My African Odyssey

Brandon and I knew we only had 24 hours to get from Karonga to Mpulungu if we were to make the ferry, so we were up early and at the matola stop on the western edge of Karonga by around 7am. There was a ute waiting when we arrived (which wasn’t too full) and at first we thought we lucked out. However, the driver was determined not to go anywhere until every square inch of space had been utilised. So we didn’t end up leaving until 9am and when we did we were joined by approximately 25 locals and their luggage. We were all squeezed in like sardines as we headed down the dusty road to Chitipa. It was slow going, taking us over 4 hours to get the 100km to our first destination. On the way Brandon and I were puzzled to see Chinese people taking rock samples and surveying the road – as it turns out, a paved road is being constructed between Karonga and Chitipa by the Chinese and is scheduled to be completed sometime this year.

It was already 1pm by the time we reached Chitipa, so Brandon and I were as keen as possible to push on across the border. We asked around town if there were any more trucks leaving that day but they had all apparently left in the morning. However, thanks to some help from a couple of kind locals we were eventually able to arrange for a bloke with a ute to take us the not inconsiderable distance (around 95km) to Nakonde, the nearest town on the other side of the border in Zambia.

The ride from Chitipa to Nakonde was in total contradiction to the first leg of our journey. First of all, it was relatively expensive (about $20 each as opposed to $2 per person for the first leg). Second, it wasn’t crowded at all as Brandon and I were the only 2 people in the tray of the ute. Thirdly, it was fast! The driver covered the 95km (over rough gravelly/dirt roads) in under 2 hours. At times we were taking bumps easily in excess of 80km/h. So fast that my arse was getting bounced off the bottom of the tray and I had to hold on to the side just to keep myself from being thrown out. Nonetheless, we made it to Nakonde safe and sound.

Absolutely flying somewhere between Chitipa and Nakonde

The only hiccup on this leg of the trip came at the Malawian border. When crossing into Malawi from Zambia (on my way to Lilongwe from Lusaka) I had (stupidly) told the immigration officer that I only intended to stay in Malawi for about 10 days. Australians don’t need a visa to travel to Malawi and can stay up to 90 days without an issue but the first immigration officer had obviously put something down in my passport when he stamped it that said I was only allowed to stay in the country for 10 days. I didn't think it would matter that I ended up staying an extra day but the Malawian immigration officer at this border was now making a big deal out of the fact that I had been in the country for 11 days.

A Mexican standoff ensued with him trying to convince me that this was a very serious offence (most likely in the hope of me offering to pay an ‘on the spot fine’) and me refusing to play along with his game. The atmosphere in his office was very tense and as we talked back and forth there were numerous long, awkward pauses as we tried to size each other up. In the end, I was able to get stamped out of the country (without paying anything) by playing up to his vanity and national pride. I suggested that a man of such importance and authority is no doubt endowed with a certain amount of discretion and that this was a perfect example of a situation where he could use that discretion. I also told him that up until now I had had nothing but extremely positive experiences of Malawi and that it would be very unfortunate to leave his beautiful country with a bitter taste in my mouth because of an unfortunate misunderstanding. From memory, I think I even told him that if he would let me pass I would go home and tell people how generous and kind the Malawian people are and that they should all go visit! Whatever I said, it worked and I was finally able to be stamped out of the country.

Due to the delay at the border it was dusk by the time we arrived in Nakonde, Zambia. Luckily, the Zambian immigration office was still open and Brandon and I were able to get our Zambian stamps - we had only made it by about half and hour, any later and we would have had to wait until the morning! Completely exhausted from what had already been a long day of travel, Brandon and I started asking around for transport to Mpulungu. Of course, we were too late and there were no more minibuses running and the only other possible means of transport was another matola. What is more, all the utes had already left for the day and the only things available were great big, overloaded flat-bed trucks where we would be stuck sitting on top of the cargo, close to 5-6m off the ground. It was now 7pm and by the best estimate it would take at least 8hours to make it to Mpulungu. That meant, we couldn’t afford to wait until morning because if we did we would miss the ferry and there was no way we were going to let that happen.

Brandon and I finally boarded one of the huge, lumbering, overloaded trucks at around 8pm. By this time it was well and truly dark except for an almost full moon that was rising slowly. With nothing more to secure us than our grip on a frayed rope that was holding down the cargo beneath us, Brandon and I crossed our fingers as the truck lurched forward. With a sway, a bump and a grind of gears we were on our way and there was no looking back now. I was filled with a mix of excitement and fear… what was I doing? How did I get myself in this position? Was this really worth it just to catch a ferry? My fear seemed well deserved as we drove past an overturned container truck which had veered too close to the edge of the drainage dip and fallen on its side. If a huge truck like that could topple, what chance did we have!

We had barely left Nakonde when all of a sudden the conductor started motioning for us all to dismount. Evidently, we had come across a government checkpoint that had been set up to prevent this very kind of transport! We all had to sneak through a field which ran parallel to the road to get around the checkpoint. I managed to stay close behind the conductor while the others dispersed a little so as to make it harder for the police to see us. The conductor and I rejoined the highway a few hundred meters past the checkpoint and sat there sipping on cheap Malawian gin till the others joined us and the truck finally came and picked us up.

When we remounted I found a really comfortable position wedged in between the cargo and my compatriots. Zipping up my jacket against the cold, the first 5 hours of the journey atop the truck passed relatively peacefully. I was rather warm, being protected from the wind by a fellow traveler and I felt quite safe given that my centre of balance (ie. my arse) was well away from the edge. In fact, on a couple of occasions I even felt myself drifting off to sleep. However, all this comfort was shattered around 1am.

Boxes and bags had been periodically falling off the back of the truck for the last couple of hours. Each time this occurred, it would solicit a round of yelps from us on the back to the driver up front who would then stop while one of his human cargo would jump down and retrieve the offending item. Apparently, this happened once too often and the driver decided that some repacking was in order. We all had to get off while the cargo was reorganized and properly secured this time and the tarp was lashed back over it. This whole exercise took almost an hour and (in addition to the unnecessary delay), had the result of destroying the nook I had established for myself. When I remounted, I found myself stuck perilously close to the edge with not even so much as the frayed rope to hold onto. As the truck entered a particularly rough patch of road, for the first time I found myself genuinely fearing for my life. After all, I was suspended approximately 5-6m above the (moving) ground on a truck which was intermittently pitching from side to side at angles in excess of 30 degrees!

