Unusual customs at customs
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| Malawi customs |
Border crossings are usually quite stressful affairs; being dropped at one point, avoiding eye contact with men with machine guns, walking through no-mans land and trying to prevent getting ripped off by black market currency exchangers. Transitioning in and out of Malawi was altogether different.
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| You'll find customs to the right of the sardines |
Our first port of call in Malawi was Likoma Island, on Lake Malawi that we reached by local boat from Mozambique. On the boat we were surprised to be able to strike up a few conversations – hoorah almost in an English speaking country! Peter was a fan of Duncan’s ‘send an African a photo’ charity idea and in exchange agreed to help us through customs. Carrying our gear to the beach we were greeted by a man in jeans and a t-shirt who introduced himself as ‘Jack from customs’ and suggested we ‘move somewhere for the formalities”. We made our way between rows of sardines drying in the sun to find some space on the front of a dhou (local fishing boat) for Jack to open up his briefcase and hand us our immigration forms.
Ten amazing days later we were leaving Malawi at a rather traditional looking border crossing, so put on our serious border crossing faces, went through the stamp out process only for Pip to receive a double thumbs up and giant smile and ‘kangaroo’ from the Malawi customs guy – we love Malawi!
The never-ending birthday
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| Beachside bungalow at Likoma Island |
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| That looks like a draw |
Being a bit disappointed with waking up sharing a single bed in a s**t hole for his 32nd birthday, Dunc decided that arriving at Mango Drift on Likoma Island with our own bungalow on the sand, a beach side bar and other English speaking people was more than enough justification to recommence the birthday celebrations. Hours after the generators had gone out, a few arm-wrestles had been lost to the barman (see bulging muscle picture!) and the manager conceded defeat to the Aussie drinkers we called it a night. The celebrations were reignited just two days later when we discovered that the much fancier sister resort of Mango Drift would accept our offer of a discount dinner for us and some English girls.
So because it was ‘the birthday’ we threw our budget out the window and enjoyed a delicious 3-course meal at a private table on the sand with some wine. Heaven, until we got the bill a few days later.
Aside birthday celebrations we passed our time at Mango Drift reading, playing beach volleyball and diving in Lake Malawi. Filled with tropical fish, fresh water Lake Malawi is a unique diving experience – spotted catfish, lots of fish-tank type fish and an amazing fish that when you approach gobbles up it’s babies to protect them, then spits them out when they are taken to a safe distance. Very funny to watch.
Spotting that every male traveller has a beard Duncan also ended his days as a disciple revealing a much paler third of his face.
Stow aways
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| The Ilala - from a distance it looks almost nice... |
The Ilala ferry is the lifeblood of Malawi, transporting people, food and other supplies up and down the length of the lake, which makes up almost a fifth of the country. In the Lonely Planet the romantic idea of the Ilala had us wishing we had time to take the ferry the whole length of the lake. After 14 hours on it we decided all future transport would be done by road.
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| First class sleeping section! |
The manager at Mango Drift thought we would leave to meet the Ilala at 4pm. At 8pm they finally got the call that it was approaching, so along with three medical students from England we got in the 4WD for a very bumpy half an hour to the harbour. On the dark beach there were literally thousands of people, so we all nervously decided to wait in the truck for a while for it to settle down. Rather than a jetty to get us on the boat, people were being ferried from the shore to the boat in smaller boats that were ridiculously overloaded, many just barely staying above water. Two hours later it looked like it might be settling down, but when we got down there it was just way too crazy to take on one of the free shuttle boats, so we found a private boat that would take a safer number of people out for a few dollars. Despite the comparative safety, there were still a few moments of terror on the ten minute trip as the boat tipped from side to side overloaded with gear and people. Getting aboard the Ilala was particularly challenging carrying our packs up the ladder onto the crowded lower deck that was jammed with people, fish and other supplies. Using elbows and force we pushed past people, trying to avoid stepping on those sleeping. Up to second class, that looked marginally better and finally up to the fresh air of first class.
