Mick kindly gave us a lift down the mountain. We stocked all the empties into the back of his jeep and set off. The road was rather scary actually. The rains had created large holes and cracks, there were mini-waterfalls at points and on a couple of occasions Dawn had to get out of the car and move a few large rocks from out path. What with all that and Mick telling us around every corner exactly who had previously gone over the edge here I was pretty nervous. But we made it (no quicker than the men on foot in their Sunday best who shaded themselves with brollies).
We said goodbye at Chitimba and Sean and I parked ourselves under a tree in the shade waiting for the next available transport. After about an hour and a half a very packed bus showed up. On we hopped and with Sean parked on a suitcase in the aisle and me very grateful for the conductors seat that I was offered we continued onto Mzuzu. This is nothing much but a transport hub where we stocked up on cash from the ATM and got into mini-bus to head down to our next destination, Nkhata Bay.
We arrived in the dark, but luckily saw the guest house we wanted to try first on route so were dropped off at the entrance. This guest house (Big Blue Star) is situated right on the edge of the lake. You first encounter the bar, where we were offered marijuana before we'd said hello and that we just wanted a room. We then made our way down to the steps to reception where we'd been directed and were shown to our beach hut. This hut was a basic wooden shack, with just a bed and a table, but it was literally built into the lake edge and had a balcony with these fabulous views:
The room was also very reasonably priced. We chilled out here for a couple of days, but decided that it wasn't quite the beach time we were looking for (Nkhata Bay is more rocky than beachy). So we packed our bags and headed to the bus stop to get to Cape McLear.
We ran into our 'first' Mushroom Farm customers, Tom and Betty, on the bus which was nice! This bus took us all the way to Salima where the Lonely Planet informed us we could get a matola (a pick-up truck / open top Ute basically) to Monkey Bay where we could transfer to another to Cape McLear. Could we heck! There were no mini-buses or matolas and sketchy information about any bus that may or may not be turning up that would take us to Mua which is half way. We eventually found a bloke with a matola and a crazy over-priced fee, but figured that at least we'd get there before dark by leaving now. Hmmm. That's what we thought. We sat in the front cab with the driver so as not to sunburn to death in the back. The vehicle couldn't go much over 45kpm and the driver kept driving in the middle of the road which was unfortunate since the car behind was the police who stopped him and confiscated his license (he'll apparently get it back if he goes to the local station and pays a fine). Then the vehicle overheated (my bum was awfully hot!), a quick water fill up was required and I decided to hop in the back with the locals to ease my poor bum. The rest of the journey was very enjoyable as all the locals walking on the side of the road cheered and gave me signs of approval for being a Mzungu doing it 'local style' in the back of a pick-up (I also think my hair was doing a Bridget Jones since I'd forgotten my lovely green hankie which might have also been their source of amusement). This matola then dropped us off in Mua and transferred us to another. I hopped in the back again, but was then quickly covered by people, bags, wood, sacks of fish, bowls, suitcases etc. Wasn't going to be so comfy this one! Another 2 hours later, the sun starting to set and we were still 20km away from Monkey Bay. At this point this matola ran out of fuel. There has recently been a large fuel shortage in Malawi which is still being felt today. So this vehicle wasn't going anywhere. This driver paid for us to get into a mini-bus that came along to get the last few km to Monkey Bay.
We arrived in the dark, and of course no more matolas were running to Cape McLear (unless we wanted to hire them out for a mere 6000 kwacha - to put this in perspective this is 6000 for 1 hour, when we had travelled 7 hours down half the country for 1000).
So we decided to stay the night in Monkey Bay and a 'beach boy' kindly escorted us in the dark to Venice Beach Backpackers. We ate, met a bloke called Karston from Germany and got an early night. The next day we saw just how amazing this place was. It was right on the lake with its own private beach. It was beautiful. Throw in what we thought was free wi-fi and we decided to stay another night.