There was no apparent remedy for this predicament other than to move because there was no way I would get through the night without falling. So, with the truck still in motion (and me looking like some stuntman from a low budget action movie) I made my way over, across and around the 20 or so people on top of the truck until I was on the roof of the cabin. Unfortunately, someone was already lying face down on the cabin taking up most of the room and there was a suitcase right underneath me so the only sustainable position I could find was for me to sit with my arse on the cabin roof, facing backwards with a blokes legs either side of me as I straddled a suitcase. At the time, I had no idea I would be stuck in this position for the next 7 hours!

Travel buddies by night

What this position lacked in comfort (facing backwards, open to the elements, legs stuck apart) it made up for in security (seated centrally, able to keep my balance by way of applying pressure to one of my legs as necessary to counteract the pitching of the truck). However, I had nothing to hold onto and I soon realised that if I wasn’t careful it was still very possible to fall. I could only maintain my balance as long as I continued to resist the pitch of the truck with my legs. Given the nature of the road (which was even worse than Brandon and I had anticipated because of recent heavy rain), rest of any kind was out of the question but as the hours of the night ticked slowly by, I found myself growing wearier and wearier. By 4am I was having full blown microsleeps and was seriously worried that I would fall asleep and wake up (if at all) on the side of the road.

Looking for something to entertain me and help keep me awake, I dug around in my day pack until came upon a packet of vanilla cream biscuits which I had bought a couple of days earlier. This discovery reminded me of my hunger, Brandon and I hadn’t eaten anything all day save for a couple of bananas we bought on the side of the road somewhere between Karonga and Chitipa. I ate two of the biscuits and screwed my face up in response to their sweetness. These things were pure sugar. So sweet in fact that eating them was about as pleasant as biting into a slice of lemon. However, they filled my shrunken stomach and gave me a noticeable burst of energy. I was suddenly wide awake, no longer fighting bouts of microsleeps. The energy kick lasted a good 30mins before I felt the drowsiness return. All it took though was another biscuit and I was wide awake again. I ended up spending the next 3-4 hours chomping on sickly sweet vanilla cream biscuits every half an hour just to keep me awake and alert. I know it sounds dramatic but I had barely slept or eaten in 48 hours and these biscuits were literally preventing me from falling asleep, slipping off the truck and potentially dying.

Within a few hours my biscuit supply was dwindling but luckily by this time dawn was beginning to break and with the darkness of the night, so went my fatigue. The sunrise that morning was easily the most beautiful I had ever experienced. The red orange glow of that big ball of fire in the sky as it slowly crept above the horizon. The way it reflected its light off the curvature of the atmosphere so that as it rose, the clouds shone with every colour of the spectrum… from red to orange, to violet, to indigo and even blue.

Sunrise

Travel buddies at daybreak

This peaceful, beautiful setting was only disturbed momentarily when we hit the biggest, deepest pot hole I have ever seen – only I didn’t see it, I just felt it. This water filled pot hole was so deep that when the truck hit it, it pitched to its left so steeply that I am sure we passed 45 degrees. Moreover, I am positive it was only forward momentum that kept us from going all the way over. Brandon and I both looked at each other with faces that reflected both our shear terror and disbelief that the truck was able to right itself.

The final hour of this epic journey of ours was spent in bright, warm sunshine which reflected against my back and warmed my bones after the chilly night exposed to the elements. Light also revealed the faces of our fellow travelers – local Zambians who told us that they admired us for embracing their mode of transport. I had a particularly interesting conversation with an intelligent, good natured man named Arnold. Arnold had 3 kids and was 30 years old, although he had never had a proper job and was only just finishing his last year of high school. He asked questions about life in Australia and gave particularly enlightening answers to my questions about Zambia and Africa in general. Especially interesting were his comments about AIDS and the UN. In his opinion, all that the UN is concerned about in Zambia is AIDS and helping people with AIDS. He claimed that the administration of anti-retroviral drugs is actually making the AIDS problem in Zambia worse because infected people were now living longer and therefore had more of an opportunity to infect others. His attitude may have been a little Machiavellian, but it was certainly an interesting perspective.

Finally a paved road... (Lake Tangynika in the distance)

We finally arrived in Mpulungu at around 9am, bringing to an end our epic 26 hour journey from Karonga. Can you travel from Karonga – Mpulungu overland using only public transport in one day? Of course you can… but you won't enjoy it.

Early to bed and early to rise. After a quick breakfast and one last look at the incredible view, Onno and I gathered our things and began our walk back down to Chitimba. Unfortunately, we were not as lucky on the way down as we were on the way up - there was no traffic on the road and we had to do the entire trek on foot. Nonetheless, it gave us some more time to savour the spectacular views and enjoy the cool, refreshing mountain air. Also, the track wasn’t as difficult as we expected going down – maybe we were just expecting the worst after how intimidating it looked coming up in the trucks. Onno and I made reasonable time and within 2 hours we had reached the highway.

This was the end of the road for us both literally and metaphorically – Onno was heading back to Mzuzu and then onwards to South Africa while I was pushing further north. So I said goodbye to my tall, affable travel companion as he squeezed his big frame into the first minibus that passed us heading south.

As Onno drove off into the distance, I set myself up on the other side of the road and waited for the next bus to come by – always an uneasy feeling because you never really know how long you are going to have to wait. Could be minutes, could be hours, could be days in some places!! Nervous at the thought of having to wait for hours for a matutu (aka. Minibus), I was willing to flag down the first thing that came past. It just so happened that about only 20mins after taking a seat on my pack next to the road, a matola (aka. ute/pickup truck) came into view on the horizon. It was moving pretty fast but when the driver saw me with my thumb out he slammed on the breaks and came to a screeching halt a couple meters past.

