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It was 05.20 when myself and a local lady from Lusaka walked across the border from Zambia and into Malawi. We walked together along the road in the dark; there was no traffic around, just the occasional cyclist appearing out of the gloom. We were walking east and the horizon in front of us began to brighten as the sun rose to start another day. When we started our walk we didn't realise that it was 12km to the Malawian border post, the lady asked a passing cyclist who told us. We stopped and decided to turn around and go back to the border gate. There were a couple of battered taxis waiting there; in the dark we hadn't seen them and the drivers had been asleep and hadn't seen us walking past either. We sat and waited as the sun rose, illuminating this new country that lay in front of me ready to be explored. After the sun had risen a few more people wearily crossed the border and climbed into our taxi. Despite travelling all through the night I didn't fall asleep as soon as I sat down in the back of this old taxi; instead as we waited we chatted, the lady from Lusaka was travelling to Lilongwe as well to attend her mother's funeral.
Soon the taxi was full to bursting point and we drove off to the Malawian immigration post just outside the town of Mchinji. We were the first visitors of the day entering the country and it didn't take long to go through the formalities with a friendly and helpful immigration officer. The taxi dropped us at the taxi park in Mchinji from where we took a minibus to Lilongwe; finally on this last leg of my journey from South Luangwa I fell asleep, waking up whenever we stopped and passengers squeezed past me to get on and off. The road followed the railway line to the city and passed by undulating hills that looked a lot greener than those in Zambia. At 08.30 the minibus dropped me off on Kamuzu Procession Road in Old Town, Area 3, Lilongwe. From here I walked up Glyn Jones Road to the Kiboko Camp by the Likuni Roundabout; as I walked in I met Graeme driving out taking Klaartje to an appointment with a government minister.
Klaartje was researching a story about the current maize famine in Malawi. Nsima, maize flour, is the staple food in Malawi and this years crop had failed because the rainy season was so short, ending in late December instead of early April. Currently the United Nations and the World Food Programme are distributing food aid but in a recent report they found 30% of children in rural areas to be malnourished. The situation has been made worse by the recent advice of the IMF. The Malawi government had always kept a large stock of maize in a warehouse in case of a crop failure. The advice from the IMF was to sell the maize and the warehouses, as money is far cheaper to store than tons of maize, if there was a crop failure the government could then use this money to import maize. The crop duly failed this year and the money had disappeared. Around about the time the maize stores were sold the government purchased a fleet of twenty-three Mercedes, a coincidence or the misappropriation of funds? The attempts by the government to import 150,000 tonnes of maize from South Africa were also hampered in February when sections of the railway line in Mozambique were washed away in flash floods.
Lilongwe is the political capital of Malawi, superseding Zomba in 1975. The city is really split between two centres, the Old Town and the City Centre. The City Centre is a rather sterile place with wide, tree lined streets and was built during the 1970's to house government ministries and embassies. It didn't look much like a city to me and felt very impersonal with very little culture or local colour; the City Centre functions as it was designed, the government headquarters. The Old Town is also split in two by the Lilongwe River that meanders through the city. To the east are the bus and taxi parks, to the west the commercial district that doesn't consist of more than an intersection where there are a couple of shopping centres and branches of the main banks. The city is gaining a bad reputation for theft and muggings although I wasn't there long enough to see any problems myself. The whole city was very green with trees growing alongside most streets and there was a lot of space between the buildings; it was not a very built up city with few tall buildings.
The Kiboko Camp is the place in the city where most travellers end up staying when they pass this way; there were double rooms, a couple of dormitories or you could camp in the large gardens. There was also a small bar too and food could be ordered from the kitchen. That evening a couple of girls from Australia, Ally and Victoria that Graeme had previously met in Lusaka arrived. They were hitchhiking through Africa from Cape Town to Nairobi; it had taken them three days to make the trip from Lusaka along the Great East Road, a trip that's possible in one long day by bus. We were all travelling the same way, north out of Lilongwe, the next day. The girls wanted to make an early start and hit the road; Graeme and myself had business to do in the city, changing money and checking email before we finally left around 11.00.
There are two roads leading north through the country, one through the high rolling plateaus and one along the lakeshore, the roads joining at the town of Mzuzu, about 350km north of Lilongwe. We took the road across the plateaus as there was a bridge washed out along the shore road at the Bua River by the town of Mphonde. We drove north past the airport and on to Kasungu, the landscape very different to the endless mopane and acacia covered plains I had become used to in Zambia. The hills were gently rolling with rocky peaks. Deforestation appeared to be a major problem with the vast majority of indigenous woodland felled, mostly to provide firewood for the ever-growing population. Malawi has a population of about 12 million, about the same as neighbouring Mozambique, but is only a tenth of the size. Since the 1970's the forest cover has nearly halved from 4.4 million hectares. Agriculture dominates the economy and all along our drive north we passed fields of dead maize stalks and tobacco; tobacco accounts for 60% of the country's export earnings and has over the years been encouraged by the government. This has meant that a lot of peasant farmers are growing cash crops rather than staple foods; this has also exasperated the current famine in the country.
