When in Malawi …

Lilongwe is only about 300 km farther from JHB than Cape Town (not that straight lines mean anything in the context of African roads, so it’s not an unreasonable holiday destination.  Loads of places for diving, mountain biking, hiking etc.

Places to stay along the route:

·         Chitimba beach campsite (S10°35’05.6”  E34°10’32.0”) – This is probably the northernmost campsite in Malawi, 150 km from the Tanzanian border.  With most of the road still under construction and a long haul to the first decent campsite near Iringa, Tanzania, it’s best to leave here early if you’re heading north.  Another reason to leave early is that the ablutions are gungy and the campsite generally untidy, although, in their defence, there was a lot of construction and renovation going on.  K135 pppn.

·         Chitinji campsite, Zomba plateau (S15°20’28.1”  E35°16’48.1”) – Not to be confused with the Le Meridien Hotel’s campsite further down the hill.  The last 6 km of the road are horribly eroded and might erode the nether parts of ordinary cars.  The campsite is really nice, in a forest with plenty of walks (or MTB trails) in the area.  K200.- pppn.  Bring your own beer.

·         Doogle’s backpackers lodge, Blantyre (S15°47’01.6”  E35°00’54.3”) – This appears to be the only place in or around Blantyre.  It’s a backpacker’s lodge so you get to sleep in one of three 10-bunk dorms but camping is allowed on the lawn, just that there’s no space for rooftop tents (unless you can winch yourself through the pool without being noticed) so we slept in the car park.  Internet access is the cheapest we found anywhere and the food is superb and cheap.  K 185 pppn.

·         Kazela forest lodge near Dedza (S14°19’12.4”  E34°15’47.8”) turnoff at (S14°21’01.0”  E34°14’12.7”)– In the forests of the Dedza mountains, out of the way of the main tourist stream.  K150.- pppn and the beers are close to wholesale price in the pub.

·         Lilongwe golf course (S13°59’42.2”  E27°13’57.7”) – this sounds weird, but obviously golf is not a big thing in this town so alternative income is required.  It appears to be the only campsite in or around town and is most welcome if you get in after dark.  Not the place to spend a holiday though.  $5.- pppn.

·         Ngala beach (S12°21’26.5”  E34°19’57.2”) – Another campsite under renovation but the adjacent lodge is nice and has a real pizza oven and a good fridge.  Right on the beach with a beach bar, but there are plenty of insects and you camp under some trees that drop poisonous fruit on your tent all night.  $2.50 pppn.

·         Nkhwasi beach, Nkhata Bay (S11°53’38.8”  E34°10’01.8”) – One of the nicest beaches along the lake with rocks and trees.  $3.- pppn

·         Steps campsite, Senga Bay (S13°42’58.7”  E34°37’41.8”) – one of the nicer & more secluded campsites about 130 km from Lilongwe (i.e. nearest beach campsite).  At K300.- pppn it’s one of the more expensive in Malawi.  Some sheister has put up a sign for a steps campsite about 10 km down the road, no doubt to divert traffic towards himself, so make sure you go all the way to the Livingstonia Hotel (who run the campsite).

·         The Kgotla, Monkey Bay (S14°01’53.0”  E34°49’50.3”) – This is brand new.  It’s on the beach and quite small but it has some of the best food in Monkey Bay.  K100.- pppn.  Most other places along the same beach looked a bit tattered – perhaps better viewed through a haze of dope smoke.

National Parks

Unfortunately Malawi’s parks suffer from the same problem that some of Zambia’s parks have:  unfenced, locals live in or around the parks, move freely through them and help themselves to what game is left – not a viable wildlife park management model.  While the locals enter freely, foreigners pay in dollars.  The whole situation appears to be a bit out of control with Malawi’s high population density and subsistence farming/poaching even the bird life is disappointing (apart from Africa’s largest fish eagle population at the lakeshore).

So we skipped most of the parks and visited only Nyika NP, Lake Malawi NP and the Mulanje Massif, which does not currently have any protected status.

·         Nyika Plateau – this is a very non-African type of park at an altitude of over 2000 m (highest point about 2430 m).  Mainly grassland and fynbos (as well as some pine, eucalyptus and wattle forests that some previous-century colonial twit thought to be a good idea).  Plenty of antelope, notably eland, roan and bushbuck, as well as zebra.  Probably the least poached park because it’s quite difficult to get to.  Entrance $ 5.- pppd, $2.- pvpd, camping $ 5.- pppn.  All other activities such as horse riding, guided hikes etc. are astronomically expensive.  Luckily one can go on unguided walks, although the icy wind might blow you right back into your tent.  This place gets plenty rain and it’s cold when it’s overcast.  Spectacular views.

·         Monkey Bay NP – is essentially an underwater protected area because of the vast fresh water fish diversity.  You need to be a diver or snorkler to see this one.  Even if you stay on the surface they will find a way of extracting $5.- entry fees from you.