I threw my pack in the tray and jumped in after it. The truck took off at lightening speed – that is to say, just as fast as it had arrived! – and I mouthed to the conductor over the noise of the wind that I was headed to Karonga. Karonga is a good 120km north of Chitimba and as we whipped along the highway doing god only knows how many km/h I started questioning my decision to take a matola instead of a matutu. The advantage of catching matolas in Malawi is that the roads are quite good and the ride isn’t too bumpy when you are sitting in the tray. The disadvantage of catching matolas in Malawi is that the roads are good and the drivers absolutely fly along them when you are sitting in the tray! Little did I know what other kind of stupid transport situations I would be getting myself into on this trip! Honestly, the most dangerous part about traveling in Africa isn’t getting eaten by a lion or getting caught up in some post-election riot but the transport. Public transport in Africa is almost universally terrible and dangerous… next time I come back I am getting my own vehicle and doing this properly!

Thankfully, after about 30min of white-knuckle riding in the back of the matola we came to a stop at a small town and the conductor pointed me towards a minibus that he indicated would take me the rest of the way to Karonga (apparently this was the end of the line for the matola). I was waylaid in this small town for about an hour while the driver circled looking for more passengers but we eventually got on our way and I was in Karonga by mid-afternoon.

Karonga is a small, ugly town about half an hour south of the Malawi/Tanzania border. Most people passing through here keep heading north to the border and on to Mbeya (where you can catch a train on to Dar es Salaam). However, I had other plans and was hoping to find some transport that would take me west, back across the border into northern Zambia and on to Mpulungu. Mpulungu is a port at the very southern tip of Lake Tanganyika and I was planning on taking a ferry (MV Liemba) north up the lake to Kigoma, just south of Burundi. The only problem though was that the ferry only left once a week (every Friday) and it was already Wednesday afternoon. Ideally, I wanted to get to Chitipa (about 100km away on the Malawi/Zambia border) by nightfall so after a quick stop to get some cash, I headed for the matola stop on the western edge of town.

I set myself down under a tree surrounded by an eclectic group of men, women and children also waiting for transport. It was hot and dusty and I was sweaty and stinky from my morning hike and slightly sunburned too from sitting on the side of the road/in the back of the truck. After about an hour a pickup truck pulled up and was quickly mobbed by the people sitting around me. Before I knew it there were people screaming and shouting, throwing bags of produce and children up onto the bed of the truck, everyone clambering for some space. I watched the scene unfold before me but didn’t bother getting up. I figured that this truck was too overcrowded and that I would just get the next one. Overloaded beyond imagination, the pickup truck pulled away at a snails pace along the dirt road that led to Chitipa.

I sighed and stretched a little, wondering how long it would be until the next truck arrived. To pass the time I started trying to entertain some of the children who were also waiting – much to the amusement of some local teenagers. I asked an older gentleman what the teenagers thought was so funny about what I was doing and he told me that they were wondering why I was being so humble. The man’s answer took me a little off guard. I had assumed that they just thought I was immature or stupid, I definitely wasn’t expecting the answer he gave. It certainly got me thinking though…

I waited and waited and waited. One hour passed, two hours, three. The sun was beginning to set and we hadn’t seen another truck in a long time. I asked the gentleman next to me when he thought the next pickup truck would come. He said that they usually don’t come after dark and that the next trucks would be going sometime early in the morning, probably around 7am. Unfortunately, the route to Chitipa is so infrequently used that there is no way of knowing how many trucks will be leaving on any given day. Sometime there could be half a dozen sprinkled evenly throughout the day and sometimes there are one or two that leave first thing in the morning and that is it. The bottom line though was that there was unlikely to be any more trucks today and I was going to have to try and get all the way from Karonga to Mpulungu in one day tomorrow.

I picked up my pack and wandered back into the centre of town to find some accommodation. For some reason most of the cheap hotels were booked and I was only able to find a room in a dirty, sleazy motel type place on the edge of town. As it happened, there was another mzungu looking for a room that night. Brandon, an American who was obviously following a similar route to me and who I had bumped into a number of times since leaving Livingstone, was also looking for a room. The hotel had one room left and there were two of us so we agreed to top and tail it for a night and then head out to the matola stop together early the following morning.

I guess I had been spoilt by the accommodation up until this point because this was my first real foray off the well worn tourist trail and I wasn’t loving what I was seeing – a hot, smelly, shitty little place with a thin mattress and mosquito net full of holes. Ironically, this was a sign of things to come and I would endure far worse (or at least just as bad) over the coming months…

Onno and I said our final goodbyes to Gail and Paula early this morning before heading into town to catch a minibus to Chitimba. Our true destination was Livingstonia, a missionary village on top of a mountain overlooking the Lake. However, as there is no public transport directly to Livingstonia, we were planning to catch a bus to Chitimba (which is little more than a string of shacks at the turnoff for the road up to Livingstonia), leave our packs with the staff at the Chitimba Beachside Campsite and hike up to the village on foot.

Onno and I had no trouble finding a bus to take us from Mzuzu to Chitimba. In fact, we were lucky enough to hop on a minibus that absolutely tore up the highway and got us to Chitimba in no time flat. We were let off on a desolate piece of highway next to a steep, dirt track that led up to Livingstonia. I think Onno and I gulped in unison as we surveyed the task in front of us. We still needed to drop our bags off at the campsite across the street and we figured we would get some breakfast while we were at it – we were going to need all the sustenance we could get!

BFG making friends.

There was a French and an Aussie guy sitting at the bar when we reached the campsite. We struck up a conversation with them as we ate our breakfast and it turned out that they worked for a mining company that was doing some prospecting in the area. More importantly, they were on their way back up the hill towards Livingstonia and offered to give Onno and I a lift. We weren’t going to let an opportunity like this pass us by so Onno and I inhaled the rest of our meal, separated our day packs from our main packs (which we left at reception) and jumped in their truck. While the road up to Livingstonia had looked pretty intimidating from the highway, we were even more grateful for the lift the further up the hill we got. The dirt track up the mountain was seriously long (around 15km) and seriously steep! The miners dropped us off at Lukwe Eco Lodge, a beautiful site perched right on the edge of mountain a couple of kilometers down the road from the actual village. We checked in and were escorted to a cabin with absolutely spectacular views down to the Lake.

Our Accommodation

View from our bungalow

We dumped our day packs and started heading up the road to Livingstonia but we hadn’t gone far before a bunch of local kids (who were no more than 8 or 9 years old) hijacked us and took us on a guided tour of Manchewe Falls. They lead us down barely recognizable tracks to a beautiful waterfall and to a cave (hidden by a waterfall) that they explained was used to hide families from slave traders back in the day.