Just past Kasungu we saw two hitchhikers standing by the side of the road, it was Ally and Victoria, the two Australian girls. Graeme pulled over and picked them up. The four of us now continued to the Viphya Plateau and stopped for the night at the Kasito Lodge in the Luwawa Forest. This is why I sometimes like to hitch a ride with another traveller as I can then get to out of the way places that would be impossible, or impracticable to reach by public transport. This was definitely one of these places, about half a kilometre off the main road, surrounded by a large commercial pine plantation and a long way from the nearest major town. Bottlebrush trees grew in the garden, their red flowers dangling in the breeze, smoke was drifting lazily from the chimney of the lodge and also from a shed next door. The climate was pleasantly cool and fresh; the views from the gardens of the lodge were beautiful looking through the trees to the fields and forests around us. Joseph, the cook at the lodge, introduced himself and showed us around. The interior of the lodge was just as beautiful as the surroundings; there was a well-equipped kitchen that Joseph let us use, a dining room and lounge with polished wooden floors and comfortable furniture. I just loved the rocking chairs around the log fire that gently burnt in a large brick fireplace; it really felt like home. After we pitched our tents in the garden under a huge jacaranda tree we went for a walk through the forest to a near by lookout hill. It only took about forty minutes to reach the top, walking along shady paths across soft pine needles and along forestry tracks. From the top we had a panoramic view of the plateau, it was hard to think that we were deep in the heart of Africa, this is not what I had expected. We walked back to the lodge before the sun set to prepare dinner.
Nothing was too much bother for Joseph during our stay at the lodge. He brought us hot water to make tea with, let us use the kitchen and even did the washing up for us. I made myself at home in a rocking chair by the log fire with the remains of my cheese and olives to snack on, washed down with a cold beer, a leftover treat from when I had arrived in Lilongwe. Graeme and the girls were busy in the kitchen cooking dinner and Joseph was laying the table for us; I figured that too many cooks would spoil the broth and looked after the fire instead. We spent the evening sitting around the fire, I really felt that I was staying in a ski chalet in Europe and kept expecting to find a ski slope outside the front door. The only thing that was missing was the marshmallows to roast on the open fire.
It was a chilly night and it made a pleasant change to be drinking a cup of tea in the morning to warm up. We were all travelling to time schedules, the girls had a couple of months to reach Nairobi, Graeme had to be back in South Africa in the beginning of June and I began to realise that six months is a short time in Africa. If we weren't on these time schedules, the Kasito Lodge would be the kind of place we would of all liked to spend a few days relaxing away from the day to day hassles of travelling through Africa. We packed up camp, said goodbye to Joseph and gave him a tip for all his help and hospitality during our short stay. We continued driving north through the Viphya Plateau and past one of the highest mountains in the area, Mpamphala at 1,954m and on to Mzuzu. Mzuzu is a fairly large town where the two roads north meet and is known by the local people as the capital of the north. It has all the facilities you may need and we stopped for about an hour to change money and pick up some food supplies at the local market and the supermarket; the girls also managed to find a bag of marshmallows.
We continued north towards the town of Chitimba on the shores of the lake. Along the way, a few kilometres north of the junction to Rumphi, we came to the amazing house of Mr Ngoma; we had to stop and call in and say hello to one of Africa's greatest eccentrics. Mr Ngoma lives in a very distinctive house; it is a colourful two-storey construction made mostly out of junk. It was once a grocery shop, but that apparently closed a long time ago, although the sign still hangs on the front of the house. All sorts of things have been used to construct this house, car parts, furniture, road signs, brightly painted lengths of wood together with many other bits of junk that are now unrecognisable. We went to the front door and were met by one of Mr Ngoma's daughters or granddaughters who showed us in to the main downstairs room. There in the gloom of the badly lit room we found the ancient Mr Ngoma, aged 89, hunched over a desk that was covered in visitors books. Mr Ngoma has not been feeling too well recently and has taken to living in this one room, where the only other significant piece of furniture, amongst all the junk, was an old iron bed.
Mr Ngoma looked very old with a large white beard; when he stood to shake our hands he stooped and looked unsteady on his feet. His daughter showed us around the house. Mr Ngoma is obsessed with his upcoming death and has already made all the necessary preparations for his funeral. Upstairs in a small room he has his coffin all ready lying on a table. There is also a tiny chapel with an ancient record player that he plays hymns on. The walls are all covered with posters and pictures of Christ and scenes from the bible, a lot of it looked very kitsch and tacky. There are also hundreds of cards and photos stuck to the walls from visitors from all around the world. Outside in the garden he has already dug his own grave complete with a gravestone where the only thing missing is the date of death. His daughter lifted up the corrugated iron covering on the grave, the hinges creaking nosily and we all peered down into the hole. He has also prepared the whole funeral service too and I'm sure that when the day comes and he dies it will make international news. We went back in to see Mr Ngoma and sign one of his visitors books; the smell in the room was too much for Victoria and she had to leave before she gagged. On leaving we gave a small donation for Mr Ngoma to buy some medicine and wished him well and hoped that he would feel better soon.
The road continued north following the valley of the South Rukuru River that cuts down through the steep escarpment of the Great Rift Valley to Lake Malawi far below and then wound steeply down the heavily forested escarpment to the lakeshore. On the way down the escarpment we came across an accident, a minibus had tipped over on to its side on one of the sharp corners. It could not have been going too fast otherwise it would of left the road completely; I guessed that it was just too top heavy with cargo and tipped over as it tried to negotiate the corner. At a roadblock at the bottom of the hill we informed the police who were already aware of the accident. The road along the lake was in a terrible condition; the European Union was funding a project to upgrade the road from here to the Tanzania border.
