Malawi Adventure

Shire River, Majete

“Getting There”

Half the fun of an overland trip in Africa is getting there. On our recent two week adventure to Malawi we spent about as much time driving to and from Malawi as in the country and our experiences along the way are part of the adventure. While entering and exciting countries while flying might be an inconvenience (passport control, customs, etc.), doing it over land in a vehicle in Africa can best be described as…chaotic. When approaching a border your vehicle is immediately inundated with what we like to call “stickies” (due to their adherence and "stick to it" nature) – the crush of humanity that approaches your vehicle like flies on dead meat offering to “help” you through the process. There’s currency to exchange, SIM cards and airtime (for cell phones) to buy, forms to fill out, offices to navigate, etc. If I wasn’t feeling physically assaulted, I might find it interesting to study, as a sociologist. How do they decide who gets “assigned” to you?

There’s an abundance of people who want your US dollars for Mozambican Meticals or Malawian Kwacha. Any one of the “helpers” could charge you three times as much to get you insurance that would cost you a third of the price if you could find your way to the insurance office on your own. Unfortunately,  the people officially in charge aren’t much help as there is little signage telling you where to go first for what (passport stamping, visa getting, temporary import permits and insurance for the vehicle) or how to avoid being ripped off by “the stickies.” It’s as if they silently condone the efforts of their country mates to make a living. It’s a dog eat dog world out there at the border crossings.

We’ve done this a few times so I’m getting smart (Paul likes to call it “scrappy” as I haggle with “stickies” over exchange rates). First, check the exchange rate online before you leave. A guy at the Malawi border offers to sell me Kwacha for 300 to 1 to the US dollar – I know it should be 400 so don’t take his offer (imagine the mathematical gymnastics that go into converting that exchange rate!!). When one of the “helpers” offers to fill out the forms for us (which he will expect to be compensated for in return when it’s time for us to leave), we refuse. When another sprints off to get our needed vehicle insurance, we don’t buy it from him and learn later his “offer to help” is 3 times higher than what we can buy it for on our own. We know something is up when we refuse to buy it and he immediately cuts his asking price in half.

A trip that spans four countries (Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi) requires a dozen entries and exits. It can be exhausting, especially when the rules change and new visas with photos are needed at the Mozambican border which takes more than an hour and a half to get processed (this is evidenced by my “mug shot” the first time through where I look like a pissed off, strung out drug user, ex-con, ax-murderer – it is a REALLY bad picture and I make every effort to smile on the one needed for the way back through and end up looking only slightly psychotic). While we “could” get visas in advance, that would mean a ten hour drive (in the wrong direction) to go to the capital of Botswana to get them processed. We’re probably better off dealing with it at the border, despite the added chaos.

Road Work, Zimbabwe

Once successfully through the borders, we travel in country observing landscapes and livelihoods as we go. Road works, traffic accidents, and street protests occasionally block our way and slow our progress. Products are sold in belts or waves as we put distance between us and home – coal, firewood, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, woven baskets and mats, bird cages, large woven structures that might be chicken houses (?), and small creatures on a stick that we came to describe as “mice kabobs” (we think we saw tails!). Fortunately both of us have a high tolerance for long hours of driving/riding (some days as much as ten hours). By 5 PM each day I start to ask, “Where are we sleeping tonight?”  

Coal sack transporters

Grass carriers on the road

“Hard Work Doesn’t Always Mean Success”

There is much said in the United States about “work ethic” and we are socialized to believe that hard work will result in success. But having driven over 2,900 miles through Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi over the last two weeks, it makes me wonder about this line of goods we’ve been sold. Don’t get me wrong, I think hard work matters but I don’t think I’d say that its presence is any guarantee of success or absence any guarantee of failure. While on the road we witnessed people working far harder than I ever have in my life and what will their payoff be? If they are lucky…survival. Especially in Malawi, a relatively small country with a fairly large population (slightly smaller than Pennsylvania with a population of 17 million; Botswana is the size of Texas with only 2 million! The birthrate in Malawi is 5.66 children born/woman!!), roads serve not only as thoroughfares for vehicle traffic but as highways of human survival.