·         Liwonde NP – this is supposed to be the best-run park but we met two couples that went in for the day and then continued to the next place on the itinerary instead of staying overnight.

·         Mulanje Massif – this is a massive outcrop of granite at the southern end of Malawi, bordering onto Mozambique.  There is an area of forestry activity, but most of the massif is too steep/high for anything but hiking and climbing.  There are several overnight huts that provide only a roof and firewood and rats and the area has some pretty tough hikes, as well as climbs to several peaks.  Most peaks are accessible without ropes or climbing experience, but it does require an impaired sense of self-preservation and significant skin offerings to the local spirits.  The peaks are actually quite dangerous if you’re unfit (e.g. the 3000 m Sapitwa peak is a 6 am to 6 pm slog from the nearest overnight hut) or suffer from vertigo, and the guides do not carry so much as a first aid kit.  There are spectacular views when the clouds are not about.  On a clear day one can, so they say, see the Indian Ocean from Sapitwa peak.  Plenty of cliffs if you’re into the hardcore climbing, but I’m not sure where you’d get permission for that and you’ll need a block-and-tackle to take the guide along.  Huts cost K100.- pppn, guides (minimum 1 per group) get K500.- pppd and porters (optional but recommended at least for the first day) get the same.  Camping is allowed at the forestry station at the base of the massif (S15°56’18.7”  E35°29’59.2”) turnoff from the M2 at (S16°00’47.3”  E35°29’32.3”).

·         Vwaza marsh game reserve – we avoided this because it is saturated with tsetse flies at this time of year.

Other:

·         Fuel costs the same throughout Malawi: K50.- /litre (approx R7.40/l).  Don’t be fooled by the guys at the Karonga petrol station that will tell you Malawi’s fuel is cheaper than Tanzania’s.

·         Unlike Zambia, very few places require payment in dollars.  We paid almost everything in Kwacha.

·         The exchange rates for traveller cheques are between 10% and 13% worse than for cash.  Changing traveller’s cheques at banks (where the rates are better than at forex bureaus) can take over an hour.  And if the original invoice is not available the bank will not change the cheques.  This kind of flies in the face of everything that TCs are supposed to be good for.  The one thing that one is always told not to do, viz, keep the cheques and the invoices together because of security, becomes a necessity in Malawi.  TCs are about as welcome in Malawi as anthrax envelopes in embassies.

·         Most roads in Malawi are in pretty good shape.  The tar roads are potholed and patched in the towns.  Two notable exceptions are the road from Salima to Monkey Bay (the last 85 km) and the road from Livingstonia to Karonga (currently a new road is under construction along this 120 km stretch, some of it complete).  Both these roads are supposed to be tarred (according to the maps) but they are very badly corrugated dirt roads.  It is rumoured that the fishermen used bits of tar to patch their dugouts – a feasible explanation, considering that both are lakeshore roads, but when taking into account the vast amounts of tar that are missing, the lake must be packed with sunk dugouts.

·         We found a very scenic short cut off the escarpment from Dedza towards Monkey Bay/Cape Maclear.  30 km of very good but steep dirt road that might get a bit slidey in the rain.  The road intersects the M1 at S14°26’03.4”  E34°25’15.4”, 15 km south of Dedza and the M5 at S14°25’08.3”  E34°35’30.8”.

·         There’s a shortcut from Rumphi to the Nyika park gate, marked strictly 4x4 vehicles.  We needed neither four-wheel drive nor low range, but this may change with a lot of rain (especially if the bridges flood or get washed away).  It only saves 13 km, but with a Series III fuels consumption and Malawi’s fuel price this amounts to the equivalent of two beers – so it’s worth it.

·         Buy all unpackaged foods – tomato, potato, onion, cabbage, fruit, peanuts – as well as firewood and charcoal from the locals at the side of the road.  It’s a lot cheaper, but know your prices.  Most are keen to make special tourist prices – I know of one guy that paid K250 for a cabbage that should have cost K13.  What worked for us was stopping where there wee very few stalls, that way there was less of a crowd.  The charcoal’s especially good:  100 kwacha for 30 kg and the stuff burns better than any charcoal in SA (probably because it’s made from hardwoods.

·         Bilharzia is prevalent along all the beaches except some of the islands.  Many beach campsites will deny this in order to ensure your prolonged stay at their “bilharzias free” beach, but they cannot explain away the Danish-sponsored bilharzia research station at Monkey Bay.  The guy there claims that up to 80% of the locals are infected with at least one of the two forms of bilharzia and locals live all along the lakeshore.  There was a programme once of introducing fish that eat the snail that is the intermediate host for the bilharzias worm.  The problem is that the locals ate the fish, so the snails – and bilharzia – flourish.

·         You can buy Tanzanian visas ($50.- for 3 months) at the Songwe border post – something that has not been possible until recently.

Yours in Africa,

Riff-raff