Manchawe Falls

Our tour guides

The tour of the falls was probably the highlight of our trip up the mountain as Livingstonia itself was a little disappointing. It was nice to walk around and see some of the historical buildings but I can’t lie that if we had walked all that way and not seen the falls I would be seriously disappointed. Still, considering we had been given a lift, seen the falls and were staying at a beautiful eco lodge, perched on the side of the mountain with breathtaking views out to the lake from our balcony, this little excursion had been well worth it.

Downtown Livingstonia

I left Nkhata Bay today. It was stinking hot – a real humid unpleasant kind of hot – and with my pack on my back, I had already worked up a serious sweat by the time I reached the minibus stop. Onno was also leaving today and he was already there waiting for me by the time I arrived. However, he wasn’t waiting by himself. Fatima (the barmaid from Big Blue) had come to see him off and was standing there next to him holding his hand. I knew he had been hanging out at the hostel quite a bit over the last few days and (now that I think about it) there probably had been a bit of innocent flirting between the two of them the last time I saw them together, but things had obviously progressed while I was off diving!

I hopped into the bus to give Onno and Fatima some privacy while they said there goodbyes but before he knew it, the driver was beeping on his horn – the universal signal for “Its time to go!” – and Onno was herded on to the bus by the conductor. With Onno waving to Fatima through the minibus’ window, we pulled out of the village and began making our way up the hill to Mzuzu.

Mzuzu isn’t much more than a stop on the long highway that traverses Malawi, a turn off for people heading to Nkhata Bay. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. Mzuzu is Malawi’s third largest town and the capital of the country’s northern region. Still, it doesn’t have much to offer in the way of tourist attractions and I wouldn’t have normally bothered to spend a night there except that Gail, a Canadian girl who Onno and I had kept running into since Lilongwe, was living and volunteering at a school in Mzuzu and had offered to show us around.

Arriving in Mzuzu, we had barely unloaded our packs from the minibus before we picked up our usual (unwelcome) escort. This time, it was a bandana wearing, wannabe tough guy, thinks he’s a real punk, kid named Peter who was all of 13 years old. Despite his ‘too-cool-for-school’ attitude (and the fact that he was obviously looking to get something from us), he seemed nice enough at first. However, that all changed the moment we told him we were looking for Gail. At the mention of her name his demeanor changed completely. His face screwed up, his tone became different and he went from being a big-talking tough guy to being genuinely angry and aggressive. Apparently there had been an incident where he had threatened a student at Gail’s school and Gail had gone to the police about it. As a result, he had been put in gaol for a couple of nights and he clearly resented Gail for it. He started telling us how next time he saw Gail he was going to “chop” her. I asked him what he meant by that and motioned with his hand and told us that he was going to chop Gail’s legs off… I’m not sure why he was so fixated on chopping Gail’s legs off (as opposed to doing something else equally horrible but more obvious) but there was a glint in his eye as he said it... a glint that made me believe not only that he meant what he said, but also that he was probably capable of it too!

Thankfully, our little friend had left by the time Gail met us at the bus stop. We told Gail about our encounter with Peter and she filled us in about her previous run in with him and how she had reported him to the police. I don’t know if she was just putting on a brave face but Gail seemed to shrug off the threats, saying that despite all his talk Peter was really just harmless. I know he was only about 13 but judging by the unpleasantness of our first meeting, I don't think I would have been so sure...

After dropping our bags at Gail's place we went to meet Gail’s roommates and her mother Paula (who had come out from Vancouver to visit for a few weeks) for lunch. Gail’s roommates Liz and Millie seemed lovely but I only met them briefly because they were off to Mbeya (a city just across the border in southern Tanzania) that night and their bus was leaving shortly. After lunch Gail gave us a quick tour of the town, which included a visit to the cloth market, where women sell bolts of fabric in all manner of colours and patterns - everything from the political to the psychedelic. No matter where I went in Africa I would see women wrapped from head to toe in these amazing printed fabrics, every region has their own distinct style (and politicians obviously!).

Gail lived on campus at the school where she was volunteering as a teacher and shared a simple two bedroom house with Liz and Millie (who were also volunteering). There was a giant dirt soccer pitch just opposite her house and as we were sitting on Gail’s porch enjoying the afternoon sun, some students turned up with a soccer ball and started a casual game. We decided to join in, which was probably not the smartest idea because the kids ended up running circles around us and I (in my over-enthusiastic/uber-competitiveness) fell and scraped up my knee pretty bad. Still, we all had a lot of fun and I even think the school kids enjoyed themselves. One thing I couldn’t help but notice was that kids of all different ages were involved and all of them were given a fair go. There were no arguments or fighting and the older kids didn’t hog the ball the whole time. The game only ended when it got dark, which I was thankful for because by that stage we had been playing almost non-stop for nearly 2 hours!

Gail with one of her students

After a quick (and very cold) shower from a bucket, the three of us sat down to a simple meal of nsima and meat stew in Gail’s living room. There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment (no tv or pool table like at a hostel, nor even any booze for that matter!) so we just sat around after eating and chatted while we listened to music on my portable speakers. The talk was pretty tame while Gail’s mother Paula was around but after she went off to bed the three of us started to really open up and talk about some very personal things. Its amazing some of the things you will tell a complete stranger (things you wouldn’t even share with your friends and family) when you are lonely and far from home. I’d love to share some of the stories that were told but we were all sworn to secrecy and a promise is a promise – yes, even after all these years!

Gail and Onno mucking around

Some time around 1am we called it a night. Onno and I crashed in Liz and Millie’s room while Gail camped out in the living room under a poorly improvised mosquito net that we had tried to rig up. Can’t say I slept well that night, lots of things going through my mind after our big deep and meaningful. My head was spinning with all kinds of thoughts…things like "why am I here?", "what am I looking for?" and "what things in life are really important to me?", all that kind of heavy stuff that we generally don't spend enough time thinking about.

