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Published: September 1st 2008
After the flurry of blogs from India, you might be wondering why I've given you a break for quite some weeks. Contrary to popular belief, I haven't discovered that the world is indeed flat and have fallen off, and I haven't been eatebn by a lino either. Let's just say internet is not Malawi's strong point. In fact, keeping the electricity on isn't either. So with all of the power cuts and the general lack of internet cafes, I've decided to just write a big blog for the rest of South Africa and all of Malawi...I'll try to keep it short, but sorry in advance if it turns into a monster!!!
The end of South Africa
We had hoped to fly out from Johannesburg on the Saturday but couldn't get a flight until Thursday. Having some extra days to kill whilst waiting for our flight, we decided to rent a car and explore for a couple of days. The first thing we noticed was that it seemed to have a super high tickover. Being late already (they couldn't deliver it as promised so we had to pick it up), we just ignored it and set off. It wasn't until
we got to our destination 150km away that we had real problems. Every time we turned off the engine the car refused to turn off, continuing to run and splutter. As we didn't have a cell phone, we decided to just make do instead of calling the rental company. We headed into the game park but found that it was hard to watch the animals as the car made so much noise! It wasn't until about half way through the game drive that I suddenly had a brain wave - could it be a manual choke? It was, and it had been left completely open! I pushed it in and the car was normal from there on out, minus about a million gallons of wasted petrol!!!
The park we were in was called Pillansberg. It is only a small park so we covered most of it. We didn't see any big cats this time, but did see just about everything else, including a rhino that looked as if it wanted to charge us - thank Goodness Scott had made me keep the car in reverse! As it happened, it was bluffing and just carried on across the road in
front of us.
That night we called in a shopping mall for dinner. It was packed! I guess this is what South Africans do for nightlife, given that you can't exactly walk around the bars at night!!!
The next morning we went for another game drive and then headed to Sun City for lunch. Sun City is like a mini Las Vegas, with a casino, several hotels, and even a fake beach with wave pool. It was fun for a few hours.
Malawi
Not until the bus was packed to the hilt did it leave Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. If so much as an ant had got on at that point, I'm convinced the bus would have burst right open, spilling people and bags of grain onto the road! Peering out of the window, I instantly felt that we were back in the "real" Africa again: women wearing brightly colored print skirts imtermingling with businessmen in suits, street vendors perpetually brushing the red dust from their wares, and heavily loaded bicycles being pushed along the roadside. Quite quickly we left the capital city behind and the scenes became more rural: informal meetings taking place under
the shade of a tree, women carrying babies on their backs and huge piles of sticks on their heads, showing impecable balance, children running around the market barefoot and naked, and gnarled stumpy trees somehow managing to grow out of the parched red earth. The city's 1960s style apartment buildings gave way to small huts made of mud and straw. Of the buildings made of concrete, many were brightly painted from top to toe to advertise something, mainly cell phones. Despite the obvious poverty, there seems to be a pervading sense of happiness versus hopelessness, as often appeared to be the case in poor rural South Africa. It's a nice break for us to be away from the "crime tsunami" as one South African newspaper put it.
Our first destination was
Nkhata Bay, where we stayed in a wooden hut painted like a zebra inside. During the day everyone hung around the resorts and swam in Lake Malawi. At night, the nightlife centered around the neighboring resort of Mayoka Village. Each night they had a buffet meal so everyone ate together over a cold
Cuche Cuche beer. One night they had a "Super Nice Malawian Buffet" and they weren't
kidding. It
was super nice, with a variety of local specialities laid on, everything from sweet potato in peanut sauce to a delicious chicken curry. Following this was a live guitarist singing his own songs about local issues. One of his songs was about his lover across the lake but the most entertaining one was caled, "My sister, she's a virgin!" Enough said!
From Nkhata Bay we took the Ilala Ferry to
Chizumulu Island. In the line to buy tickets we were with a Canadian couple and an Aussie guy. We debated over whether to go first class, as everyone had advised us, or whether to go second class, as everyone had advised the Canadians. In the end, we went with first, and the others went with second. We boarded the ferry at 5:30pm for an 8pm departure and already second class was overflowing with boxes, sacks, and people, leaving no-where to sit, even on the floor. Being indoors, too, the air was already quite stale. Scott and I carried on up to first class, which is basically just the top deck. There wasn't really anything first class about it apart from that it was outdoors and therefore fresh-smelling,
and not crowded. We dumped our bags on the deck and headed to the bar for a Cuche Cuche to pass the time until departure.
A few minutes later the Canadians and Aussie came up with a destressed look on their faces, saying they were going to try to upgrade to first class! There were only 7 mattresses, selling for $1.50. Luckily, Scott and I managed to get one, making the hard deck comfier to sit on and making sleep possible later on. Still, it was chilly and hard to sleep, and we were glad to be woken up at 1:30am by an announcement that we were arriving on Chizumulu island. Besides us, there were only two other foreigners that got off, two Canadian medical students called Tyler and Sean. We clambered through the crowded second class deck and got directed onto a small paddle boat floating on the inky blackness and set off across the lake. In the distance we could see an open fire and could hear the sound of drums. I felt like we were arriving for the next series of "Survivor"! When we arrived at the island, we were met by Tom, a Brit working
there for the summer with his buddy Craig. He welcomed us and took us to our room, a lovely round room. We seem to have stayed in mainly circle shaped rooms this time in Africa!
"Chizzi"as it is known locally, turned out to be a really nice island. The resort itself was extremely well thought out with a fantastic bar and chill out area built around a rocky outcrop. All week long there was a dance contest, with groups arriving from nearby towns and islands, including a team from Mozambique. We went to watch them several times and, being the only 6 foreigners on the island, were surrounded by curious children 10-deep most of the time. I also went and helped out with the orphans, supervising them as they coloured and drew. It was interesting that, most of the boys, left to their own devices, chose to draw cars despite the fact that there isn't a single motorized vehicle on the entire island! For our last few days on the island, our group of 4 clients and 2 managers was bumped up when 4 Irish girls and an Aussie guy showed up from a neighboring island, which was fun.
When it was time to leave Chizimulu on the Ilala ferry again, we said goodbye to all of the wildlife we'd seen there: the dogs nicely named Scabies and Typhoid (charming!), the two bats in the shower, the snakes on the beach, and the frogs on the steps. The journey to our next destination was quite the ordeal, but I will leave that for the next email!
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patricia
non-member comment
Glad you resurfaced...
... I was getting worried you were still underwater somewhere, with sharks and rhinos. I am so jelous you guys are still "out there". I am so busy here that I haven't finished my blogs from India, although I'm getting ready to pack and leave again in 6 days. I am curious to know where you're going next. Have fun. Patricia