Malawi

We’re in Malawi, famous for celebrity adoptions, an HIV/AIDS pandemic, potentially illegal flatulating and its $161 per capita GNP (a mere $65,441 behind Luxembourg). That Malawi is not famous for much else is not terribly surprising. It is really underdeveloped – beautiful, but really underdeveloped. The big tourism draw is the rather posessively-named Lake Malawi over which Malawians claim complete ownership. To neighbouring Tanzanians, it’s known less contentiously as Lake Nyasa (Nyasa: large body of water) and they think they own half of it. Not a good negotiating strategy from the Tanzanians.

We left northern Tanzania backtracking through various campsites back down to Mbeya, about an hour from the Malawian and Zambian borders in the south. We spent the night outside Mbeya on a gorgeous coffee plantation in the hills outside the town and then headed for the Malawian border the next morning.

We spent our first night in Malawi at a “lodge” on Lake Malawi about an hour from the border. Nothing to write home about – or blog about – but remarkably and justifiably inexpensive. We then thought we’d stop for lunch (on the advice of Lonely Planet) in Livingstonia, a small town in the highlands founded as a malaria-free mission. What Lonely Planet neglected to clearly document was that the road to Livingstonia ascends vertically to the plateau 900m up using about 100m of horizontal to do it in – and it’s not a road at all but a mud and stone 4×4 single-width track carved into the side of the plateau. During rainy season (which it is now) waterfalls tumble onto much of the road. And once you start your way up it, you’re committed as you can’t possibly turn around without falling to a certain death. We crawled up the 8 km track for an hour, white with fear, nails planted deep into the dash, not… looking… down… It was without a doubt the most frightening road I have yet encountered. The boys, of course, thought it was fantastic. We eventually made it to the town of Livingstonia – a bizarre, tiny town parts of which look a lot like a village in the Scottish highlands. There’s a university of 250 students that spans 3 small colonial buildings. The students are taught by Western volunteers (we met a Norwegian pharmacist and a Norwegian word-processing instructor who were teaching Mathematics and English Literature respectively) or by lecturers bused in (on the Road of Certain Death) from Lilongwe, more than 400 kms away, once a week. We had a $2 stew lunch in the mission and debated whether we could psychologically sustain a descent down the Road of Certain Death – and concluded that we absolutely couldn’t. So, again on the advice of Lonely Planet, we drove to stay in the Mushroom Farm Lodge which we then discovered was a small lodge perched on a 600m cliff overlooking the Rift Valley and Lake Malawi below – and this being Africa, there were no barriers, guards or other evidently optional equipment to stop a child or a backpacking drunk from falling to his certain death… Thanks again, Lonely Planet. Not exactly calming but judged to be better than the driving alternative. Fiona and I inspected the single campsite, perched entirely on the edge of the 600m cliff and reasonably concluded that we’d spend the night in a mud and thatch banda instead. The bandas and paths leading to them were carved into the hill and terraces above the cliff but most were set back from the cliff by a few meters… much safer! But after having been placed in so many life-threatening situations on this trip, our kids are now getting pretty good at recognizing mortal danger and respecting the limits. The managers were an older couple from Huddersfield, Yorkshire who had chucked in their jobs to do something different, and had been managing the place for 6 months. We hurriedly ate a rather distracted dinner in a tiny thatched open room with our chairs about 1m from the 600m drop. The place, food and people were all brilliant – an amazing place with the most incredible views – and it was hard to leave (not just because of the inevitable descent down Road of Certain Death).

We’ve made it about a third of the way down the country from the north, to Nkhata Bay, a small touristy/fishing town on the shores of Lake Malawi. We’re camping just back from the lakeshore and spending our days snorkelling, swimming and fishing. Lake Malawi is an enormous fresh water tropical fish tank with an amazing selection of colourful cichlids. The snorkelling is fantastic and the kids are in the water, floating about for about 8 hours a day.

Malawians are as lovely as they are reputed to be… really laid back and genuinely friendly. After having to deal with the aggressive, money-grubbing northern Tanzanians, they’re a wonderful breath of fresh air. The bits we have seen of Malawi so far are gorgeous – mountainous highlands surrounding the Rift Valley and Lake Malawi. It’s not urban at all… the 13 million Malawians seem spread out in what might be described as “rural sprawl” – seemingly every piece of land, including precarious hillsides, are habited and/or farmed. We’re off to Cape Maclear when we tire of this place (but we have to go back north a bit to find diesel as there’s apparently no diesel anywhere south of us) – and then eventually to Mozambique for some Indian Ocean beach time and more snorkelling.

Missing all our friends and family – but we’ll see everyone soon.

Photos are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37855&id=132770943443978.