We shortly arrived at Chitimba and camped on the beach at the Chitimba Campsite. The campsite was large but empty, there was only one other couple from the Netherlands camping, Judith and Paul. They were driving a Landrover around the world and had taken the route from Europe through Mauritania, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan and from there south through East Africa. The chalets at the camp were all vacant, the bar deserted and the volleyball net on the beach underwater. In the evening while we cooked dinner the sun dipped behind the escarpment and the full moon rose on the opposite horizon over the lake. We acquired some firewood and lit a fire on the beach where we spent a mellow night toasting marshmallows and drinking cold beer while listening to the frogs and toads croaking along the shore.
The next day, Saturday, we drove up to the small historic town of Livingstonia, 20km up a torturous road that wound and climbed it's way up the escarpment through the indigenous forest. The road was no more than a track, just rough stone and mud; it would be impossible to drive up without a four-wheel drive. The drive took just over an hour, it's possible to walk up in a little more than two hours. Livingstonia was founded as a mission in 1894 by the Free Church of Scotland following the death of Livingstone on his search for the source of the Nile in 1873; his death lead to renewed missionary zeal in Africa. The original mission was sited on Cape Maclear and was built in 1875 but the area proved to be malarial. The mission was moved to Bandawe, about halfway up Lake Malawi, before finally being sited in 1894 on the high ground to the east of the lake. Today a stone cairn marks the spot where the missionary, Dr Robert Laws camped the first night when he decided that this was the spot to build the new mission.
Livingstonia is a fascinating town, something quiet unexpected to find in this small African country, it is like someone has transplanted a small part of Scotland to the centre of Africa. We drove into town along a dirt road lined on both sides with red brick houses, through the small town centre where there was a small shop and a clock tower and to Stone House, where we planned to camp the night. Stone House was the house built by Dr Laws after he moved from his first house, named House No. 1, next to where he camped on his first night. Today Stone House doubles as both the town museum and a rest house. The building looks rather dilapidated these days, it doesn't look like anyone has done any maintenance for a very long time. It is a one-storey building with a large wooden veranda that overlooks the escarpment towards the lake and a corrugated iron roof. The interior is very atmospheric and definitely looks like a Victorian house in Scotland, complete with the original wooden sash windows, doors, creaking wooden floors, picture rail high up on the wall and a high ceiling; there was even some original Victorian furniture dotted around the house.
We went for a walk around the town stopping along the way at the clock tower and the industrial block that was originally built by the missionaries as a training centre and is today a large technical college. We stopped outside some of the original missionary houses to take some photos and were quickly invited in by the family to say hello. We all sat down in the large front room, where the family were busy watching a video of Sheba Queen of the Jungle, and went through doing the introductions. After that we were shown around the house, which by African standards was huge with also had a veranda around the back as well as the front. The family who lived there worked at the technical college, around the corner, which is where most people in the town seemed to work. It was holiday time at the college so the town appeared fairly quiet as most of the students had returned home. Further along the road was the David Gordon Memorial Hospital, which was once the largest hospital in Central Africa. At the end of our walk we accidentally came across the only other rest house in town, imaginatively named, The Resthouse. It was situated at the edge of town, very similar in style to Stone House also with a large wooden veranda that overlooked the escarpment and the lake. The cost of a room worked out the same as camping at Stone House, so in the middle of the afternoon we moved house.
Overnight it rained heavily so we were pleased with our decision not to camp. It was Sunday morning and we had all decided that it would be a good experience to attend an African church service. The English service was due to start at 08.00, it was still raining and mist and cloud blew through the town as we drove to the impressive church dating from 1894. The church was huge, by far the largest building in the town, built of red brick, like all the other buildings in the town, with a corrugated iron roof. Above the entrance there is an extraordinary stained glass window of Livingstone standing on a hill overlooking Lake Malawi with two of his African companions, a gift to the church in 1952. The service was interesting, it was the first time I had been to a Sunday service at a church. The highlight had to be the choir that just consisted of four men, there were no instruments or organ, just the harmonies of their voices. Halfway through the service, as we were new faces to the congregation, we were invited up to the front of the church to introduce ourselves. Everyone seemed happy to have visitors in their church from such far off countries as England, Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile the preacher was not too happy about the number of people who arrived late because of the rain; the service didn't start until about 08.30. He told the congregation that, 'We mustn't steal God's time because he has given us the gift of rain.'
After Church we left Livingstonia and on the way back down the road to the lake, after about 4km, we stopped at Manchewe Falls, a spectacular 50m high waterfall that plummets off the edge of the escarpment. There is a cave behind the base of the falls where in the past the local people used to hide from the slave-traders. It is possible to walk to the base, but we really didn't have the time and the path was still wet and slippery from the overnight rain. We continued down the road at an average speed of 20kmh until we were at last back in Chitimba from where we drove north to the port of Chilumba. This is where I would be taking the MV Ilala south down the lake to Monkey Bay.
Graeme dropped me off by the lakeshore next to the port in Chilumba in the early afternoon on Sunday. He was continuing north with Ally and Victoria to Karonga before dropping them at the northern border with Tanzania. We had arranged to meet again in Monkey Bay on Thursday, the day after the Ilala was due to arrive. The two of us were travelling through Malawi roughly the same way on fairly similar time schedules and we both had planned to go trekking on Mt Mulanje, Malawi's highest mountain at 3,001m. After lunch and a cold beer beside the lake we all said goodbye and I was once again by myself, standing looking out over the lake with my backpack sitting at my feet.
