North to Nkhotakota

I have done it often enough – rented a car and gone exploring, it’s not that difficult surely! Hmm, here in Malawi such a choice poses a few more challenges than elsewhere. To start with, renting a car is expensive - $65 a day for the smallest option. I decided to go with one of the bigger firms to minimise the chance of getting a dodgy deal, and as they didn’t have a small car available, they gave me a Toyota station wagon for the same price. It was not new or in pristine condition and the ventilation system was somewhat intermittent, turning itself off periodically, and I was not sure if the orange ABS light  should have been on the whole time, but it generally went well and coped with the roads.

Ahh, the roads. The main roads are mostly in reasonable condition although you do need to look out for large potholes or sudden loss of seal which are not signed and can catch you unawares if you are travelling too fast! But once you are off the main road, then the adventures really begin as conditions deteriorate quickly. Most side roads are unsealed, which would be alright if they have a good base, but if not, then they get very eroded during the rainy season. Thankfully I had had some experience of being driven along some fairly poor roads by workmates, so sort of knew what to expect. But even so, the 6 km track to my accommodation at Fish Eagle Bay and the 10 km in to the Bua Lodge really tested me and the car. I would have been fine in a Hilux, but in a low slung saloon I was fearful and stressed. I was forced to negotiate serious ruts and potholes, large rocks, steep hills and soft sand, and crawled along at 10 or 20 km per hour. It was not at all enjoyable and I arrived at my destination each time feeling exhausted! I suspect that this is one of the factors that will limit my explorations around the countryside as I find that sort of driving too stressful.

On the main roads, the open road speed limit is 80 km per hour. Although this seems slow I can understand it as there are so many hazards all along the highways. The main hazard is people, walking or cycling. Here pedestrians must outnumber cars by a factor of at least 30 to 1. People of all ages walking along, by themselves or in groups, with or without loads. Some carry just a small bundle, while others carry much larger items on their head, like a bundle of firewood, a pumpkin or a sack of pumpkins, a bucket of water or large basin of freshly ground maize meal. And many women also have a baby strapped to their back in a colourful cloth. As for the bicycles, well that’s a whole story for another day.

And it is not just the human foot traffic of which one has to be wary, there are also the goats, the chickens, the dogs and the occasional cows! And then there is the other motorised traffic to contend with. Technically, due to the British legacy, one drives on the left in this country which makes my life easier. However “left” is a loosely interpreted concept here, especially when the road surface or foot traffic make the other side look more appealing. A number of times I had to slow right down to avoid being side-swiped by an oncoming vehicle, generally travelling at some speed! The most ridiculous example of this craziness happened in the work vehicle a few days ago when the pot holes in the road meant we passed the oncoming car on the right as they detoured to the left of us!!! Maybe it is just as well there aren’t too many cars in this country!

Despite the open road speed limit being 80 km, the speed limit through villages and towns drops to 50 km per hour, which again seems sensible given the bustle of foot traffic. And I wouldn’t mind so much if it weren’t for the fact that because Malawi is a densely populated country and 85% of the 14+ million people live in villages in rural areas, there is a village every 5 km or so!!!! So a 170 km journey takes three hours instead of two! I have also been told that speeding fines are a flat fee of 5,000Kwa (about $30) regardless of how far over the limit you are, which would be ok if the signs telling you the speed limit were in place. However, apparently they get stolen a lot, so you are never quite sure if you are in a 50 or 80 km speed zone, and ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. It seems many of the folks at work get speed fines at some stage or another, so no doubt I will too!

So much for the journey, what about the destination? I had toyed with all sorts of plans and ideas, but in the end I decided to keep it simple for several reasons. One was I was a little unsure about driving here for the first time and secondly I couldn’t guarantee I would get petrol en route so couldn’t go further than a tank would take me. And thirdly, the maps here are abysmal and that is not an exaggeration! Given that I am geographically challenged even when I have access to detailed and reliable maps, I didn’t need the stress of pushing the limits on this trip. As it was, just getting out of Lilongwe was a challenge and I am so grateful that Carmen told me to turn right at the corner where the minibuses congregate – if she hadn’t given me that visual cue I would have missed the turn as it wasn’t signed! Signposts here are somewhat randomly distributed and it seems that you are expected to know where you are going (oh boy, am I going to get seriously lost at some stage!!!). As for street names, why would we need those quaint Western conventions? Within Lilongwe only a handful of streets have names and people give directions by land-marks such as roundabouts or obvious buildings or signs. Oh joy!