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| The offending chimney that covered us in soot |
First class in name only it seemed. We surveyed the open deck and quickly set about finding ourselves a bit of deck to call our bed that was out of the way of the drunken army men wandering back and forth to the bar. For some it seemed it was a booze cruise. After a few goes we eventually got our sleeping sheets out squashed between our packs and the inflatable lifeboats. Our next challenge was that we were essentially stow-aways, knowing full well that we didn’t have enough Kwachas ($) to pay for our first class tickets. Being caught unprepared for the long trip out of Mozambique with no ATM’s or any ATM’s on Likoma Island we were very low on money (thankfully Mango drift was the first place we stayed that took credit card – probably also why the birthday was able to continue to so freely!). We agreed on a plan to pretend to be asleep when the ticket man came. It wasn’t a great plan, with the torch being shone in Pip’s face at the same time as being pocked in the back. As always somehow things work out and Pip was able to negotiate for the ticket man to find someone to exchange our Mozambique money for the remainder of the money we owed him. We got ripped off of course with the exchange rate, but we were allowed to stay on the ferry.
Sleeping surprisingly well we awoke at dawn to find that we were covered in black soot from the ferry chimney, but were glad to spot the land and people already unloading stuff. Chatting with the English girls who were already awake however quickly dashed our excitement as it turned out we had reached the island next door, less than a few kilometres. It took another two hours for the smaller boats to finish ferrying people, food and other supplies between the island and the boat and we set off again for the next stop where we arrived dirty and very hungry five hours later. If only we had some money for water and food!
Rasta man
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| Our Nhkata Bay accomodation and one of our nightly escorts |
Disembarking the Ilala should have been simple thanks to some infrastructure at Nhkata Bay. A wharf somehow made everything harder with the usual lack of any system at an all time high. There had been a gate that kept people on the land off the wharf, but after a few minutes of being docked they opened the gate and hundreds of people came running down. The gangway wasn’t yet down, but people jumped up the side of the ferry and tried climbing up, only occasionally being beaten down by crew.
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| Beardless at Rasta Kevins |
We’d got ourselves ready to quickly disembark and were stuck on the stairs heading into a seething crowd of people and packages, before deciding to retreat back up to a higher deck. We got ushered back by the captain for being in his area, but not before Duncan asked him who was in charge, “everyone is in charge” and he didn’t take too kindly to
the suggestion that it would be more effective to let people off first and then people on. Or at least vice versa. Eventually we thought it was a good time to go and after 20 minutes of elbowing and jamming our way through the tide of people simultaneously trying to get on and off we made it off the Ilala, vowing never ever to get back on.
The chaos of the ferry was quickly juxtaposed with what has to be the rasta capital of Africa. Dreadlocked men were everywhere and aside a few non-rastas who had crazy eyes (no doubt the result of the local delicacy ‘space cakes’) Nhkata Bay was a pretty chilled place. A bit more touristy than we were used to and with more masungu (wondering white man) prices, so we tended to eat at Rasta Kevin’s place down the hill from the accommodation and got used to ordering something only to be told an hour later that they didn’t have the ingredients – ah Rasta time.
Got to love a good siddle
At home we are always amused by watching people get sidled by someone or being sidled ourselves, but in Malawi each day is continual episodes of funny sidles. Heading off on a walk for the second time in a day (the first time we mistakingly walked along the main highway for an hour before tweaking that we’d misinterpreted the direction) we’d just finished climbing a big hill that will most likely be our only training for Mt Kilimanjaro when we became aware of a new siddler and we went through the usual exchange. “Mumbo” (hello), “mumbo”, “jumbo” (how are you), “pal” (we are fine) then to English “where are you from”, “Australia”, “Ah Kangaroo”, “yes Kangaroo”. Then depending on how good the siddlers English is there might be a few more questions or more than likely a few minutes of silence as the three of us walk together before our siddler begins just repeating back things from our earlier conversation, “kangaroo”, “Sydney”, “Duncan”. This either gets a quickened pace or just nods and awkward looks. Eventually siddlers either say goodbye or ask for some money or some other goods.
