Malawi – Diving and confirming in the warm heart of Africa I don’t like being around a mass of people… on a bus.

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The first stars of the night were starting to shine as the boat set anchor. Not nervous but unsure of what to expect. I was about to dive into a giant black hole with only a torch and a diving instructor to guide me around. As we reached the bottom of Playground Point a large school of dolphin fish start following us using our lights as a better way to find their prey. In an incredible display of what life is like as a freshwater fish. A night in Lake Malawi was the perfect tonic to escape the bus rides of Malawi.

Malawi didn’t do much for me and in the end I spent 40% of my daylight hours on a bus of some description to in the end (apart from doing my first night dive) not get much of a reward. Malawi is known in my guidebook as ‘Africa for beginners’. Heck if that was the case and this was my first destination I would probably have left for another continent (Oops… I think I maybe offending some readers here. It’s just my opinion.)

I entered via Zambia where the 12-hour trip had the joys of a DVD box set of some Gospel choir, singing very similar songs with very similar dance moves for each video clip. The only variation was the changing rowing technique with the arms with each song. Throughout the song they would do the kayak, the canoe and even the coxless fours. This would be intertwined with various runs and walks on the spot.

Lilongwe is not that much really, it’s the capital and pleasant enough to stay and leave the next day with no hassles. Shoprite Supermarket has porterhouse steaks for $4 for 500g! It is one thing I’ve noticed about Southern Africa. Its influence from South African commercial chains - it generally means you can eat well.

I decided to go to Lake Malawi and to Cape Maclear, which was a big mistake. Sure the people are nice enough but I don’t know, I just don’t like relaxing and swimming in a working beach. I can’t understand how this got on the map for backpackers? Just about everyone I spoke to said they were disappointed. When I say working beach they have people washing their dishes and pots with mash potato on the shoreline. Than they wash themselves, the dog, ducks waddle by. Now that is fine but I am supposed to swim there.

It didn’t stop me as it was so hot and as I exited these Dutch girls say “You are swimming! You don’t care about catching Bilharzia?” I was thinking ‘isn’t this suppose to be fresh water.’ So they go on and describe what may have happened to me. Now if they said it by its real name Schistosomiasis than I probably would have known what they were talking about. (…)
“It’s spread by flukes (minute worms) carried by a freshwater snail. They shed the flukes in the water. They go into your skin when you are swimming. We haven’t gone swimming yet.”
“How long have you been here?”
“5 days”.

Normally it wouldn’t bother me but now I’ve got these 2 hot Dutch girls looking at me like I’m cover it multiplying worms. I then start to think what am I doing here. There are other places in the world where I can go and not have to worry about this. (Or swimming past last nights mash potato.) Tablets 3 months later will cure Bilharzias.

The only highlight was when my backpack strap snapped and I got the town tailor Billy to fix my strap. His job was to sew it back together so it can last the next 3 months at least. He seems to have done a good job. I asked before he did it how much he wanted he said; “Whatever I feel I should pay.” Oh great I thought this is gong to be a dogfight over price after.

In Malawi the largest note is 500 kwacha (that’s $3.20) So I whip out two big ones and say “Now I didn’t want to go too small or too large so I’ll give you 1000 is that alright?” He felt awful “Oh that is too much.” I then insist, “No, no you’ve saved me a lot of trouble and helped my back. Please.” He takes the money and says “Oh I am a very happy man… Very happy.”

Billy the town tailor was one of numerous nice Malawians that I met. Even the scammers are nice to you. They’d say indirectly. “Oh no, you should keep that money because you will need it for the bus to get to Lilongwe. But the rest… Well I can give you this incredibly bad exchange rate… I mean if you want to. I can push you but… I’ll wait to see what you want to do first.”

But unfortunately the bus rides took over my Malawian experience. Not as bad as Mozambique but pretty close. Actually it would be on par except for the Mozambique bus catching on fire. Axa the main bus company (unsure if it is a 3,4 or 5 Star company according to the signs around the country) is set up in a 2-aisle - 3 seat formation (2��3) A more civilised one seat per person but the aisle is squashed like cattle with luggage going everywhere.

