mountain a few hours earlier than anticipated we decided to skip a night in town and do an ambitious afternoons’ drive straight to the main attraction of Malawi - Lake Malawi.

Back on them again!

Nightfall saw us in the middle of a village at the edge of the lake at Cape Maclear, driving blindly in search of (i) our randomly picked campsite from a list of dozens, or (ii) the lake itself. Driving in an African village at night is a surreal experience, our headlights were the only source of light in the village despite there being hoards of people about. People/buildings/animals would loom suddenly out of the surrounding darkness as we nudged nervously around. We were surrounded by a lot of noise but could often not see the sources of it. Shrieking children mobbed us at every turn yammering for money/pens/sweets and all the while there was the constant cry in the background of “muzungus” (whities), which we’ve heard pretty much non-stop since entering the country. Given the lack of lighting (and streets) directions were only good for a hundred meters or so until we had to stop and ask again until we finally found our destination. Beer well earnt (the local brew is called Kuche Kuche, amusingly).

In the light of day the campsite turned out to be a goody. Right on the lake, with views of the sun setting into it and topped off with good bar, restaurant and super friendly staff. Cape Maclear is meant to be past its best (LP) and no longer the “hot spot” on the lake, but we really enjoyed it and found it a perfect place to rest after our hiking - I guess in terms of travellers we may be rapidly approaching “past our best” as well!

We went for a couple of dives in the lake, which was something I was really looking forward to. I enjoyed diving in fresh water and not feeling like I needed to take a shower after a dive due to all the salt. I also enjoyed not thinking every couple of minutes “hmmm, I wonder if that is poisonous or eats people”, since Lake Malawi is almost exclusively inhabited by variants of one species of fish. However, by the end of the second dive I couldn’t avoid the conclusion that the lake itself wasn’t much to look at once under the surface. As far as I could tell it consisted of algae, one species of fish and fish shit - in about equal proportions. Perhaps I should have had that post-dive shower after all.

We did eat the fish though - kampango fish - looked a bit like a catfish but tasted a lot sweeter (must be all that…ahhhh….algae it eats). We bought him off one of the staff at the camp who had it expertly cleaned and filleted in front of us. Wrapped in tin foil parcels with lemon, garlic and herbs it was fantastic and gets our award for best eats of the trip so far.

For some variation to our lake life we headed further north about 400k’s to Nhkata Bay, which is typically stated in guidebooks as being “legendary on the backpacker trail” (which K and I have long since translated as meaning “this is probably a bit too cool for you and you are bound to quickly get annoyed at all the touts with their whittled bits of wood and the offers of drugs from faux rastas”). More good relaxing time was had despite the touts - I suspect they were more annoyed with us for just wanting to sit quietly on the beach and read. Despite the meagre offerings at the market (it was a public holiday, I suppose) K managed to make some fantastic Thai salmon fish cakes, which were a close contender but not quite equal to the kampango (sorry if memories of the last few days seem a little foodie orientated - I think our stomachs were still recovering from the fare when hiking on Mount Mulange).

Sore Butts

The standard rhythm of travels always seems to be intense activity followed by intensive inactivity - as the hiking was followed by lazing at the lake it meant our next stop was to be activity orientated. We headed inland from the lake to the Nyika plateau - a national park with lots of the required animals (various roan/leopards/hyenas etc…) but more notable for its diverse scenery of rolling grassy hills (think Otago Highlands) and little thickets of forest. There was a pretty testing 4x4 track into the park which K navigated with solid skills while I lounged about on the roof of the Beast, which has to be just the best way of seeing a park and wildlife spotting - only slightly alarming moment was when we drove through a swarm of bees which lead to a rapid fire roof top strip-tease at 30 kph.

In the park we went for a mornings horse riding (run by a hidden enclave of authentic English horsy people) and uncovered two safari fallacies. First, that spotting wildlife is easy on grassy plains. Wrong! The splotches, stripes and patches of animals blend perfectly into a matt flat grassy background and as the grasses are sent shimmering and shaking with the slightest breath of wind it makes the animals hard to spot even when they are moving. Second, that you can get closer to wildlife when on a horse. Wrong again! The only animals we did see were one hill over, or rapidly attempting to get that far away. Animals have been a lot less fussed and more tolerant of us in the Beast even when we screech to halt next to them and engulf all in a cloud of dust! The park is quite high up (2000m) which made it a lot colder than anywhere else we’ve been so far (ironic since it’s our northernmost point in our trip) but we were very cosy in our rooftop tent - aided by having endless firewood (and a watchman to expertly light it) and steaming hot water in the fantastic campsite.

Big Butts

After Niyka we headed to Vwaza marsh which also had a brilliant campsite - right near a lake that is just crammed with hippos (and one very nervous crocodile). This was safari camping at its rawest so far, as the campsite was open and littered with hippo and elephant poo. We went on an afternoon hike with an armed guard who was excellent at pointing out animal tracks and spoor and was quite a wit as well. He alarmed us down at the lake front where we were respectfully watching the hippos (Africa’s no. 1 person killing animal don’t ya know) from a daring 15 m away when he started whistling and clapping and yelling to wake them all up and get them moving their big 'ole butts around for us - quite a contrast to our kayaking experience in S.A! They looked pretty pissed off but were thankfully content enough lolling in the water and eyeballing us.

So now we are in Lilongwe, capital of Malawi, having a few bits and pieces done to the car and stocking up on goodies before we get into the longer distances of Zambia, Botswana and Namibia.

A final little gem from Malawi is that the people have a lovely flare for shop signs - which are often religiously orientated and inspired - some of the best we’ve seen have been the “Trust in God Electrician”, “God Provides Groceries” and our personal favourite the “Groly to Jesus” restaurant. On the non-religious front the one that tickled us the most was “Energy Coffins (open 24hrs)” - what an odd niche to position yourself in - open all hour coffins - for when you just can’t wait till the morning before you bury poor uncle Elmo!

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Photos

Support Crew
Andrew with guide, Edmondton, and porter, Vincent.

Sunset at Cape Maclear
Glorious to sit by the lake, Kuche Kuche in hand and watch the sun go down...

Baobab Tree
World cup fever in Cape Maclear

Shop Sign at Nkata Bay
Why tell him when you can show him the piccie instead?