The walk to Rasta Kevin’s each night was a bit hairy on rocky bush paths in the dark, but as well as our trusty head torches, we somehow always picked up a possy of Dogs from the guest house next to ours who escorted us there and back, barking away anyone that dared come near us and providing us with a siddle that didn’t require the same old conversation and awkward end.
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| Abort! One of the cliff dives. |
Stowaways
The Dog’s weren’t the only good free thing we picked up from the better hotel next door. When we were there buying some water and chocolate (the first place we’d been all trip that sold it!) we’d been mistaken as guests by one of the staff who encouraged us to go on a free boat tour they were organising that afternoon. Waiting to hop on some other stow aways were reprimanded by staff for trying to go on despite staying next door. We got cold feet and pretended we just wanted to sit by the water, only to be encouraged back on the boat by the staff. We had an awesome afternoon of watching fish eagles catch fish we threw overboard, jumping off rocks into the water and having a long-jump competition with the locals, which depressed Duncan to no end after another lapse in his sporting prowess (earlier he’d lost out in a game of netball to some school girls and a chess game to Pip).
Dr Livingstone I presume
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| A bumpy ride in the boot to Livingstonia |
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| Cliff-side camping spot with amazing sunrise views! |
Livingstonia is a community up in the northern hills of Malawi that was set up by the missionaries who moved up there to try and avoid malaria. To get to Livingstonia is a challenge in itself, to find transport up the huge cliff face that only a serious 4WD can do. Finding a 4WD going up is the main problem, but with luck on our side again, four Belgian people were dumped on the side of the road by a minivan around the same time as us and had organised a ride. The cost was more than we spend on three nights of accommodation, but between the six of us it was a much better option than walking up with all our gear, which we had been considering. Just a few hair-pin bends up the incredibly steep hill we exchanged looks from opposite sides of the boot we were in of ‘thank god we didn’t attempt this with our packs!'.
Mushroom farm was most definitely worth the effort. We hired a tent and were lucky enough to get a spot right on the edge looking out over the valley kilometres down (Pip’s mum would have had kittens!). To prevent ourselves plunging to our death if we woke up to use the loo in the middle of the night we made a wall with our packs and prepared to wake up to an amazing sunrise over the valley. Truly magical.
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| Dinner is served in the orphanage...a bit depressing but yummy! |
Shortly after sunrise we continued the walk up to Livingstonia, which took the better part of an hour – again thank goodness we didn’t try it with our packs! The town is incredible when you consider how hard it is to get supplies up, with full brick buildings, including a huge church that we were lucky enough to be taken up the bell tower of to get a spectacular view of the town and valleys. The museum was closed that day so unable to see the main attraction we went to the local waterfall where we enjoyed an afternoon of swimming in water holes and taking photos before having dinner at an orphanage we’d agreed to eat at earlier in the day.
Malawi is going through some troubling times and the British diplomat was recently thrown out of the country for joining Malawians in criticising the governments corruption. In return, the UK through out the Malawian diplomat as well as suspending a lot of aid, which had hit organisations like the orphanage that we ate at hard. We were glad to be able to help out in some small way with dinner and a small donation, although the lone table in a big room of the orphanage definitely wasn’t the most uplifting meal we’d had.
Next stop….Tanzania!
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| The King on his thrown. |
More Photos
Likoma Island
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| Treating ourselves to another birthday celebration |
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| Morning walk at Mango Drift to justify lazing about eating and drinking all day |
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| Sunset at Mango Drift |
Nhkata Bay
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| Sadly Duncan and Pip got knocked out in the same round of long jump...another sporting failure! |
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| Our digs from the boat at Nhkata Bay |
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| The luxury of some of our accommodation |
Livingstonia
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| Sunrise at Mushroom farm. |
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| Training for Kiliminjaro |
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| Climbing up some rickity stairs to the bell tower. |
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