Having spent 2 hours on Skype, the wi-fi cut out. When Sean went to enquire why we were informed this was actually a 600 kwacha per hour service. Crap we thought. We cut a deal for all day usage (I'm pretty sure this was going into the pocket of the manager rather than actually being a charge) and continued with our communications to the outside world. Was great to speak to everyone and find out how they were doing (even if the connection did keep dropping out and video was a bit sketchy).
We ran into Karston again that evening who turned out to be a great guy now that we were talking to him without sleepy heads on. So much so that we all headed to Cape McLear together the next day.
Matola rides are brilliant. They will stop, pick things up, drive 2 meters, pick more up, drive another 2 meters, pick more things up, double back to the place we were at first and pick more things up for about one hour before they finally get going on the journey. This time we were accompanied by 21 people and 1 baby (breast fed en route), 1 crate containing block of ice, large pile of wood, several sacks of dried fish, several sacks of charcoal, buckets and bowls, 12 sacks of sugar and of course our backpacks and the suitcases of the other passengers. Needless to say it was a tight squeeze! Karston and I were pretty much just sat on the back hoping that the rope that held the sides and the sacks in place didn't give way.
Cape McLear was worth this risk though. It's so beautiful.
We stayed at this great little camp called Malambe which has beach huts again and were entertained by the staff there; manager Winston (who was on our matola ride down as it happens), Chicco the barman, Captain the 'tour leader' aka bloke who takes you out on boats and the amazing John-Banana (he is adamant this is his actual middle name, jury is still out on that).
Our first night there we had a fresh water fish dinner, cooked for us on an open fire by a guy called Flamingo (seriously). It was really yummy. We were then escorted to a bar down the road to watch the Man Utd v Chelsea game (United won, Sean went crazy) . By then John Banana was pretty wasted and also rather funny as he tried to seduce this group of girls who were all teachers from Malawi (they'd been following us for the past few days and were also staying at our camp). Needless to say, John Banana was not around in the morning to take us on our boat trip. So instead it was Winston and Captain, along with an Irish friend we'd met that evening; Charlie plus Karston, Sean and I who sailed along the water's edge and then out to Thumbe island where we disembarked. I was still struggling with the whole Bilharzia thing so figured if Sean swam I wouldn't so that at least one of us would be well should we get it. Also the thought of a parasite going through my skin didn't appeal. Captain showed us how to catch fish with our hands and Sean became quite good at it!
The water was so clear that it didn't matter that I was a scaredy cat because I could still see all the colourful fish when Sean was out snorkeling. We had another fish meal for lunch - this fish was super yummy and then set sail to the other side of the island to feed the Fish Eagles.
This birds were incredible. The boys would whistle to them to alert them to our presence and then throw a fish into the lake. The birds would then swoop down to retrieve them - this was really quite phenomenal to watch as they are such huge and majestic birds.
A quiet trip around Otter's Point later and we made our way back to camp.
It was Karston's birthday (Did I mention it was his birthday to everyone? Of course I did!) so we went to celebrate. We ate at Blue Cactus and headed to a reggae bar where some 'orphans' (I'm dubious about this) were playing drums around a campfire. We each had a go at drumming which was great fun and I got to tickle and tease the kids a bit. They even all sang/drummed Happy Birthday to Karston, following by a rendition of Who Let the Dogs Out.
So back to the bar we were in the night before for dancing and silliness before I decided that my drunken antics had to end and it were best we get to bed since Sean and I had to leave at 6am the next day to get our bus back to Lilongwe.
It was thankfully a rather uneventful journey to Lilongwe during which Sean and I managed to catch up on some much needed sleep.
Karston and Charlie were great blokes to have spent those few days with and Karston was generous enough to even cut his Zambia/Malawi Lonely Planet book in half to give us the Zambian part and he gave me a mini camera tripod that he no longer wanted - thanks again Karston, you're a generous guy!
So we're now in Lilongwe and about to head into Zambia tomorrow - and to our 5th African country. I'll be really sad to leave Malawi as we have had such a great time here relaxing in beautiful surroundings and meeting such wonderful people. But we have to keep moving forward - so Zambia here we come!
Here are the photos:
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