Chilumba is the northern port on the Ilala schedule, she used to sail as far north as Karonga but there was little demand on this section and the route was discontinued a few years ago. Lake Malawi is Africa's third largest lake, after Lake Victoria and Tanganyika, and it's deepest point recorded southeast of Ruarwe at 470m. Chilumba looked a very small town, just a collection of ramshackle buildings along the road that led to the port; I'm sure there must have been more to the town but I didn't see it. I had called in at the port the day before to make a reservation for a cabin on the Ilala; the clerk in the Lake Malawi Service office said he would radio the ship and let them know. It was just before 14.00 as I walked down to the waiting shed beside the lake in the port. There were two other passengers waiting, a few bags of luggage and a group of men playing a board game that I never understood outside in the shade of a large tree. The small kiosk that sold beer, soda and snacks was open, the stereo system blaring out music while the other two passengers dozed on the benches. The Ilala was due to arrive in Chilumba at 18.30 that evening and depart at 02.00 on Monday morning; I had a long wait ahead of me.
I passed the time writing this travelogue and reading a book between chatting to some of the other passengers as they slowly arrived in dribs and drabs during the afternoon. By late afternoon the shed was packed with waiting passengers and their luggage. Just as the sun was setting the Ilala was spotted in the distance sailing up the lake; a boy came and told me and I stood on the quay watching the Ilala sail past the Mpanga Rocks and slowly dock at the jetty. By the time she had docked it was dark and she was lit up by her own lights and the arc lights of the port. The ticket office opened in the waiting shed and I checked to see if they had my reservation, they had; I would have to pay for my ticket once I was aboard the ship. I continued waiting in the dark outside what was now a chaotic shed, the lighthouse on the Mpanga Rocks blinked in the dark. Some of the local lads began fighting as they became increasingly drunk on the endless supply of Carlsberg from the kiosk.
At 20.00 I saw the three other tourists in the crowd go and board the ship with their luggage; I hadn't heard any announcements, in fact information was very thin on the ground. I went to the gate of the jetty and asked a guard if I could board yet; he said yes, so I went back to the shed, picked up my backpack and walked off down to the waiting Ilala. I boarded across a rather rickety wooden gangplank and onto the lower, economy deck. I saw the other tourists above me on the first class cabin deck talking to a steward; I went and joined them to find out what the procedure was to get a cabin. The steward was a young lad, George, who had been working on the ship since 1997. He took me down to the purser's office where I paid MK5,820 for my ticket to Monkey Bay and was then shown to cabin number four. I was surprised at how spacious the cabin was, especially when compared to the cabins on the MV Liemba that I had sailed down Lake Tanganyika on about a month ago. There were two large, comfortable single beds with sheets and blankets, a washbasin and towels, a desk and chair, a fan and bedside lights that worked. There was one small window and the door opened out on to the deck where there were a couple of green wicker chairs to sit on and watch the lake go by. I decided I would enjoy myself over the next three days voyaging down the lake.
Nothing was too much trouble for George, he was the most helpful person I had met for a long time. Once I had settled into my cabin I ordered dinner, beef stew and rice, which George brought to me on a tray to my cabin as the saloon was just closing for the night. I sat on my wicker chair on the deck for the evening watching life go by; it was almost like a social event for the town when the ship docked. The local people were allowed on board and to wander about the decks and drink at the bar on the sun deck above me; the ship appeared to be packed as the locals enjoyed a few hours aboard the Ilala while she was moored. Just after 23.00 I retired to my cabin and soon fell asleep for the night.
The MV Ilala, MV is an acronym for motor vessel, is named after the district in Zambia where Dr Livingstone died in 1873. She is a far newer ship than the MV Liemba on Lake Tanganyika that was built in 1914. The Ilala was built in 1949 by Yarrow & Co in Glasgow, Scotland and shipped in sections to Nacala in Mozambique and then transported by rail to the lake to be reassembled. She was launched at Monkey Bay, the largest port on the lake on 25th June 1951. She measures 172' in length, 30' breadth, 11' depth and weighs 620 tons; she was designed to carry 358 passengers, 63 crew and 100 tons of cargo and cruises at a speed of 10 knots. There are three decks, the lower deck being the economy deck, the middle deck the first class cabin and officers deck and the top deck being the first class deck or sun deck, where there was an open air bar situated behind the wheel house. There were six first class cabins, which shared one shower room and three toilets that were better than those at a lot of hotels I had stayed at. There was one self-contained cabin known as the owners cabin; during the colonial administration this cabin was used by colonial officials to travel in up and down the lake and it had it's own private toilet and shower with a view overlooking the bows of the ship.
The Ilala was not the first ship bearing this name to sail on the lake. The original SS Ilala began passenger services in October 1875 and was the first steamer to sail on the lake. She was also built by Yarrow & Co of Glasgow but was a far smaller ship than the present day Ilala measuring only 55' in length and weighing 21 tons. She was operated by the Livingstonia Mission until 1882 when the mission was renamed the African Lakes Corporation. In 1903 she was sold to the African International Flotilla Company who continued to operate the ship until 1922 when she reportedly sunk; I found it difficult to ascertain exactly what happened to the ship, from the various sources I checked I kept getting the answer that at sometime during 1922 she disappeared presumed sunk.
