Malawian Malarkay

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So here I am, back in Lilongwe after spending an amazing 2 weeks at the lake. With only 5 days to go until my return to Blighty! Quite excited about that, although of course I will miss my time in Africa. What a continent.

RIGHT so we left Lusaka on the 7th May - the bus journey was about 13 hrs or so and quite eventful! Alot of babies crying and being squashed, but the icing on the cake was when me and Laura were just dozing off at LAST and we felt a little trickle at our feet....the kid behind had relieved himself on the floor, giving our feet a moist little treat. Delicious. The bus arrived in Lilongwe at about 1:00am and we shared a taxi with a South African guy called Jason who we'd met on the journey, and a bit of a wild goose chase ensued, searching for a place to stay (that would let us in at this ungodly hour). Being female, of course me and Laura's choice was the best choice and they let us in no probs, after we'd been turned away by the resthouse (that looked very unlike a resthouse) that Jason had so avidly suggested. We felt a little guilty having to wake the owner and have him sort out a room for us but all we could really focus on was how much we needed a bed and a nice long sleep!

We stayed here at Mabuya Camp for 2 nights, and left for Nkhata Bay on the 9th. We got a taxi from Mabuya at about 6:00 in the morning to get to the bus station nice and early as we were catching the local combie (minibus) up to Mzuzu (the town near Nkhata Bay). HOWEVER our organised little plan didn't go so much to plan as we spent literally 5-6 hrs waiting for the bus to fill up! As is the norm in Africa - no timetables, just 'Africa time' and the buses simply don't leave until they're packed to bursting. We've heard some horror stories of people having to wait 2 days for buses to leave! So we should think ourselves lucky really! So we didn't actually leave Lilongwe until gone midday, and the journey was pretty painless, apart from the lack of toilet stops! AND a pretty scary event happened in that we were happily cruising along when the hatch at the back (which was tied down with string due to the many bags stuffed in) flew open and most of the luggage (including mine) went flying out onto the road! The driver took ages to stop and had to do a swift U-turn to go back and collect them. Luckily all the locals who had seen came running up carrying our luggage back to the bus, and I retrieved my rucksack pretty much unscathed, including all the bits that had fallen out of the broken side pocket! Phew. SO after arriving in Mzuzu about 6-7 hrs later, had to catch another combie to Nkhata Bay. This bus left alot quicker and the journey was only about 1 1/2 hrs. AND when we reached Nkhata Bay, A bloke who works for a place called Mayoka village happened to be on the bus and asked us if we were staying there, and if so he could run us up there free of charge. So despite having decided to stay at a place called Butterfly Lodge (which is next door to Mayoka) we thought what the hey and took him up on his offer. That was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made because Mayoka was fantastic! Much more lively than Butterfly lodge and the staff were so welcoming and friendly and just ACE!

We were supposed to only spend a few nights here at Mayoka and then start travelling down the lakeshore, visiting other bays etcetc.....but we kind of got stuck and spent 2 weeks here just chilling and generally having a brilliant time! We made lots of friends, backpackers and locals alike (especially the staff of Mayoka - Special, Phillip, Benjie, Luca, Matthew, Keenan, Gary the legend etcetcetc). We spent most of our days here snorkelling (which was free!), sunbathing, playing pool, wandering about town and visiting the local sellers etc. On the first day we took a load of stuff down to the small craft market to trade for souvenirs - got myself some good deals! I was also taught how to play 'bao game' - a traditional Malawian game played with a wooden board and Baobab seeds (which are often replaced with ground nuts or stones) by a man called Gift. (The names here are so cool - most memorable 'exotic' names we've come accross are John Banana and Cheese on Toast...seriously). I enjoyed it so much that he carved me my own smaller, fold away version especially - including Baobab seeds!

