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Published: October 30th 2007
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We had a quick taste of African-Portuguese crossing northern Mozambique for two days en route to Malawi, our proposed chill-out destination. It was a beautiful ride through Tete region in Mozambique, and trying to speak Portuguese (Mozambique's national language) really wetted my appetite for more of this Latin influenced - almost flirty by nature - country. After spending time in Zimbabwe there seemed to be a more vibrant feel in Mozambique (not surprisingly!) with people dressed-up to go out on a Sunday night - I later discovered Sunday to be the biggest day for Mozambicans to party!
After four border-crossings in two days with the usual rigmarole of paper-work and being whisked-off to the side-room for "compulsory insurance and taxes" we arrived in Malawi. The focus of 'beach-life' propelled us to travel in the dark until we reached Monkey Bay on the shores of southern Lake Malawi during our first day - an experience I'm not willing to repeat too soon. Potholes, people and push bikes, disappearing roads, animals and high-beaming headlights made the trip all to interesting in the dark.
Malawi has been the most visibly populated country so far with roads full of pedestrians and cyclists (not surprising
Border crossing gathering
We spent our excess Mozambique coins on a beer and a packet of biscuits in this market with a population of 93+ people per square kilometer!) making travel slow but visually interesting.......the women walking under huge stacks of branches perfectly balanced on their heads, the cyclists with precarious loads of firewood or goats and chickens tired onto the handle-bars!
The 'beach boys' or touts grew pretty intense in Monkey Bay as we were the only foreigners staying on the beach at the time. But it all faded away into a small memory in the back of my mind, a part not registering with the cold beer in my hand as I sat back and relaxed on the deck of the Ilala ferry headed for the northern islands of Lake Malawi.
The Ilala ferry was built in 1951 and recommissioned in 1973 but not much has been done to her since then by the looks of it! It was totally awesome though, sitting up on the deck for two days watching the comings and goings of passengers and cargo being unloaded/loaded as we zig-zagged our way north between Malawi and Mozambique. Bar one place we stopped everything had to be unloaded and later reloaded using the Ilala's shore boats. A process taking hours at a time...just the
right amount of time for mosquitoes to make it up to the upper deck! It's not surprising that it takes hours when you consider they are manually handing such cargo as lounge suite furniture (who's buying lounge suite furniture out here where the only dwellings you can see are reed-roofed mud huts?) and cement bags down a flimsy rope ladder into a shore boat! Not to mention the people seemingly scrambling for their lives down into the shore boats at the same time, only to wait for the boat to fill up beyond your wildest imagination! It's absolutely crazy moving around the lower deck of the Ilala as it's jammed packed full of locals and anything and everything they have with them. It's worth it though, the beers cheaper on the lower deck! You just have to perform a juggling act on the return as you balance the round of beers walking over sacks of cassava root and weave your way around people sitting and sleeping on cargo as the ferry pitches and rolls!
Likoma Island was our first stop, which was very chilled and great for meeting the locals whilst traversing the hills between the beach (where we
camped) and the town on the other side of the island.
After a few days of buying fish off the local fisherman we headed to neighboring Chizimulu Island by Dhow (small sailing boat that constantly needs the water bailed out). Of course this required getting up at 2am and hiking to the port (beach) where we invert ably got lost on the way. "Just keep going straight" is a simple enough direction until you reach a T-junction at four in the morning with no-one around! Eventually a woman and boy carrying two heavy housing bricks on their heads in the dark with bare feet came along. Luckily they showed us the way to the bay which was anything but "straight"!
We had a great time on Chizimulu Island chilling out with other backpackers and snorkeling just out from where we were camped. The Sunset bar at Wakwenda Retreat served up excellent Gin and Tonics as you watched another perfectly cliche sunset ...... picture a bright orange sun setting over an island in the lake with fish eagle birds flying across the face of it.
Returning to the mainland we clambered on board the Ilala ferry at 3.30am and awoke before
Monkey Bay's local trade
Returning from an afternoons fishing 5am with blasts of air going through my sleeping bag like I was in a wind-tunnel making it impossible to sleep....sliding along the deck on my roll mat as the ferry rolled from side to side probably didn't help either! By mid-morning the captain was incoherently drunk but he managed to get us to Monkey Bay by 1am, just 11 hours late.
In Blantyre we met up with Paul, one of our backpacking friends from Chizimulu Island that was working as a teacher in Blantyre. He acted as our unofficial tour guide for a week which was great to explore parts of the city and the surrounds that you wouldn't normally get to. It was also interesting to learn from Paul somethings about the outdated material the kids have access to in Malawian schools - they are in some cases learning English from the King James Bible and saying things like "How art thou?"! Blantyre is surrounded by the mountains of southern Malawi and the bustling markets made it a real interesting place to spend some time.
The All Blacks played South Africa one morning at 9.30am local time so I decided to teach Paul the game over a
Birds-eye view
Drying fishing nets on Monkey Bay beach few beers....well, it was after midday somewhere in the world if you need to justify it! Of course the All Blacks won which made it an interesting game to watch with all the ex-pat South Africans there as well.
One of the hikes we did in the Mishiru National Park was to the 'Hyena Caves'. A local guy warned us about the Hyena's but I thought he was just superstitious until Gwen just about stepped on one as we clambered over the boulders joking about there not actually being any there! A classic expression on her face!
Heading out to the Mozambique coast we stopped at the Malawi border town of Mount Mulange. Looking for a campsite in the rain one friendly local showing us around told us that a 3/4 room (3/4 bed) was the same price as camping and why would we want to camp in the rain? Decision made.
The next day we wanted to walk around the surrounding hillside and tea plantations but could only venture 20 meters before being completed distracted by the festival being held next door. The Education Day festival was celebrating education in Mulange - African style! Children mingled in groups
A village lifeline
Loading passengers onto the Ilala ferry from a Malawian village port and came and went from the festivities into town and back; two boys played the bongo and jembe drums surrounded by a circle of girls dancing around them; locals sold greasy samosas, peanuts and bananas; and we were surrounded by kids staring at our every move.
Walking around the local market was interesting as always with one area being a kitchen for patients of the neighboring hospital to come and cook for themselves. I bought skewed mice on a stick that had been barbecued but decided that I didn't want to end up cooking at the market-come-hospital-kitchen myself, so gave them away. The meat was white and like chicken, which didn't entice me to buy the local chicken stew.
Finally, a tea from a local roadside stall with the cups washed with his hand in the dirtiest water you've seen, set us up with the energy needed for the upcoming three day ride to the Mozambique coast.
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