During the night just after a heavy rain storm, as I slept peacefully, the Ilala slipped her moorings and at 02.00 began her voyage south to Monkey Bay. As the crow flies it is about 450km to Monkey Bay, but we would be travelling a lot further as the Ilala crosses the lake to Likoma Island and also calls in at two ports on the Mozambique shoreline. I woke early in the morning as we moored close to the shore at Ruarwe and the lifeboats were lowered to ferry passengers and cargo to and fro from the beach; it looked like the whole village had turned out to watch the ship drop anchor. Local people paddled from the shore in dug out canoes carrying a couple of passengers or some cargo, the majority of passengers used the lifeboats. It was a far more orderly procedure than that on the MV Liemba where local boats fought for space alongside the ship to ferry people and cargo between the ship and the shore. Once everyone and everything had been ferried ashore the lifeboats hooked up to the Ilala and were slowly winched up as we recommenced our voyage. Unfortunately one dug out canoe was late arriving alongside us to unload some cargo, as we began to move they frantically tried to paddle to keep up with the ship but were soon broad sided by a lifeboat. The winch was very slow and the lifeboat was still being dragged through the water and the canoe was caught in front of it. The three man crew of the canoe dived into the water as the canoe was dragged under the lifeboat, much to the amusement of all the passengers on the deck. Luckily for them wooden canoes don't sink and the last I saw of them they were swimming and pushing the submerged canoe ashore as other villagers paddled out to rescue them.
A free breakfast was included in the cabin class fare and was served in the small saloon next to my cabin between 07.30 and 09.00. George was in charge of serving breakfast, which was the best breakfast I had had so far on this trip. It included a bowel of cornflakes, eggs, chips, sausage, tomato and a large plate of toast, jam and butter washed down with juice and tea. It was almost enough food to see me through to dinner in the evening. After breakfast I settled down in my wicker chair to watch the lake go by as we cruised at a steady speed south. The steep escarpment of the Great Rift Valley runs right down to the shores of the lake in the north, it's impossible for a road to cling to this steep slope and the only way to get to the precariously perched villages is by boat.
We arrived in Nkhata Bay over two and a half hours early at just past midday and moored at the jetty for the day. The ship was not due to depart until 20.00 that evening, which gave me nearly eight hours to explore this small town. The jetty was a hive of activity as the majority of passengers disembarked and went ashore. A tractor began hauling trailer loads of cargo, mostly maize flour, that was craned into the cargo hold in the bows of the ship; it took four and half hours to load all the maize aboard. During the afternoon a couple of army trucks arrived on the quay and they began loading all their supplies on board that included a huge pile of firewood. I went to explore the town. It was very picturesque set around the bay and hills with the Ilala moored majestically by the bay. The main road went around the shore of the bay where there was a busy and colourful local market; there was also a craft market that catered for all the tourists and travellers that stay in this town. The town is very popular amongst travellers with some splendid beaches nearby and a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. As soon as I walked along the main road I attracted a lot of attention from young lads, all of them trying to sell me some Malawian Gold, apparently the 'national crop'. I decided to have some fun and tried to score a couple of ounces of Blue Stilton. No one was quiet too sure what Blue Stilton was but after an hour or so they finally worked out that it was a cheese and not an exotic herb. There was no black market for cheese in town, which didn't surprise me, it was hard enough to find legitimate sources of cheese in Africa.
While I was sitting down to a late lunch of rice and beans at a local restaurant, a lad came past and told me that my friend had arrived in town and had just checked in to the Connection Backpackers. I asked him to describe this friend and he came out with a remarkable description of Graeme. I finished off my lunch, waited for my Fanta to thaw out and then walked back around the bay to the backpackers hostel where I found Graeme's Toyota parked in the car park and Graeme at the bar. It was a bit of a coincidence to meet up with each other again like this, I still couldn't believe that these young lads managed to find the two of us. We walked down to the port and I invited Graeme aboard the Ilala to take a look around. Whenever the Ilala moors at a jetty in a port for a few hours, the whole ship appears to be taken over by the local people who wander about the ship and sit at the bar on the top deck drinking a beer or a soda. Graeme and myself sat by the bar drinking a couple of beers until it began to get dark and Graeme decided to walk back to the hostel before it got too dark. At 20.00 the Ilala slipped her moorings and once again sailed south down the lake. I now had a cabin mate for the rest of the voyage, Niall from Dublin in Ireland who boarded the Ilala at Nkhata Bay. We would be stopping at one more port in Malawi during the night before crossing the lake to Likoma Island, a part of Malawi, just off the Mozambique shore; we should reach Likoma in the middle of the night at around 03.15.
There is quite a lot of history connected with shipping on Lake Malawi. There has only been one recorded battle on the lake that took place at the outbreak of hostilities during World War One. At the time Malawi was a British colony and the colonial authorities, as a show of force in 1899 launched the largest ship on the lake, the HMS Guendolin, weighing 340 tonnes and equipped with two powerful guns. She was built by G Rennie & Co in Greenock, Scotland and reassembled at Mangochi. There were two rival colonial powers with colonies bordering the lake, the Portuguese in present day Mozambique and German East Africa in present day Tanzania. The Germans also had a gunboat on the lake, the Hermon von Wisseman, and the two captains were reportedly the best of friends, often meeting up somewhere around the lake for a drink. In 1914 when war was declared the Guendolin was ordered to destroy the Wisseman. The British captain knew were the Wisseman would be because the two captains had arranged to meet for one of their regular drinks. The German captain was unaware that war had been declared and was completely caught by surprise as the Guendolin steamed up and opened fire, putting the German ship out of action and taking the crew as prisoners of war. The Guendolin remained in government service until 1940 when she was sold to Nyasaland Railways and converted to a passenger ship; she was broken up for scrap four years later.