Another morning in Nkhata Bay and another trip to Aqua Africa. Today was my last dive in Lake Malawi (a deep dive to a little beyond 30m) and all things going to plan, I would be leaving the Bay as a PADI certified Advanced Diver. Michela and I met Andy at the Marina but there was no sign of Jonny. Jonny had over done it the night before and as you aren’t supposed to drink before diving (and especially not before a deep dive) had decided to give this one a miss. Andy gave us a really thorough run through of the theory and after satisfying himself that we were on top of everything, we were given the green light to suit up and were soon heading out to the dive site.

Side by side and using the anchor line as a guide, Michaela and I slowly kicked our way down to the lake bed. Andy was apparently right behind us but we quickly lost site of him as the water was quite cloudy with silt. It was really freaky actually – we had no point of reference (other than the anchor line) to help us maintain our bearings and if it weren’t for the bubbles, we could have easily lost track of which way was up. However, the water seemed to clear as we neared the bottom and although visibility was not as good as the day before, it was good enough.

Once on the bottom we had to answer a few quick questions (on a slate) that Andy had prepared for us earlier. The idea was to see how/whether the extreme depth (and the subsequent nitrogen narcosis) affected our ability to think – We had to do a basic arithmetic question, write down some important date and spell out our full names. From memory, I think I did okay but it was definitely not perfect. After the quiz, we went for a brief swim along a ridge that dropped away so steeply that we could not make out the bottom below – it was as if the bottom of the lake gave way to some endless chasm. Other than the big drop, there wasn’t a lot to see down there that we hadn’t already seen the day before. The only real highlight came when Michaela had a little moment (probably because of the nitrogen narcosis) and started swimming away from the ridge and out into the middle of the lake. Andy had to go out after her and when he finally got her attention she spun around like a deer in headlights, apparently completely confused at how she had gotten so far away from us. Thankfully though, she quickly snapped out of her daze and while Andy had to shepherd her back to the ridge, she was able to make her own way back to the anchor so we could surface together without issue – stopping at 15m for 1min and at 5m for 10min, just to be safe.

Once back on dry land, I headed up to Mayoka for lunch. There I ran into Milos & Elena (from Lilongwe and Vic Falls) who had come up by boat from Monkey Bay the day before. It was a beautiful day so we all decided to go for a swim out to the pontoon in front of Mayoka. We found a bunch of others lazing around out there recovering from the night before – including Jonny and his two new best mates, a cool couple of Israeli guys named Tom and Ben. We hung out on the pontoon for a few hours just sunning ourselves between quick dips in the water to cool off – it was a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Pontooning

Jonny clowning around...

A different perspective on the pontoon.

Lost at sea

That night a group of us went into town for dinner. The local boys again tried to take us to that place behind the market but Tom and Ben (who had been in Africa far longer than me) weren’t having any of it. We ditched the local boys and ended up at a place called Kaya Papaya, where Tom and Ben explained to me why they try to avoid the local boys.

Many of the local boys at popular tourist destinations throughout Africa (commonly referred to as Beach Boys) have made a business out of scabbing off tourists. While they are not above guilt-tripping unsuspecting blokes (like Onno and I the other day) into buy them dinner, their real target are female tourists. They will approach a girl and tell them how beautiful they look and how amazing they are, etc etc. They keep up the barrage of flattery until the girl is swooning, at which point they start pulling on the heartstrings and laying it on thick with the sob stories (some of which I'm sure are true) about how hard life is for them. Often, the girl soon thinks that the Beach Boy is just this really nice, poor, sweet guy who genuinely loves and cares about them and who is just looking for love in return. If all goes to plan, the Beach Boys will become the girl's 'boyfriend' for the remainder of her time at the beach - which usually means they will have drinks, meals, clothes, etc. bought for them by the girl during that time. However, little does the girl realise that the Beach Boy has three other white girlfriends at the same time or that he had just said goodbye to another mzungu girlfriend the day before meeting her. I’m not judging these guys for doing whatever it takes to get by – I can’t possibly imagine what its like to grow up in a mud hut in Malawi like Benson and his brothers – but I’ll still be doing my best to avoid the Beach Boys from now on.

After a good meal at Kaya Paya we all went back to Mayoka to hang out and it ended up being one of my most enjoyable nights so far – just making new friends, playing pool and chatting with really interesting people.

Sunset at Mayoka

I was back at Aqua Africa this morning and ready to do my first proper dive in the lake. I felt pretty confident after my refresher dive the day before, so I signed up for the Advanced PADI Course. In order to complete the course I would have to do three ‘advance’ category dives. Jonny, who is a much more experienced diver than me, decided to do the advanced course as well and I was grateful for the company. Its always more fun diving with someone other than just the instructor – instructors don’t tend to get as excited by what is going on down below as someone who is exploring this dive site for the first time.

Although this dive was going to be essentially the same as any other dive I have done previously, it counted towards my Advanced PADI Course because Lake Malawi is more than 300m above sea level and this therefore constituted an ‘Altitude Dive’. Lake Malawi is essentially a deep, steep-sided gorge (part of the Great Rift Valley, in fact) that has filled up with water. As a result, you do not have to go very far from the shore before the bottom is 20m+ below the surface. So we didn’t need to take the boat out and were instead able to simply drop into the water in front of Aqua Africa and swim over to the dive site.

This was going to be my first ever freshwater dive and I was really looking forward to it – thankfully, it didn’t disappoint. The biggest difference between a freshwater and a saltwater dive is the underwater topography. Instead of beautifully colourful corrals, the dive site consists of majestic rock formations. The bottom of the lake almost resembles the surface of an asteroid, just a mix or rock, sand and silt. The bottle green tinge of the water adds to the effect, giving you the impression that you are exploring some sepia-hued moonscape. Its difficult to call this kind of diving beautiful but it was certainly interesting and unlike anything I had seen before. Moreover, the ‘sealife’ is just as unique as the landscape. Lake Malawi is home to the most diverse range of cichlids (a type of small fish) in the world. There are also plenty of catfish, as well as other more distinct types of freshwater fish, like mouthbrooders. Jonny and I were lucky enough to see a ton of interesting and unique fish during the dive.

After the dive, I again had lunch with Michaela (who had gone to a different dive site) and Jonny before heading back to Butterfly for a nap. I guess I must have been pretty beat because by the time I woke up, I only had 45mins to get back to Aqua Africa for the next stage of my Advance PADI Course: a night dive. Jonny and I had to sit down and do some theory with Andy (one of the owners) before we could actually hit the water, but it wasn’t anything too stressful. Finally, just as the sun was fading over the horizon, Jonny and I pulled our gear on – nothing like putting on a still moist wetsuit that hasn’t dried from your earlier dive! – and headed for the boat.