See in Africa most buses seemed to be donated or bought from Europe or Asia. So these buses don’t accommodate the African travellers needs. In Africa the traveller has about 3 bags of varying sizes so this creates an overload. Plus squeezing in 10 or so more people than it should and chaos is about to start.

To get an idea of what’s about to happen just image all your friends and scatter them each 500m-1km apart along a highway and then stop every time to pick up or drop off someone. Now this is not as easy as just getting off or getting on. See your best friend has decided to come aboard with a shitload of bags (Up yours Grant!). One for clothes another with food and another of some other crap with a sarong like material covering a large bowl that’s generally carried by the head.

Than there’s your friend who just had a baby at the next stop which has to fight the crowd in the aisle so she can attach the kid to her back before leaving. And all this is done in a suffocating heat. When the bus is going it is okay but when it stops the blood starts to boil when it hits the 6-hour mark and it’s the middle of the day.

It just does not make sense? Especially when the luggage guy decides to rearrange the luggage by moving them around the bus in the overhanging compartment so when its time for passengers to leave they can’t find their bags. And they are doing this soooo many times. I started questioning. Is this the most densely populated country in Africa? Every other country has nothingness for ages than a village. Malawi was like village after village. My ride up to Nkhata Bay was 6 hours worth of standing in a 9 1/2 hour ride. All day gone.

We were stopped 3 times by the police to apparently check for Indian hemp a drug that is illegal to transport in Malawi. What this means is that around 100 people need to get out of the single exit point of the bus. No one goes out orderly or lets someone in. An elevating gate in our way, I joked when we stopped at the first checkpoint to this UK girl. Goat’s roam around the bus I say when one nears the door. “Opp watch out they are bringing out the sniffer goats!”

Another thing that was frustrating throughout was that the locals have to touch every top of each seat when walking past. Instead of touching the edge they have to grab majority of the middle. One time I was fortunate enough to be at the completion of a blink. For if it weren’t for that I would have been eye gouged. Than there was the numerous times my hair was pulled. Nearly all Africans have short hair. It was so frustrating and to think that I only have to put up with it for a few days.

How is this accepted? How has no one come up with a simple solution like if you are the final stop than you sit towards the back whilst earlier stops to the middle/front. And how about getting roof racks for the luggage?? This is what is so frustrating with this place at times. Logic and the just put up with it attitude when things can be tweaked for a less stressful trip. (Don’t even think about allocated numbered seats and have no standing. Malawi is a poor country and they can’t afford for that luxury) It is just a wasted effort before, during and after the trip is complete.

Trips are so slow my patients wore thin. I had left at 7am to get across to Tanzania from Nkhata Bay. The book suggests about 6 hours maybe 7. A petrol shortage meant that I took Axa again and after manually putting petrol into the bus (from pump to drum, than carried to the bus) 1½ hours later we depart. I wouldn’t get there until after sunset. Had I not sweated so much I could have cried. I would connect with a bus for Dar es Salaam at the border the next morning and by the time I arrived at the hotel in Tanzania’s former capital it was 48 hours on what in Australia would take 12 hours.

There are parts of Malawi that I wanted to see but with no private transport it was hard or expensive for dry season. Locals keep talking about the rains are coming but not as yet. I needed something positive to remember Malawi by instead of just bus rides. This is why I decided to dive day and night in Lake Malawi at Nkhata Bay. It was my first freshwater dive, altitude dive (471m) and night dive.

Freshwater diving is different to ocean diving. It’s not about observing coral or big animals. It’s about observing underwater evolution. Majority of the fish are Cichlids, which are the most common pet fish in the world. They are endemic to the 3 Great freshwater lakes of Africa and the lake is described as the closest example to Darwin’s theory of Evolution.

And it’s a fish eat fish atmosphere. Everyone is out to get everyone. The lakes floor is part of the East African Rift Valley and a lot of it resembles the peaks of mountain trekking with rocks scattered around. These rocks are the safe haven for the cichlids.