Here the roadsides are populated with people working hard just to survive. On their bikes or their heads they carry large sacks of coal for heat and cooking, bundles of grass for thatching their roofs, lumber to build their houses or sell to make a meager profit. On our trip back down from Zomba Plateau, on slippery muddy roads that made me nervous in our 4x4 vehicle, we met one man, George, who made an indelible impression on us. As we round the corner he has stopped to wait for his friend to reposition the boards he has balanced on his shoulder. He stands with his bike, both tires flat, weighted down with long boards of “waste lumber.” The top of the plateau is occupied by pine forests that logging companies cut down at certain times of the year. The “waste” they can’t use is left behind for people like George to buy for 200 Kwacha (about 50 cents). He explains to us that if he purchases the boards and carries them down to the village below, he can sell them for an 800 Kwacha profit (about $2 USD). It will take him all day to do it. He wakes up before dawn cracks to make the ascent. Finds a couple of suitable discarded boards at the top of the mountain and spends the rest of the day carefully making his way down the twisty turning wet muddy mountain roads. It looks physically arduous. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

 

Log transport on Zomba Plateau

Transporting lumber off Zomba Plateau

Making "working capital"

The remarkable thing is that George’s enthusiasm is overwhelming. He explains that he is working for four months in order to raise “working capital” because he is an artist. He then asks to give us his website for his work (http://artpapertechnology.weebly.com/) and then proceeds to explain his work (right down to stating “mission” and “background” and rattling off what we assume is a verbatim description of what’s on the web page). He explains how he would like to stop deforestation by using waste papers to make art. We give him our cards and when he sees I am a professor, he literally claps his hands together with excitement bringing an embarrassed smile to my face.

After meeting him, he keeps returning to our thoughts. We should have given him some money. We should have loaded him and his lumber on our vehicle and taken him down the hill. We didn’t think quickly enough, we were overwhelmed by his determination. As was the case with George and an unknown number of other people we saw everyday out our vehicle window, we were humbled by their hard work. We talked a lot about our cultural espousal of a “hard work ethic” and how it is sometimes used to explain why some people are poor and others aren’t (i.e. if you just worked harder you could succeed). While we admired George’s hard work to accumulate “working capital” so he could get back to his art, we feared he was navigating a very heavily load down a very steep hill that would probably lead to survival but may not lead to “success”.

View from Zomba Plateau

“Pleasant surprises along the way”

Throughout our travels we encounter pleasant surprises along the way. One example is buying fresh berries at the top of Zomba Plateau. We purchase strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries from sellers as we climb our way to the top of the mountain. When traveling, fresh produce is the first thing to go, so this find is a pleasant surprise midway into our trip. Similarly, on our return trip through Mozambique we find ourselves with some extra Metical and I keep my eyes peeled for a bakery. As a former Portuguese colony they make the best Prego rolls and our purchase keeps us in a bread wonderland for days. At the gate to Liwonde National Park we buy homemade peanut butter and baobab jam (baobab trees bear large fuzzy pod shaped fruit filled with sweet tart like Styrofoam textured chunks – which make a great jam, by the way). While refilling at a fuel station in Kariba, Zimbabwe two zebras walk by the vehicle as Paul washes the windscreen after they graze on the lawn outside the station. Only in Africa!