My route was fairly straightforward – drive east towards Lake Malawi until you get to Salima, then turn left and drive north until just before Nkhotakota. Then take the dirt track to Fish Eagle Bay Lodge, which actually was well signed, thankfully. I am glad I asked the helpful police man at the police checkpoint at Salima for the turnoff to Nkhotakota as otherwise I would have missed it, because (you guessed it) there was no sign! Arrgh, I am learning!

My cabin at Fish Eagle Bay lodge

Rondavels on the beach at the lodge

I was very relieved to arrive safe and sound at Fish Eagle Bay Lodge about 3 pm, after a less than relaxing drive. But the lodge lived up to its photos on the web and was lovely. It was situated right on the lake shore, with its own beach, and they hired out kayaks and little sailing boats. My cabin was white-washed with a thatched roof, with a double bed in the main room and its own bathroom and loo. There was no glass in the windows and the sound of the waves breaking on the shore was lovely. And yes, those are eucalypts overhanging the cabin! There were a couple of open-sided thatched rondavels at the top of the beach with comfortable chairs and tables, and a dining room and small lounge further back. It was all very lovely, but in typical African fashion had it owns quirks, the main one being the shower. It operated on Malawi time and so I needed to turn the taps on about 10 minutes before I wanted to actually have a shower to give the water time to arrive. The cold water turned up first and then eventually some (solar-heated) hot water wandered along. It was not ideal, but then I didn’t come here to spend time in the shower!

On my first afternoon I wandered along the beach, past the little fishing villages where the locals were mending their nets and going about their daily business. Some women and older children were in the lake, fishing for small fish with bamboo rods and nylon lines. I am not sure how successful they were as they didn’t seem to be catching much. There were a number of painted row boats that could take 3 or 4 fishermen out as well as a few traditional dugout canoes. The dugouts were made of logs with only a small opening in the top so you could put your catch and equipment into the body of the canoe, but there was not enough room a person to sit. Instead there was a simple wooden plank nailed to the end of the canoe as a seat. It must take a bit of skill to manoeuvre a vessel like that on the lake, particularly in windy conditions.

Fishing boats heading out on Lake Malawi, with the hills of Mozambique in the far distance

It was very relaxing and refreshing to walk along the beach, I paddled in the amazingly warm water and soaked in the atmosphere of everyday life here along the lake shore. The hills of Mozambique were visible on the eastern shore of the lake, some 50 or 60 km away. Lake Malawi is a huge body of water, about 600 km in length, and hugely important in the life and economy of the country. It supports a large percentage of the population either directly in income or indirectly as fish provide a key source of protein for many people. And it is the key tourist attraction for the country, attracting both back-packers and tour groups travelling through southern Africa. So it was lovely to finally get to spend some time here and in such a restful environment. It was very relaxing to sit at the top of the beach and watch the locals wander along by the lake, heading from one village to the next. Each evening I also spent time happily reacquainting myself with the splendour of the night sky without the curse of light pollution – I haven’t seen this many stars since I spent time in Namaqualand in South Africa a couple of years ago. The little square of night sky I have access to in Melbourne just doesn’t measure up!

The other bonus of the descent of darkness each evening was the emergence of the bats which flitted in and out of the open rondavels and around all the outdoor lights, hunting down the local insect populations. They swooped and flew with such energy and precision, never quite close enough to touch me or staying still long enough to ever really get a good look at them, but they were very entertaining none-the-less. They were smaller than the big fruit bats we get in Australia but bigger than the micro-bats in the reserve at my place in Melbourne, so being ignorant of their official title, I shall christen them “meso-bats”.

The other entertaining fauna I encountered was on my second day when I once again braved the rough roads and headed north to Bua Lodge in the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve. The road in was extremely challenging and I wondered if it was worth either the stress of the drive or the petrol, but I persevered. The folks at my accommodation had made arrangements with the Bua lodge operators for me to do a guided walk in the reserve. I had been warned that although there are plenty of interesting animals in the reserve, including elephants, they can be very elusive as it is a big park (about 2,000 km­²) and is largely inaccessible due to the terrain. I had to wait quite a while for the guide to come back from another walk, and while I waited a family of little vervet monkeys kept me entertained. There were about six of them, with the smallest of them being about the size of a large cat and the larger monkeys maybe about the size of a small dog. They scampered along branches and up and down trees and along the ground, chasing each other, occasionally fighting or feeding or grooming, and chasing the tree squirrels – it was great watching them! There were also some beautiful butterflies, including one with blue wings tipped in orange. I have seen lots of beautiful butterflies here, many more varieties than I am used to seeing.