The worst shipping disaster on the lake happened on 30th July 1946 when the Vipya sank during a terrible storm. The Vipya was built by Harland & Wolffe and shipped out to the lake in 1943 where she was reassembled and launched in 1944. She weighed 470 tons, was 140' in length and had a top speed of 12 knots. She did not begin passenger services until the end of World War Two and made her first scheduled trip on 28th June 1946. On her fourth voyage in 1946, the Vipya set out from Mbamba bay; a strong wind blew which made the ship roll enough to alarm the crew and first officer. The captain disagreed about the unsafe conditions and ordered the crew to continue on the voyage. The ship began to take in water, but the captain ignored it. Eight miles from the destination, present day Chilumba, the captain ordered the cargo hatch to be opened to prepare for disembarkation. By now the third class passengers had water at their feet. All of a sudden, a huge wave crashed onto the Vipya, capsizing the ship; most of the passengers were trapped below decks and drowned. Only three of the crew survived by climbing out of the engine room window before the ship turned over; they floated to land on wreckage. Thirty-three African passengers who were on the deck survived, none of the first class passengers did, who were mostly Europeans. The survivors made it to Livingstonia on shore. Altogether 145 people lost their lives in the disaster; there is a simple memorial to the dead beside the clock tower in Mangochi beside the Shire River. The present day Ilala was ordered as a replacement for the ill-fated Vipya.
I woke up early the next morning to find us anchored in a sheltered bay at Likoma Island near the main settlement of Chipyela, which means 'Place of burning'. Europeans first settled on this island in 1882 when the Universities Mission to Central Africa set up a mission here. They chose the island as defence from the warring Ngoni and Yao people and built the huge Cathedral of St Peter that measures 100m by 25m and is allegedly one of the most remarkable buildings in Malawi. We had been there for a few hours already and most of the cargo had been unloaded, which included all the troops and their supplies of firewood. The island measures only 17 sq km and has a population of approximately 6,000. The bay where we were anchored looked fairly dry and sandy with some large rocky outcrops and baobab trees growing amongst the scrub. The south of the island is flat, the north slightly hilly, although on an island this size, none of the hills looked huge. At around 07.00 we departed and crossed the short distance to the town of Cóbuč, on the Mozambique shore. From there we followed the Mozambique shore to Metangula, which is the district capital, where a huge crowd of people were gathered under a large shady tree waiting for the arrival of the Ilala.
We departed at 14.30 and sailed back across the lake to Malawi and to the town of Nkhotakota. As we crossed the lake there was quite a swell, especially for a lake and the bows of the ship crashed through the waves. As we neared the shore as the sun began to set, the sky above the hills in Malawi glowing orange and red. During the night as we continued south along the Malawian shore the swell on the lake grew bigger and bigger, tossing the ship around like a child's toy. I woke in the morning with my stomach feeling unwell and that combined with the heavy seas kept me confined to my bed in my cabin. In the saloon next door I could hear crockery and cutlery crashing to the floor; I imagined George was having a bad morning and his bowls of cornflakes were lying scattered about on the floor. I gave breakfast a miss and instead made a few trips to the toilet. I had trouble standing on the deck, as the ship was being tossed around by this strong wind and large swell. Finally I was seasick, if you can get seasick on a lake, and threw up over the deck. Unfortunately for the locals on the economy class deck below me the wind blew my vomit straight back in onto their deck splattering a few people. I quickly walked to the other side of the ship thinking that at last I had got my revenge for the kid in Tanzania who was sick over me on a bus.
We arrived in Monkey Bay an hour early at 13.00 on Wednesday, a very unusual event as the Ilala is infamous for running hours late. As we passed a peninsular and into Monkey Bay we reached calm waters; George told me that this was the start of the rough season that runs from May through to July. We had been sailing all day under clear blue skies, now I understood how a ship like the Vipya could sink on this lake during a storm. We moored at a jetty alongside the MV Mtendere, the only other passenger ship on the lake. She is a new ship built in 1979 by Schlicting Werft of Travemunde and launched in 1980, measuring 167' in length and weighing 924 tons. She had none of the character of the Ilala and looked fairly ugly and modern; she was currently undergoing repairs at Monkey Bay, I was glad I had sailed on the Ilala, she was a beautiful ship and looked like your classic African lake steamer. After sixty-five hours aboard the Ilala I was glad to be back on dry land again.
I really wasn't feeling too well when we finally arrived at Monkey Bay after my three-day voyage south down Lake Malawi from Chilumba. My previous nights meal on board the Ilala had not been good and I was now suffering from diarrhoea; together with the rough seas and being seasick, I hadn't eaten anything all day and was feeling weak and tired. There was a slight melee outside the gates to the port as a small crowd of taxi drivers touted for business; most taxis were Landrover pickups and their destination Cape Maclear. Niall, my cabin mate on the Ilala jumped on a minibus to Blantyre, he only had a few days to get to Johannesburg to catch an onward flight on his ten-month tour of the world. I took George's recommendation of the Venice Beach backpackers as a good place to stay in Monkey Bay; I had arranged to meet up with Graeme tomorrow, Thursday in town. A young lad waiting outside the port showed me the way to Venice Beach, a walk of a couple kilometres out of Monkey Bay. We walked across the disused airfield and along a dirt road to the next village on the lakeshore. As we walked under the hot sun I began to feel weaker and weaker and soon realised that Venice Beach was a bit of a mistake. My guidebook printed almost two years ago said the place was still under construction; my guide showing me the way seemed to indicate that this was still the case.
