Stopping at Senga Bay

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I got up quite early the day I eventually decided to leave Nkhata Bay. The only problem was that I wasn't certain where I was actually going to go! I wanted to head south to Cape MacLear, but having not been up in time to catch the 6 o'clock bus there, I was fairly certain that this wasn't possible in one day. I ended up hanging around Mayoka Village for a while longer, so I could get a boat across to the bus station, as opposed to walking up the hill and down again.

When I got to the bus station, I found a bus that was going to Salima. I decided I would get on this, as Salima is quite close to Senga Bay and I figured that this might be a good place to stop en route south. The Minibus had a sign in the window with 'Salima' written on it and I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that it would go to Salima. This of course was not the case and before we got going I was told it would only go as far as Dwarwe, but that I could change to a bus to Salima there.

This was fine but once we eventually got going, we must have stopped at every ditch in the road to let people on and off, together with whatever luggage or belongings they had. The progress we made was painfully slow. At some stage, the minibus decided it wasn't going to go any further and I had to change to another minibus to get to Dwarwe. At Dwarwe, I found a bus going to Salima easy enough. This journey was similarly slow and of course, required another change of minibus.

It was dark by the time we got into Salima and I wasn't sure how I was going to get to Senga Bay. Luckily, there was another guy on the bus with good English who was also going to Senga Bay. We waited by the side of the road for about half an hour, when we managed to get a pick up to take us in the back the 20 km or so to Senga Bay.

A local guide offered to walk me to the hostel I had picked out of the Lonely Planet. He wanted to try sell me a tour of some sort for the next day, but it was pitch dark and I didn't know how to get to the hostel. There is only one tar road into Senga Bay, the rest are just sand tracks. Unfortunately, the hostel I had picked has been taken over by the Mufasa chain, who I had been warned about. It was too late to go off try find a different hostel, so I checked in and met the owner, who was as bad as his reputation. The hostel was dead and I asked was there anywhere in town and between some mumbling in Afrikaans, all I caught was that soccer is a girls sport and I should watch rugby.

The next morning, I was woken up fairly early, by what sounded like some sort of crowd nearby. It was in fact, the fishermen and a market beside them. I went for a swim in the lake. Senga Bay isn't nearly as nice as Nkhata Bay or Chitimba, so I decided there wasn't much point in sticking around. I checked out and went back to the main road to get a pick up back to Salima, where I could catch a bus to Monkey Bay.

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Comments

[deleted_49612]

:)
I love your fantastic trip. :)