Many fish come really close to you but the clear highlight of the day dive is the mouthbreeder fish. The mother mistakes the male’s reproductive organ as her baby and tries to inhale it and puts her mouth on it. The male seizes this opportunity to spurt his sperm in her mouth. The babies then are born and the mother protects them with her mouth until they are bigger.

So this fish I observed had about 30 little fish the size of half a pinky finger each hanging around her. Other larger fish are trying to get a quick bite to eat but have to get past the mother who is fighting them off by swimming side to side and around the rock. So quick, it was like she had a broom and she was swinging it at a crowd swarming on her. “GO AWAY!”

When its too close for comfort she goes “Come on kids! Get inside its too dangerous out there. Games over!” She opens her mouth and her children in full panic (like the keys to the door wouldn’t work and the grim reaper is closing in on them) scurry into the security gates of their mother’s mouth.

Looking like she has just eaten too much for one mouth full. She is full of her own children and swims around and won’t open her mouth until the coast is clear. Funny was seeing some stray kids begging their mum to open the door.

Each fish has adapted to the environment to their advantage and the upside down fish feeds on the underside of the rocks and does this all day. I mentioned a fish eat fish environment. Well on my safety stop I watched a fish dual.

I noticed two fish kissing. But this was no love affair. This was a kiss of death over territory. The fins flapping trying to tug back and bite off the opponent’s mouth. I watched for a few minutes and as I left I saw one fish (the one bitting the upper lip) move to the side of the other fish. He was just about to pick off the other fishes scales. My dive instructor said, “He won’t have much longer to live”

Even though I umm’d and urr’d about diving the night dive it really is the only way to dive here to get a true amazing understanding on what life is like in Africa’s 3rd largest lake. Our fins were surrounded by dolphin fish (Cornus Jacks) immediately. They appear purple, dark blue and grey looking with these tiny beady eyes. They are quite a hearty size, smaller then a baby shark but look quite evil.

The eyes are small because they sleep during the day and hunt at night. They use the electric currents to sense loose prey, like the daytime cichlids that are drunken party animals and should be home in the crevices of the rocky seabed.

We swim off with torches on and everywhere else is pure darkness. Without the knowledge that night dives have been done before. I perhaps could have been more nervous. The dolphin fish would follow us for the whole 40 minutes. Because of the light, the fish were incredibly close. The closest a sea creature has got to me without touching me. They would come from all sides surprising your peripherals as they crept up on you and slime their way around.

Because you have the power of light you can orchestrate the lives of fish. Most of the time you are swimming ahead of them but what’s good is to swim further ahead when they are around the rocks than turn back and put the torch on them and watch them swim past almost with intention to swim through you.

You can also throw the light on a cichlid and wait for one to pounce. We did this once and waited. A large “SNAP!” echoed. I heard it earlier but this time it was confirmed it was the fish’s mouth snapping at the cichlid sounding like a bone cracking. “Oooh shit!” I called out through my mouthpiece.

The fish failed and after seeing this I started to like the dolphin fish. They are the lion of the lake. The shark. But now I was “Come on guys!” And it was like we were a team on the hunt. They are the only creatures to adapt the night dive lights to their advantage. Whilst the Cichlids look like stunned deer’s in headlights.

We ascended and as I surfaced I looked up at the stars and see numerous constellations. You know the one with all those stars in them. Well that one was there and more. Spoiled slightly by the smell of fire burning from town. I had briefly forgotten I was in Africa.

I looked at it and I spent 4 months in the part of Africa that didn’t really interest me when I decided to come to Africa. In Southern Africa I think Namibia is the bomb, the rest I don’t really care if I see again.

There’s a lot of yelling to communicate in Malawi I found their friendliness similar to the rest of Southern Africa - Trustworthy and safe enough. Maybe they get the reputation as the ‘warm heart of Africa’ from people travelling north to south? I think most of my top destinations in the world don’t involve people. And Malawi was unlucky to follow Namibia, the complete opposite. I suppose it was just bad timing. The day night dive in Lake Malawi is not a mind-blowing experience but if you are looking for a different diving experience than this is the place to go.

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Photos

Some Healer doing a speech about
how black man turn white I was told.

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