Berries from the top of Zomba Plateau

Paul washing windscreen as zebras walk by

We also have the opportunity to snorkel with the cichlids in Lake Malawi on a kayak trip from Cape Maclear. Cichlids are small multicolored fish in blues, purples, and yellows and the experience is like swimming in an aquarium. The amazing array makes the “death paddle” from the mainland to the island worth it (OK…so it wasn’t really a “death paddle” but I did have a bit of a panic trying to get Paul to steer our two-man kayak into the side swiping rolling waves I was convinced were going to capsize us thus creating an impossible in water return to the safety of the kayak. Obviously, I’m here to tell the story, so we didn’t die, but I did have to do the bulk of the paddling on the way back as Paul’s back (which he broke when he was 28 years old in a Tanzanian bus accident) didn’t really like the rolling action of the wind inspired waves. I proudly referred to this as my “water rescue” for the rest of the trip and I (partially) redeemed myself for the hissy fit I had on the way out ;o)

All along our way we see new and interesting trees (giant candelabras, an abundance of baobabs, totally cool strangler vines, some unidentifiably strange “ball" tree), birds and wildlife (including many Nyala, which we don't have in Botswana). Waterbuck and warthogs are in abundance in both Majete and Liwonde. We see more (HUGE) crocodiles and hippos on the Shire River than I’ve seen anywhere else in Africa (we’ve been reading about David Livingstone’s Zambezi Exposition and all those killers on the river make his efforts even more impressive). The elephants, only fairly recently reintroduced at Majete after being poached to extinction, are a little twitchy (acting tough as they pass behind our vehicle with ears flared) but eventually settling down as we sit with them for some time. We enjoy watching them peel the bark off of branches like getting corn off the cob – something we’ve not seen before. Each night we enjoy the ever present African sunset, that just can’t be beat!

Giant Candelabra

Strangler vines in Liwonde

Strangler vines at Liwonde

Unidentified "ball" tree

Water buck at Majete

Hippos in the Shire River, Majete

Croc on the Shire River, Majete

Elephants eating bark in Majete

Cheeky ellies outside the back window, Majete

Nyala at Majete

Sunset from atop a mountain in Majete

Sunset, Liwonde

Sunset Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi

Sunset Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi

Campsite and "Richard Parker", Majete

“Night Visitors: All things great and small”

Our evenings involve setting up camp, cooking dinner on our two gas canisters (we are canister cookers not campfire cookers, more ecofriendly), and sundowners, of course (the African tradition of drinks at sunset). At times we have night visitors, or creatures that come into camp at night. Our first night at Majete WildlifeReserve, for example, I hear the iconic sawing sound of a leopard (it is a bizarre but instantly recognizable sound which best approximates sawing wood – strange but true).  On our second night at Liwonde National Park, between the cheering and gasping of the staff over the final game of the World Cup, we hear the crunching of a herd of elephants making their way through camp.  For this, I wake up Paul, as they are mighty close and we watch them in the light of the full moon sneak through camp, gently navigating through tents, careful not to step on anything. Their shadows, cast on a reed wall by the security light, make them appear as if they are burglars tiptoeing their way through camp. Shortly after we lose sight of them we hear a loud “CRUNCH!” and in the morning learn that they failed to navigate the narrow passage way by the pool and inadvertently destroy part of the reed wall around the pool. Oops!

In Kariba, all night we hear the large flapping wings of fruit bats. We have inadvertently positioned our tent under a giant fig tree and they eat, and poop, all night long. Our tent looks like it’s gotten caught in a brown rain storm. That’s not going to be fun to clean!

Cape Maclear "campsite" at Ecolodge

We are also visited at night by tiny creatures which, ironically, end up causing us more of headache than the larger ones. At our “campsite” at Cape Maclear (I put that in quotes because we are basically camping on the lawn of the Ecolodge which is not really a campsite – but that’s another long story for another time…), at 4 AM, we are invaded by ants. Sadly our luxurious lawn location is right on top of a hidden ant hill and it takes them until the middle of the night to find their way through the Velcro sealing off the small vent at the lower side of our tent (it allows the air out of the tent as you are folding it up and while it is “closed” they manage to get in). Paul announces that he is being bitten by something and when we turn on our headlamps we find our bedroll is loaded with tiny ants and they are pouring in through the air vent (they haven’t made it to my flesh yet… there are some advantages to flipping around so much in bed at night that you get rolled up in the sheets like a burrito! Paul calls it my “crocodile roll”). In any case, we quickly get up,take the entire bedroll outside the tent, vigorously shaking out all of the blankets and sheets, sweeping up the survivors in the tent and then spraying the inside and outside of the tent with DEET. That seems to do the trick!