The sun had completely set and a strange hush had come over the town by the time Andy finally dropped the outboard in and we began to make our way out into the middle of the lake. There was barely half a moon in the sky above us and only the faintest silvery strip of moonlight to guide us in the dark. I know it sounds silly but it was actually really cool sitting on the edge of the tinny, straining to see the lake ahead of us in the darkness, feeling the wind in my face and hearing nothing but the hum of the boat’s motor in my ears. I couldn’t help but imagine that Jonny and I were a couple of SAS/Navy Seal types on some top secret mission to storm MV Ilala in the middle of the night as it sat docked in Nkhata Bay. Sorry, just my imagination running away with itself again…

Andy cut the engine and we coasted the last few meters to the dive sight. He then gently lowered the anchor – so as to not disturb too many fish – while Jonny and I checked our torches and other equipment before trying (unsuccessfully) to lower ourselves into the water as delicately as Andy had the anchor. This was my first night dive and I was really impressed. As soon as we reached the bottom we were surrounded by about a dozen dolphin fish. There were also the mandatory cichlids and catfish but they looked even more impressive weaving in and out of the beam of our torches. Night diving with torches is like having tunnel vision, you are limited to the width of the beam of light from your torches and as ours weren’t particularly strong, we had plenty of surprise encounters (with both sealife and the seabed itself!). On the way back to the surface we had a mandatory 5 minute safety stop at 5m and all three of us turned our lights out and just hovered their looking up at the moon and stars being refracted through the water above us – a truly incredible sight. This was easily one of the best dives I have ever done and I would definitely do it again.

That night it was some British girl’s birthday (I think her name was Lucy) and there was a huge party at Butterfly for her. I was knackered though from the two dives and also couldn’t really drink because I had a deep dive (the final part of my Advanced PADI Course) the following morning, so I ended up piking and just crashed in my room.

I went back to Aqua Africa this morning and took a scuba ‘refresher’ course with an instructor named Dusty. It had been about a year since I last went diving so I was keen to go over the basics with someone instead of just diving in and getting caught out of my depth – apologies for the awful puns! Dusty and I mostly went over the theory stuff they teach you when you first get your PADI license. We only went for a very short (and shallow dive) but already I could see how different the underwater landscape was compared with places I had dived previously. This only made me more excited about actually getting out into the middle of the lake!

Aqua Africa Dive Centre

After finishing my course with Dusty, I sat down to lunch with Michela and Jonny who had also stopped in at Aqua Africa and looked into doing some diving. Jonny was a Brit who is building houses in Usysia with Matt (the bloke from the drive up). He was actually staying in the same dorm as me and from what he had told me the night before, he hadn’t been in to town for several weeks, so was keen to cut loose and have some fun before heading back up river. Michela on the other hand was a genuine journeyman (journeywoman?) – she had been bouncing around the world for the last 7 years, finding odd jobs here and there and just living from hand to mouth until she found someway to move on to the next place. She had been holed up in Nkhata Bay for 9 months and was currently working as a barmaid at Mayoko but it seemed to me that she was pretty keen to move on again soon.

After lunch I met up with Onno at Big Blue where he was playing pool. I joined him for a few more frames but this drunk guy was harassing us so we decided to take a walk over to Butterfly. On the way to Butterfly I ran into Laura and Michelle (from Victoria Falls) waiting for a minibus. I hadn’t been able to say goodbye to them when they left Livingstone so it was great to see them now. Unfortunately though, they were camping at another village a couple of hours south and had just come into town for the day. They were just about to head back to the campsite so we didn’t have a chance to hang out. Still, it was great to run into them again.

That night Benson met Onno, Gail (a Canadian girl who had made the trip up from Lilongwe with Onno) and myself in town and together we walked the two or so kilometers up to his village for dinner - like he had promised the day before. On the way we bought some fish (freshly caught that afternoon) and some drinks. When we arrived, Benson led us into a simple, single room with an earthen floor and mud-brick walls which served as his family’s kitchen/living/dining room. The only light inside came from a couple of candles that were sitting on a rickety old table in the centre of the room. Inside the room there was a large group of friends and relatives (including a few miscellaneous children from the village who had just come to check out the mzungus) waiting for us. I guess we didn’t really know what to expect, but I certainly wasn’t anticipating this big a group and it was all a little awkward at first.

There was a round of introductions - too many names and relative connections to remember them all! Benson’s family members were all very nice and polite but they were also extremely shy and all our efforts at conversation were being thwarted by their monosyllabic responses to our questions. Trying to kill time while the food was being cooked, we were fast running out of topics of conversation. I looked across at my partners in crime and saw that they were running out of ideas as quickly as I was. Fearing that we had made a huge mistake by coming for dinner and that as a result we would be forced to endure awkward silence for the rest of the evening, I did the only thing I could think of and reached for my camera. Pulling out the camera immediately got everyone's attention, but they still didn't say anything - although I could tell by there eyes that they wanted to run over and look at it. Seeing that I at least had their attention, I took a couple of happy snaps and beckoned the kids over so they could have a look at themselves - a sure fire way to get them excited. Apparently, that was all that was needed. The children gasped and giggled at the pictures of themselves and soon all the tension had drained out of the room and been replaced by laughter and smiles. Things only escalated when I handed over the camera to the kids themselves and let them take their own pictures. Most of their photos had fingers over the lens or were way too close up but they didn't seem to care - truth be told, i think they were more excited by the flash than the actual photos.

Brothers/Troublemakers

1000 yard stare... curious or reflective? I don't know.

Peek-a-boo!

Making Friends

Honing their photography skills

I think somebody got a little too excited!