Finally my guide turned up and he and I set off for a relatively short walk to a nearby waterfall. He stopped at various trees to tell me their names and interesting facts, which was great. There was jatropha which I had heard of but not seen before, which is grown as a biofuel crop with oil extracted from the seeds to make biodiesel, and the fig tree with the slippery bark which the baboons can’t climb, and the sacred tree under which folks would have gathered to pray for rain. We also saw sausage trees (Kigelia africana), which I have seen before but I hadn’t had the chance to really look at the fruit. And the fruit are amazing. They hang on long wooden stalks and are cylindrical, about 40 or 50 cm long with a diameter of maybe 15 cm. They weigh 5 kilograms or more – they are solid!! You certainly wouldn’t want one to fall on you as you wander under the tree. Apparently the squirrels eat them while they are still on the tree, while baboons and other animals eat them once they fall. But it has to be one of the heaviest fruit produced by any tree and it seems like an awful lot of resources are being channelled into fruit production by the tree. It was great to finally get the chance to pick one up and examine it for myself.

My guide holding the fruit of a sausage tree

 

We didn’t see any interesting terrestrial wildlife on the walk, but a couple of different birds and then, just before the waterfall, the guide stopped me and pointed out a rock on the other side of the river. I needed to get out my binoculars to identify the rock as the head of a crocodile! He was about 3m long and one of a few resident crocs along that part of the river. But they always stay on the opposite bank where the water is slower. So that was very exciting! We stopped for a rest under the shade at the waterfall and the guide talked about the 16 years he has worked for the Parks and Wildlife department, including the issues with poachers in the forest (they poach fish and elephants and other animals). One poacher lost his arm to a crocodile recently! I am not sure if it was the crocs or the elephants or the poachers that meant that he was armed for our walk. I am not an expert on military stuff, but I am fairly sure it was not a rifle or shotgun that he was carrying, it seemed to my inexperienced eye to be some sort of semi-automatic weapon with one of those black, rectangular magazine thingys that slots into the gun about halfway down. Anyway, whatever sort of gun it was, I was relieved he didn’t need to use it! 

Although it was quite a short walk and we didn’t see too many different animals, it was good to get into the forest and to see the diversity of plant species and experience a little of what Malawi forests would have been like before so many were cleared for agriculture. Once I braved the road out and got back to my digs, it was also nice to go for a swim in the lake – it was so warm.

Woodland at the edge of Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve

The following day I spent in the local environs and refused to drive anywhere! I walked along the lake shore to the Nkhotakota Pottery, which was a couple of bays along, for a spot of cheesecake. The pottery is run by the same crowd as the one in Dedza that I had visited at Easter with my work colleague, so the products were very similar. I didn’t buy anything at the pottery but was encouraged to part with some kwachas for some wooden souvenirs – including another hippo for my expanding hippo collection. The tables in the little café were decorated with ceramic tiles depicting different aspects of life in Malawi in a simple and naïve style, which I thought were really cool – hence all the photos.

That night for dinner I finally got to try the staple dish of Malawi – ‘nsima and beans’. Nsima is made from ground maize meal and has a consistency similar to mashed potato, but it’s not as tasty. I guess it’s a bit like polenta. It is usually accompanied by beans or meat stew or relishes etc to impart some taste and protein, and is often eaten with the hands. I chose to use a fork! It was good, but I won’t be eating it everyday, like the locals do.

At one point as I wrote this, I heard the sound of singing and looked up to see two young boys guiding a small herd of cattle along the lake shore – cool!

On Monday I braved the drive back to Lilongwe, unsure if I would readily find petrol to fill the car. I had enough in the tank to get me home but not a lot to spare. And given the way queues for petrol sometimes stretch for a km or more without ever seeming to move, I wasn’t sure that even if I found somewhere with fuel and gave myself 3 or 4 hours to queue, that I would succeed in getting my tank filled within that time. However the financial incentive was strong – if I returned the car unfilled I would be charged at the black market rate for petrol which is about $4.50 per litre, as opposed to the official price of $2.20. So you may appreciate that I was somewhat apprehensive about the usually straightforward process of filling the fuel tank. As it turned out, there had been good deliveries of fuel over the weekend and I filled up at the first petrol station I came to driving back into the city, without having to queue at all!!! Wow, a miracle! However, I did see a couple of inner city stations later in the day that still were without fuel, so normality of supply has yet to be restored.

It was an interesting weekend and it was good to get out of the city and explore some of this beautiful country, but next time, I am going to let someone else do the driving!