“It’s Gone Better”

For the final leg of our return trip we decide to take the Kariba Ferry down Lake Kariba as an alternative to driving the whole way. Paul has always wanted to make this trip and it’s our wedding anniversary so we decide to splurge and take the ferry (it takes 22 hours overnight and includes meals and “accomodation”). We’re not sure of departure times so we stop at the Zimbabwean Tourism Office in Harare and ask. We’re assured that it leaves every day at 8 AM but when she tries to call the office in Kariba, no one answers. She mentions there are other ferries, if for some reason that doesn’t work. So we say, “why not”, withdraw the needed cash for the trip (ATMs are few and far between so we need to get the money in the big city) and hit the road (several hours out of our way North). By the time we arrive that evening the gates are locked but the night watchmen assures us the ferry leaves in the morning and shows us the boat (not quite as glamorous as we had hoped (“accommodations” = cushions on the floor in a common room) but we’ve driven all this way, so we’ll make the best of it). He gives us the owner’s cell number but when we try to call, first, we can’t get a signal on the satellite phone because there are so many trees at the campsite we’re in and then, with the assistance of the campsite manager who offers to use his cell phone, no one answers. We’ll plan to be at the dock at 7 AM (an early morning after a long day of driving) and hope for the best. Sadly, as we’re finishing dinner the camp manager comes over with the ferry owner on his cell who informs us that the ferry only goes once per week and not until Monday (it is now Thursday night). Tragic!

Kariba Dam, Zimbabwe

The next morning we find the Kariba Tourism Office and confirm that there are no other options. On the way, we see a sign that reads, “It’s gone better” as the slogan for a company (who came up with this marketing tool??). We repeatedly use it to describe our Kariba debacle.

Dust love notes on the dashboard

We spend the next full day and half geographically recovering from this misinformation from the tourism office in Harare on a road best described as “unfriendly” by the Tourism Office in Kariba. It is so dusty, everything we own, is covered in red dust including us (Paul looks like a red head with his white hair coated in red dust, I am best described as "strawberry blond"). We can only laugh and try to see this as a metaphor for life or marriage (the dusty travel day is our anniversary). Things may not always go as planned, and sometimes the road can be rough (and dusty), but in the end, you’ve got to laugh and enjoy the adventure! We spend all day waving at small kids along the road who probably have never seen two white people covered in dust in a striped safari vehicle (I call it “Richard Parker” after the tiger in “Life of Pi”) barrel through their small village. We are quite the spectacle! People come running.

In the end we both agree that our favorite campsite was the unofficial one we found at the top of a mountain outside Chizarira National Park in Zimbabwe on our anniversary night. While it wasn’t on the ferry traveling down Lake Kariba as we had planned, it was quiet, without a person in sight or hearing distance, and under a blanket of stars and a stunning view of the Milky Way. 

Anniversary Night Bush Camp

“Returning Home”

Our last night of camping is spent in Botswana. We are pleasantly reminded of how lucky we are here when we see an abundance of animals on our drive back into the country grazing on the side of the road (impala, kudu, and warthogs) and bigger elephants at the watering hole at our campground than we’ve seen during our travels out of the country. At night we are serenaded by the call of male lions all around camp. The parks in Malawi have few, if any, predators (they are often close to villages which means they get killed by locals if they stray too far). A park without predators feels like a meal without pepper (assuming you’re a pepper lover, something is just “missing”). Malawi is a beautiful country with a stunning diversity in landscape – rivers, mountains, plateaus, lakes; definitely worth the miles, dust and border chaos to visit.

Sabe Star

 

Water buck on the Shire River, Liwonde

Me - Lake Malawi Sunset

Paul and his GoPro