Another plus-point at Mayoka were the free dug-out canoes we could use! Me and Laura tried (and failed rather spectacularly) to go out in one of these. The 'dug-out' part isn't actually big enough to sit in, you have to straddle the canoe and we had a particulary wobbly one! (that's our excuse anyway). We managed to get about a metre away from the shore when the boat decided to topple over. Laura was sensible and hopped off, but i decided to fall rather dramatically for fear of hurting myself on the rocks, so I clung on for dear life as the canoe slowly rotated me into the water, legs akimbo, until I eventually tumbled into the metre deep water, squealing like a girl. Every Friday night here they also put on the most delicious barbeque and buffet, with pool tournament. And being a veggie really doesn't matter because there is soooo much non-meaty food! And the best veggie burgers I've ever had. And we nearly had a heart attack when we had our first taste of the 'mushed' pumpkins. Delicious. We experienced this feast twice and it was amazing. I entered the pool tournament on both occasions and I really don't know why because I'm awful! What a waste of 200 Kwacha! (about 60p). On Sundays they also put on a similar thing, a Malawian buffet followed by 'one man band' which sounds a bit dubious (visions of jolly looking man with big bass drum hitched on his back, symbols between the knees and other quirky musical attire springs to mind....) But infact Gasper the one man band man was brilliant! Used this giant home made banjo type thing which he played with his hand and a beer bottle to set the note, and used his foot to play a drum. The music he made was fantastic and he had a really good voice. Everyone got dancing and it was so much fun.

Another memorable event of our time here was when me and Laura organised with the guys who run the little carving shop at Mayoka to teach us how to carve an elephant! We spent two really cool afternoons with them carving our elephants, which was flipping hard work! Quite proud of the outcome though. HOWEVER at the end of the second afternoon, on returning to the bar, Laura noticed her iPod and charger which had been in her bag were missing.....hmmmm. So we went back and looked for it where we'd been carving, and asked the guys if they'd seen it (they said no). We were suspicious though because it obviuosly went missing while we were there. So Laura went to get Gary the owner while I stayed with the carving dudes....awkward.com. Gary came back with Laura SOO angry and was like "I know these guys have taken it! From now on this shop is closed! Your wives are gonna suffer!" And me and Laura felt awful incase they hadn't taken it - we didn't want to be responsible for them losing their livelyhoods! BUT when Gary started Ransacking the shop, he found the charger behind a chair. We couldn't believe they'd actually taken it! And were even more taken aback when they denied having the iPod! It was ridiculous as we'd already found the charger so they obviously had the iPod too! We found it in the end - which was so lucky! And the guys have been fired. And funnily enough our elephants are unfinished! At least we have a good story as to why.

Made a few trips to the local town, Mzuzu while we were here, mainly to get money as there are not atms in Nkhata Bay. We got a bit pro at managing the local combies, HOWEVER on the way back from our last money run to Mzuzu there was a bit of an event! We were zooming along fairly happily, despite the occasional BANG sound of the exhaust backfiring...hmm. And THEN there was an even bigger bang and the bus went all wobbly and everyone started shouting! Bit scared I have to say - the driver manged to get the bus to a halt without it going too haywire and we all piled off amid the smoke, worried that the engine was gonna blow or something! When we got off we discovered the tyre had exploded - and I mean exploded! It was completely messed up! We were very lucky really. The driver and helpers were very efficient though in changing the tyre and ushering us all back on....we were somewhat uncomfortable at the thought of carrying on in this vehicle but the other option was to remain stranded on a random country road! So we bit the bullet and remounted the combie - which thankfully got us back safely, although from then on we did jump out of our skins whenever the exhaust backfired! Was scary at the time but in heinsight its a good story to tell!

SO we left Nkhata Bay in the late morning of the 24th. We were very sad to leave, Special and Luca from Mayoka helped us with our bags to the minibus - I'll miss Special so much, he is an amazing person! Luca came all the way to Mzuzu with us and we said our goodbyes to him there. Luca was brilliant too. We played pool with him lots and he even took us beekeeping one day! We got to don the suits and everything! Score. The journey back here to Lilongwe was a bit of a mission! There were no minibuses going direct to Lilongwe so we had to get on one that was going to Kasungu, and they assured us they would get us to Lilongwe. When we got to Kasungu we had to change onto another combie, (by this time it was dark) which took us as far as this random road where it stopped by a big bus and we were told they wern't gonna go any furthur and we had to move AGAIN onto this big bus! There were no seats so I had to stand in the aisle atop a sack of rice, with people pushing past and standing all over my feet every time we stopped. Then there were the chickens....poor things. Luckily this journey was only about 45 mins and then we arrived in Lilongwe, very tired and stressed and were met by the usual gaggle of taxi drivers when we got off the bus! So we got sorted pretty quickly, with a choice taxi that had to be push started and had no back to the passenger seat! Lovely.

So now we're back at Mabuya camp once more, planning to repeat the long bus journey back to Lusaka tomorrow, ready to fly out on Wednesday! So I guess this is my last entry, I hope whoever may be reading this has enjoyed my stories!

Bye!

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