I arrived exhausted to find an empty, half built backpackers resort built on the beach alongside the village. The main building, two floors high built of red brick with a thatched roof, looked horribly out of place alongside the circular mud huts of the village that it dominated. I was too tired and exhausted to walk back into town so I stayed for a night. There was no running water; the nearest toilet was halfway down to the beach next to a bar that had been completed but not yet stocked. The manager cooked some rice and vegetables for dinner on a fire in one of the half completed rooms. There was only one other guest staying there, George from Greece, who had been there now for a month; most of which appeared to have been spent in a stoned stupor. The comments in the visitors book seemed to sum up what I was thinking; why not complete one section of the complex at a time before opening to guests, the bar apparently had been built for some time but had yet to serve a single beer.
I awoke the next morning feeling one hundred percent better and hiked back to Monkey Bay, my memory of Venice Beach disappearing quickly, and waited at Gary's Cafe, which had changed it's name twice over the last couple of years, for Graeme to pick me up. I guessed that he would probably arrive in the early afternoon so I made myself at home on the veranda outside the cafe overlooking the only street in town; when Graeme drove past I would see him. The family running the cafe were very hospitable and I drunk a few cups of black tea during the morning and had some fried fish with rice for lunch. By about two thirty Graeme drove past, there was not much traffic along this road as it only went as far as the port, but he didn't see me. I waited on the road for him to turn around and five minutes later he was back and we were once again on the road. It had only been a couple of days since we last saw each other, but it seemed a lot longer as we caught up on each others news.
We drove south out of Monkey Bay along the lakeshore to the Palm Beach resort, about half way to Mangochi, where we stopped for the night and camped by the beach. It was a large resort but we were the only guests that night and the place was peaceful and quiet with just the sound of the frogs in the reeds and the gentle waves lapping at the white sandy beach.
We made an early start the following morning and drove the short distance to Mangochi, which sits on the western banks of the Shire River between Lake Malawi and Lake Malombe. The Shire River flows out of Lake Malawi and meanders south through the country and joins the Zambezi River in Mozambique, which flows east to the Indian Ocean. The town was once an important slave market and then during colonial times an administrative centre when the town was known as Fort Johnson. Along the main street that runs down to the Shire River we stopped at the small Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery. There were about forty graves, the majority from the First World War, together with a few from early settlers. There was a small, but interesting museum in the centre of town on Lake Malawi. I found the information on the ships that had sailed on the lake extremely interesting, especially after spending three days sailing down the lake on the historic Ilala. At last I saw a photo of the original SS Ilala, the first steam ship to sail on the lake; she looked a lot smaller than I imagined. Down by the river in the centre of a roundabout was the Queen Victoria clock tower, one of the few remnants of colonial architecture left in the town. The clock tower was built of red brick, today the clock faces are broken and the tower looked out of place in the centre of this African street. Alongside the clock tower was a very small memorable for the 145 victims of the Vipya disaster in 1947 erected by public subscription. Stretching out east from the clock tower across the river was the new Mangochi Bridge, funded and built by the Japanese government and officially opened in January 2002. The old bridge had been dismantled and just a small section was left on the eastern bank going nowhere. Around the stone foundations of the new bridge women were busy doing laundry while children played and splashed in the water. The banks of the river were a riot of colour as the washing was laid out to dry under the pleasantly warm sun.
It was still relatively early in the morning when we left Mangochi and continued driving to Zomba, about 70km south. I was not used to getting so much done so early in the morning; usually while travelling on local transport I spent most of my mornings sitting in a dusty bus park waiting for a bus to fill with passengers before we could depart; it was not unusual to spend three or four hours going nowhere in a bus. By mid morning we were in Zomba, a pleasant down sitting at the foot of the Zomba Plateau that rose up steeply to the west almost overshadowing the town. Zomba was a fairly large town for Malawi with a busy, bustling market in the centre where we stopped to buy some supplies and have a snack. Up until the mid 1970's it was the country's capital, when it was moved to Lilongwe, as it was more central. We didn't spend too long in the town, as our main reason for coming here was to visit the Zomba Plateau, where we intended to do some hiking and camp for the night.
We drove up the Mkulichi Road that gently winds its way through lush green suburbs on the foothills of the plateau past the golf course and the State House grounds, a reminder of the town's political importance. There are two roads going up to the plateau, the up road and the down road. We took the up road but later on our descent found that most locals use the down road to go up as well as it has been recently re-paved, probably as a result of the construction of the Mulunguzi dam on top of the plateau. Zomba is the smallest of the three main plateaus in the country, the other two being Nyika and Mulanje. The plateau is a forest reserve and is divided in two by the Domasi Valley, the northern part of the plateau has been left as a wilderness section where hiking is not encouraged and there are no paths or roads, we were driving up to the southern half. The southern half is not a true wilderness area and most of it has been planted with pines. There is also a hotel at the top of the road, the Ku Chawe Inn, a couple of campsites and some forestry workers cottages. There is a dirt road that circles the plateau that we followed to the Chitinji Campsite, just below the highest peak, Malumbe Peak at 2,085m. The campsite was very secluded, hidden away in the pine trees; we set up camp and then went for a hike for the afternoon.
