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Published: November 19th 2007
Eventually we managed to drag ourselves away from the home comforts of Mzoozoozoo and April, Dunkin and Donut. We’re still on the road with the Israelis: Raz and Uzi and their trusty Nissan 4 x 4 and Nadav. Next stop was Lake Malawi. We’ve ended up staying at 3 different places along the Lake: Nkhata Bay in the North, Kande Beach in the middle and Cape MacClear in the South.
The Northern lake shore is quite hilly - from Mzuzu you drive through the hills and drop down steep slopes to the Lake. Nkhata Bay is a village crowded around a small bay and the headlands either side; Mayoka Village hostel has chalets and campsites spread out over the terraces of the steep slopes down to the Lake. It’s a beautiful place with fab views of the rocky shore and incredibly blue water. There’s a very old local man who sits in the corner of the bar every evening in his worn out suit and straw boater selling chocolate bars and crisps from a tray in front of him - apparently he’s a local chief and will regale you with stories if you ask but most of the time he
dozed in the corner!
It’s fair to say we didn’t do a lot at Mayoka Village. We swam and snorkeled (plenty of Cichlids, the fish endemic to Lake Malawi, around the rocks), lazed around and read, wandered into the village for some shopping… generally chilled out for a couple of days.
We couldn’t get the jeep down to the campsites because the slope is so steep so each evening we went up to the little car park at the top and cooked our dinner with all the camping equipment there. The security guard thought we were a bit weird, cooking and eating in the car park, we always made sure he got a plate full of whatever we were having. One evening we made Hamburgers which were pretty good and the guard got the last one, the look on his face when we handed him this juicy half-pounder was priceless. I seriously think if word gets around the security guard job at Mayoka village is now the most sought after position in Malawi.
The morning that we left we were “treated” to one of Lake Malawi’s natural phenomena - a huge swarm of tiny midges drifted across
the Lake and covered us. Early explorers described Lake Malawi as the “lake that smoked” because of these swarms. When the conditions are right, millions upon millions of the little flies hatch from the lake (where the larvae live) and fly up in clouds and columns from the water surface. In the distance it looks like plumes of smoke; close up it looks like loads of horrible little mating flies that go up your nose and all over everything. The locals catch them and squash them into cakes apparently. Nice.
During our stay at Mayoka village we were treated to the Jewish “Shabbat”, which is the celebration of the Sabbath. So all standing around a table in the bar with a glass of red wine and Michael wearing his Jewish cap, he starts mumbling the prayer which it turned out none of the Israelis actually knew all of the words to. The wine gets passed around starting with the eldest (Marianne), and everyone has a drink then everyone sits and eats. All a bit excessive for a Friday if you ask me.
Our next stop was Kande Beach, a rather remote beach resort about half way South along
the Lake shore. On the way there we passed through a Rubber tree plantation with lots of kids at the side of the road selling balls of different sizes made out of strips of rubber wrapped around an inflated car inner tube. The rubber trees have parallel cuts in the bark spiraling down from a height of about 6 feet up with the latex collected in half a Coconut shell, a perfect height for the enterprising locals to their supply for the ball manufacturing. After the scorched and blackened scrub that we had seen so far on our way though Malawi it made a refreshing change to see some trees.
There are a lot of bush fires in Malawi, and the evidence of it is everywhere. We pretty much saw one every night we were there, mostly man-made from what we could gather. One cause of the fires we learned from one of the Matatu drivers was hunters. In typically short-sighted fashion they light a fire which forms a moving barrier which the animals move away from, the hunter knows which way they will be moving and can position himself where he can catch them. Despite it being quite
a reckless way of catching animals the undergrowth is very dry and fires running out of control must be a frequent occurrence. The death of smaller animals that get caught and the destruction of habitat for other animals can’t really be quantified.
Our stop in Kande Beach was a ‘Resort’ compound imaginatively named Kande Beach Resort, designed by and for Overland truckers. Despite the trucks it’s a pleasant enough place to stay for a few days, but our main reason for the stop was to get a dive in the Lake with the resorts PADI dive centre ‘Aquanuts’ that had been recommended to us by the guys at Scuba-doo on Zanzibar, and to watch the England - France rugby match that was on that weekend.
The dive was in vicinity of a small island a few hundred meters off the beach, and took in some boulder swim-throughs which none of us had done before, a couple of sunken canoes, an old VW Jeep, and of course the ubiquitous Cichlids. It was good to see the different Cichlid varieties that have adapted themselves to the deeper environment and their differing behaviour to those that frequent the areas closer to
shore. However the numbers of fish are far fewer than you see in the ocean also there are obviously fewer varieties, and the deliberate sinking of the Canoes and the VW seemed like a slightly desperate attempt at enlivening the dive site. The outfit is very professional though with very new gear in excellent condition and given a bit more time and money I think we would have gone to one of the other sites to explore a bit more, but afterwards we really didn't regret our decision to qualify on Zanzibar and not the slightly cheaper option of Lake Malawi.
The drive down to Cape Maclear was fairly uneventful until we reached the turning we needed to take off the main North-South route to get there. Approaching the turning was a bloke dressed in nothing but grass donning a rather fetching woven reed 'helmet' with one small hole in the middle of the front to see, and waving a big stick with a bit too much gusto. All five heads in the car turned simultaneously to take in the rather bizarre spectacle before us that was THE last thing any of us expected to see at that particular
moment. We could only assume that it was some sort of coming of age ceremony, or the local loony out for an afternoon stroll, as it wasn't a touristy area and he seemed to be amusing the locals as much as he was us. Our only regret was not getting a better picture of him but with his only attempt at communication being a sequence of grunts, and his fondness of waving the stick around like it was going out of fashion we decided against potential provocation. "Can we take your picture?", "Uuurgh Uh", "Eeermm... we'll take that as a no then".
Cape Maclear lies at the Southernmost end of the lake in a considerably more arid part of the country compared to the North. A couple of large islands lie just North of the town which are fantastic Snorkeling spots and which are also home to a few African Fish Eagles, also not far from the village are the graves of some of the first missionaries to come to the area who succumbed to Malaria. We did a day trip to one of the islands, called Thumbi. The water was incredibly clear and absolutely full of fish; it's
a cliche but it really was like swimming in an aquarium.
The geography of the lake, the relatively shallow depth of the lake near the town and the stillness of the water, and it's proximity to reed beds should guarantee our contracting Bilharzia before we leave if we don't have it already. A study of a group of Scuba Divers who spent a few days diving in the area found that something like 60%!o(MISSING)f them had acquired some new friends. So one of our first stops in Lilongwe will be a Chemist to get some medication.
Here is our travel map:
AdnMaz Travel Map
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sawyer
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Muzuzu:a middle way to Karonga
I happen to see the joyful story of yours ,as I struggle to search the image of jacaranda flower. I have involved in the M26 public road project aided by Taiwan,the place Muzuzu may be on my mind ever and forever. Thank a lot.Your story brings me back to a happy time and place.