Benson’s mother brought in the BBQ’d fish and the older siblings in the family joined us for dinner while the kids entertained themselves with the camera. The fish was served with the mandatory nsima and of course there was way too much. However, we didn’t want to seem ungrateful so we ate everything in site - even though we were so full that by the end we all felt like we would burst. This actually reminds me of a story my old roommate Jesse told me about when he was living and working in Arusha, Tanzania. As the story goes, one weekend he and his other roommates were invited to visit their security guard’s village a few hours out of town. In celebration of their visit, their security guard had organized to have an entire goat slaughtered and roasted on a spit. When the boys saw the goat they assumed that the whole village (or their guard’s extended family, at the very least) would also be partaking in the goat. Alas, it was all for them and when I say all… I mean ALL! The four roommates and the guard essentially went fifths in an entire goat and they weren’t allowed to leave until it was all gone. Jesse painted a particularly vivid picture of the scene when he described the feeling of trying to keep down the fatty neck meat of the goat when he already had about 2kgs of goat meet sitting in his belly – needless to say, it wasn’t pretty!

Mama

After dinner, we thanked Benson and his mother profusely for their hospitality before bidding farewell to the family and walking back into town. As we made our way back to the hostel, the three of us all agreed that it had been a wonderful, enlightening evening. We had been given a unique insight into these people's everyday life. A few things struck me in particular about the experience: Firstly, family was clearly a very important part of their culture - even 'too cool for school' Benson had to change his attitude around his mother. Secondly, they all seemed so happy and were so incredibly generous despite how little they actually have.

I've always been fascinated by the way that people who have so little can be so happy and generous... In fact, that was probably part of the reason I decided to come to Africa i the first place - to get out of my comfort zone and to try to get a better understanding of what things in life are truly important. Yet, while we may never be able to truly understand what it is like to live how Benson and his family does, at the very least... spending time with them certainly does help you to appreciate some of the things that we often take for granted back home.

All The Gang!

This morning I got a visit from Onno, a lanky Dutch guy I had met in Lilongwe. I had told him that I would be staying at Big Blue but my plans had obviously changed when Matt talked me into staying at his mate’s hostel, Butterfly. Anyway, he had somehow tracked me down and was keen to tell me about his awful ride up here in a crowded minibus. It had taken him over 10 hours (compared with my 5.5hours in the car). Apparently there are two possible routes from Lilongwe to Nkhata Bay; the first is along the inland highway (how I had traveled) while the second follows the edge of the lake (how Onno traveled). The coastal road is of much poorer quality and therefore significantly slower, but there are more towns along the coast and therefore there is a greater chance of picking someone up along the way. Hence, why the minibuses prefer to take the more inefficient route.

It was a steamy, rainy morning so Onno and I decided to take it easy. Big Blue had a pool table and a room full of beanbags with an impressive pirate dvd collection, so we were content to just chill out there till the rain eased. In the afternoon I dropped into Aqua Africa to ask about doing dome dives. The owners were very friendly and really got my attention when they described the differences between diving in a lake versus the ocean, so I made an appointment to come back tomorrow and do a refresher course with the hope of doing some proper diving later in the week.

That night, Onno and I went into town looking for some dinner and stumbled across some of the local boys. We asked them to recommend a place to get a traditional meal and they took us to this little local restaurant – tucked away in an alley somewhere behind the market – where we feasted on fresh catfish and nsima. The fish was delicious and it was the first time I tasted nsima (a distant relative of grits). The meal itself was very cheap, although we ended up buying dinner for Benson and his two mates because they said they didn’t have enough money for food – I was still so naïve at this point, little did I know how my attitude would change the more time I spent in Africa! We didn’t mind though, it was so cheap and Benson invited us to eat dinner with his family in the village the next night to say thank you.

I left Lilongwe behind today and headed to Nkhata Bay, a picturesque lakeside town in the north of the country. Fortunately, an English guy named Matt who lives up that way was driving home today and I was able to grab a lift with him. We were joined by another Matt, who is living in the remote village of Usysia (its another few hours north of Nkhata Bay and only accessible by boat) building homes for the locals.

We hit the road relatively early, stopping once before we left the outskirts of Lilongwe to stock up on supplies – Matt (the driver) is apparently a big fan of Boddington Ale and can’t leave the capital without first picking up a couple of cases. The drive was quite scenic and the roads were very good by African standards. We were making good time early on despite a number of seemingly useless checkpoints and the odd heard of cattle making its way to market down the middle of the highway. I can’t quite figure out the purpose of a Malawian checkpoint… They stop you, ask you where you are going and then let you pass. The officers/soldiers who man the checkpoints seem more inquisitorial (as if they were collecting information for a survey) than suspicious or investigative. Maybe they’re just bored!

Malawian Speedbump

Nonetheless, all told the trip took almost 5.5 hours. Of course, Matt was a little preoccupied at times which prevented him from being able to drive flat out. For one, he spent half the trip on the phone and when he wasn’t on the phone he was sipping a warm can of Boddington or smoking a joint. Actually, at one point he was driving while also talking on his phone, drinking a can of Boddington and smoking a joint. I certainly don’t condone drink driving but I had to admit it – his shear multitasking ability was pretty impressive. In all honesty, the situation did make me pretty uncomfortable but what was I going to do? Ask to be let out on the side of the road? We were literally in the middle of nowhere and ask yourself, what is worse… taking my chances with a guy who had a couple of beers and half a joint or hitching along a highway in Africa? – As it would turn out, I would do my fair share of hitching on this trip and who knows how many of the guys that picked me up were high, drunk, overtired or even had a licence? Unsafe transport is just a reality in Africa unless you have your own vehicle.

Matt’s brother used to own a hostel in Nkhata Bay called ‘Butterfly’ and although I was originally going to stay at ‘Big Blue’, he convinced me to give butterfly a try. Butterfly was a cool, chilled out place. Very laid back but with another hostel with a good bar and pool table (Mayoka) just next door. The people staying at Butterfly were also pretty cool. They included a young group of South Africans who were on a roadtrip from Capetown to Cairo. They were filming everything along the way and raising money for charity at the same time. They told me they were hoping to make a documentary and that they had already managed to get a ton of sponsors and supporters. They were really cool guys but I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous about the fact that they had found a way to fund such an amazing trip through sponsors etc and here I was just scraping by on my measly savings!

