Malawi, Nkhata Bay

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Hey Guys,
In keeping with tradition I'll provide everyone a funny anecdote about the bus journey that got us to the place I'm currently blogging about. So there's this Canadian couple who are supposed to catch an 11am bus that doesn't show up until 2pm and then they are lucky to get standing room at the back of the bus for the 6hour ride. The bus proceeds to stop every 6km which accumulates to a total of 60 stops (Tyne counted) over the entire 300km trip which ends up taking 8hrs. While at all these random stops the people on the side of the road selling various food items proceed to stuff them through every window hoping to find a customer. The guy standing beside the Canadian man calls over the butcher at one stop who quickly comes running with a freshly butchered quarter hind of goat which he shoves through the window for inspection, luckily for the Canadian the man is not impressed and pushes it back out the window. He later inspects fish at several other stops but doesn't end up buying anything. Thank God.

So we get to Nkhata Bay and our Hostel Mayoka Village which is literally a small village of bungalows carved out of the side of hill that forms the bay. It was really nice, and very popular so we got to meet a lot of people who were doing the reverse travel of our trip in Africa. We got lots of pointers and tips which can be quite valuable. We also lucked out that the Hostel was giving a free boat trip that afternoon. We ended up getting to do some cliff jumping which is always fun, experience some up close encounters with the fish eagles as our guide would throw out a small sardine and the eagles would swoop in right beside the boat for their snack and we finished it off with some beach games and a football match with the local kids of a small fishing village. The trip was super fun and everyone had a good time.

The next day we went and signed up for our Advanced Open Water Divers course with Aqua Africa, we were both eager to complete the course and upgrade our skills. Our course turned out to be a lot of fun, our instructor Jonny was pretty funny as well as our classmate "Allan the Voyageur" who is a young Australian Artist who is traveling indefinitely, he paints pictures while traveling and then sells them to pay for....well, more traveling! The diving in Lake Malawi turned out to be really good too, although our "Canadian Curse" as I've come to call it did bring us some very unseasonable weather so the conditions could have been better but all in all we were very pleased. Our night dive was absolutely amazing as we had a large group of about 20 Dolphin Fish follow us using our torches to hunt their food, you could literally play God and point your light on a small fish and they would swoop in for dinner! There is a video of it on BBC Planet Earth so again those of you at work take a break, jump on you Tube and check it out!

After we completed our course Aqua Africa had a party for us and the other Open Water Course so we got a big BBQ feast of chicken and fish and then the crazy Israeli guys in the Open Water Course put on a Poi (fireball) show! it was pretty cool.

We had originally planned to leave right away and take a 24hr bus from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam but since we've heard nothing but bad stories about the bus we delayed our departure for two days and decided to take the train instead with our new friend Allan the Voyageur.

Leaving Malawi we both know we'll definitely be back since the people here are amazing, everyone is really friendly and although they do live in extremely poor conditions they are all pretty happy and upbeat. The Lake too is something to be seen an if you dive it is definitely an experience diving in fresh water and seeing so many tropical fish with such great visibility.

Until Next one from Tanzania take care!

Cheers,

Matt & Tyne

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Photos

Mini Bus
Always ensure they keep the fish outside the bus while in transit!

Comments

[George]

Nkhota Bay
Very usefull details for a group of 7 guys, planning to visit Malawi and the place. We love diving and it seems, that here is a lot to see. The most impressive thing is about the frienliness of the local people - some French guys had completely the opposite oppinion. However, thanks, the blog is very helpfull for me