View from my room at Butterfly Hostel

Today I got a ride into town with Milos and Elena, the guys who joined me on my trek from Livingstone. They were pushing on to the popular lakeside town of Monkey Bay but I was hanging around to sort out my Mozambican visa. We had been told that the buses to Monkey Bay run regularly throughout the day so we pulled into the Lilongwe bus depot just hoping that one would be leaving soon. As it turned out, there was a bus leaving immediately – the driver and his ticket mate were just loading the final bit of luggage on to the roof (a 3 person velvet sofa of all things!). So I barely got a chance to say goodbye before Milos and Elena were whisked away, stuffed into the bus and were pulling out of town.

The Velvet Overland

I left the bus depot and headed for the embassy. Thankfully, they were open today and I was able to put in my visa application. It was only 9am and I was told that the visa wouldn’t be ready till 2pm, so I went looking for some breakfast. One of the embassy’s security guards kindly pointed me in the direction of a big beautiful park and told me that there were a few shops on the other side where I would be able to get a bite to eat. I thanked him for his help and took off in the direction indicated. Inside the park I came across somelocals doing some ‘landscaping’. More specifically, about 50 guys were bent over cutting the grass by hand with giant machetes. As I approached, they all stopped what they were doing and paused to look at me – they were staring at me in that blank, expressionless way that I would become accustomed to the more I travelled through Africa. None of them said anything or made any threatening gestures, they just followed me with their eyes as I walked by. As much as I hate to admit it, having 50 shirtless blokes with machetes staring at me like that made me pretty uncomfortable.

I know I shouldn’t feel bad for feeling uncomfortable about it (the situation would be uncomfortable for many people, whether it happened to someone in Nairobi or New York) but I have to admit that later that day when I reflected on what happened, I felt a little guilty for my apprehension. Why would they do anything to me? It was broad daylight and I wasn’t harming or offending them…but then why did I feel so scared? Maybe its because it happened in a country/continent which is constantly portrayed by the ‘media’ back home as desperate and dangerous – just weeks earlier there had been outbreaks of violence in Kenya – or maybe I’m just a prejudiced racist? I don’t know which is true and I’m sure everyone has a different opinion. All I do know is that I can’t deny the apprehension I felt. And moreover, that as a result, I now feel slightly ashamed.

After breakfast I found an internet café with an amazing connection – a rarity across much of Africa. I made the most of it, uploading some photos and catching up on emails. I still had time to kill though, so decided to get a shave. A kind local not only directed but actually escorted me to the nearest barber. The barber was an affable bloke, although he didn’t speak much English. I was looking forward to a nice cut-throat shave - I never get them at home but often like to spoil myself when I’m travelling. I sat down in the chair and gestured to the barber that I’d like a shave but the guy reached for a pair head clippers. I tried to explain again that I didn’t want a haircut and the barber smiled and nodded his head to assure me that he knew what I was after. Satisfied that he knew what I wanted (but still a little unsure what he was going to do with the clippers) I decided to just relax and go with it. The barber then proceeded to shave the hair on my face with the clippers, using nothing but a little bit of talcum powder as lubricant. I initially thought that he was just trimming my beard so that it would be more manageable with the razor (it had been a couple of weeks between shaves) but before I realised what was happening it was already too late – he had already trimmed the beard but was now going back for the rest of it! He was scratching and scrapping against my face with the clippers trying to cut the hairs as close to the skin as possible. I contemplated walking out (after paying him for his services, of course) but by the time the penny had finally dropped, he had already shaved one side of my face! Eventually though, vanity got the best of me – the thought of turning up at the hostel with one of my cheeks hairy and the other one bare seemed worse than just letting him finish the job. All in all, it was a pretty unpleasant experience but at least from now on I would know what to expect next time I went for a shave over here.

Finally, 2pm rolled around and I was able to collect my visa before heading for the nearest minibus stop to get a lift home. While waiting for the bus a guy came over to me and offered to sell me a book. He wanted 500K for a copy of Jungle Fever by Paul Theroux. It was more than I wanted to pay but I knew that good books were hard to come by over here, so with the bus fast approaching and the thought of swapping it for one of Janey’s books back at the hostel if I didn’t like it, I handed over the 500K. Janey had one of the best book exchanges I was to find on all my travels – she had divided the library into two categories: good and trash. According to the rules of the book exchange you could only swap a good for a good or a trash for a trash, although I think you could pay something extra to upgrade your trash for a goody. The end result was that they always had a selection of good books on offer, unlike other hostels I would come across that only had Danielle Steele paperbacks or German ornithological encyclopedias – true story!

I was crammed into the back of the minibus next to a young kid in his school uniform. The kid began to ask me about the book he saw in my hand. I showed it to him and he seemed very interested in it, especially after I told him that it was about a guy travelling through Malawi. My stop was coming up and I reached for the book in his hands when all of a sudden the boy looked up at me with puppy dog eyes and simply asked “Could I have it?”. Every instinct in my body told me that he would probably be hawking it for a couple hundred Kwacha to an unsuspecting tourist like me 10mins later, yet I found myself unable to refuse and handed over the book. Maybe I’m a sucker – I’m certainly no bleeding heart – but I would say that the real reason I gave the kid the book was because of an article I read about Doris Lessing just before I left. She had won the Noble Prize for literature the year before and in her acceptance speech she had painted a vivid picture of kids in the developing world begging for books – kids with a pent up thirst for knowledge and literature that was going unsatisfied. In her opinion (and I hope I am not misquoting her), the people in the developing world are just as in need of books and tools for their education and entertainment as they are for food and shelter. I’m not trying to say that I am some kind of saint that came to Africa to make a difference (as those who read my accounts from the coming months will no doubt see)… but the article and Doris Lessing’s words were certainly ringing in my ears as I handed over that book.

That night when I got back to the hostel Janey asked me if I wanted to join her and a few others who were heading into town to watch a performance by a musical group called 3Ma. 3Ma are an eclectic musical trio made up of artists that come from African countries starting with the letters M&A (somewhat ironic given my current profession): Maroc, Mali and Madagascar. However, I soon discovered the real reason behind the offer to join them – they needed someone who can drive a manual car to get them over to the venue on the other side of town! Nonetheless, I was happy to go and the performance was actually quite amazing. Each of the artists played instruments native to their homeland and despite coming from countries with such distinct and different cultures/musical styles, their sound worked perfectly together. In particular, the Malian musician (who played an instrument called a Kora that is similar to a harp) was incredible. Certainly an experience that I will never forget.

3Ma Performance