We hiked up the nearby Malumbe Peak. Where pine trees hadn't been planted the top of the plateau was covered in rolling grassland, the long brown grass swaying in the wind. There were still a few patches of indigenous woodland; most of these patches were in steep valleys that cut through the plateau, where obviously it was too difficult to create commercial plantations. Malumbe Peak was not a deserted mountain top, there was a narrow road that lead all the way to the top where there was an impressive array of aerials, microwave dishes, antennas and transmitters; it was the communication centre for Zomba that lay over 1,000m below us. The escarpment was also covered in indigenous forest where blue monkeys jumped from tree to tree and the branches of the trees were draped in old mans beard.
It was a pleasurable evening at the campsite. The temperature felt cool and we kept warm sitting in front of a fire as we cooked our dinner of grilled steak. There was no-one else staying there, except the caretaker and the night was completely silent except for the slight sound of the wind whispering through the pine trees around us. There was a very skinny dog that adopted us during the evening and sat around looking desperately hungry and cold. I woke early the next morning, mist was rolling across the plateau shrouding the surrounding peaks, and the dog was curled up by the embers of the fire, keeping warm. I felt a pain in my right foot and on closer inspection found my second toe, next to my small toe, badly swollen and bright red. Underneath the toe, on the soft part of skin between the pad of the toe and the foot, I discovered a bite mark and the skin all blistered and white. It looked like it could have been a spider bite; two fang marks about 4mm apart were clearly visible on the blistered, white skin. It was painful to walk on so I did my best to hobble about for the morning.
Luckily we had a car and there was a circular track looping around the southern half of the plateau, so that morning, despite my sore toe I was still able to see a lot of the plateau. We continued clockwise following the outer circular drive, stopping first at Chingwe's Hole. There is a local legend that says that the hole is bottomless and it was once used as a burial chamber. Today though, after some recent rock-falls, the hole is probably no deeper than about 20m. It is also surrounded by a lot of trees and thick undergrowth making it hard to see anything at all. Far more dramatic was the view from a nearby viewpoint on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the Shire Valley, the Shire River meandering lazily southwards below us. We continued to drive around to the eastern edge of the escarpment where we stopped at the three viewpoints looking out over the escarpment, Zomba lying at our feet below us and in the distance Lake Chilwa. The Emperor's View was named after Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia who visited the area in 1964; the Queen's View was named after Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI, who visited Zomba in 1957. Just down the track from Queen's View is the small and peaceful Chagwa Lake and dam where there were some fuchsias growing wild beside the lake. It looked like a perfect spot to spend a day fishing completely surrounded by pine trees; you would have never guessed that you were in Africa.
The last place we stopped at was Williams Falls on the Mulunguzi River. The river cascades down a series of small falls surrounded by indigenous forest, it was a very picturesque setting. The river continues flowing across the plateau and down the Mandala Falls, which are no longer as impressive as they were with the recent enlargement of the Mulunguzi Dam that has all but submerged the waterfall. We drove off the plateau following the down road and dodging traffic coming up and bicycles heavily over laden with firewood being slowly wheeled down to Zomba and continued on to Blantyre, 80km to the south.
Blantyre is the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi and is the country's biggest and busiest city, although in comparison to neighbouring countries, it is still quite small. Blantyre merges with its sister city, Limbe to the east and the urban sprawl stretches for about 20km. We drove to Doogles backpacker lodge next to the bus station off Old Chileka Road and checked in and bumped into Klaartje, whom we had last seen back in Lilongwe. Doogles is the kind of place that travellers rave about, someone a long time ago had recommended the place to me and circled it on the map in my guidebook; it was such a long time ago that I couldn't even remember who recommended it or where I was at the time. Doogles lived up to its reputation and was a very relaxed, friendly place to stay. The owner, Lou who was a Maori from New Zealand and the two managers, also from New Zealand, got on well with Graeme. Before Lou left to visit Harare he gave us a couple of bottles of red wine, which went down extremely well.
Meanwhile things with my foot were not looking good. My toe had swelled up even more, probably from hobbling about during the morning on Zomba Plateau. I thought it wise to have it checked out by a doctor, just to make sure I hadn't been bitten by something deadly and Graeme gave me a lift the short distance to the Mwaiwathu Private Hospital, where a consultation set me back US$10. To my relief the doctor didn't think it was too serious and told me just to keep an eye on it and if I felt any other symptoms to come back. I hobbled back to Doogles and spent the afternoon sitting at the bar watching the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea. During the match pus and blood began leaking through the fang marks of the bite and by the end of the day the skin, that had been killed off by the venom, split open and leaked pus continuously for the next three days. I couldn't do much until my toe healed up and spent my days relaxing at the bar or beside the pool writing my travelogue or researching the next stage of my journey south through Mozambique. The staff at Doogles can arrange a visa for Mozambique and on the Monday morning I left them my passport for the four days it takes to process a visa at the local Mozambique Consulate, halfway between Blantyre and Limbe. For the rest of my time I sat around at Doogles waiting for my toe to heal sufficiently so that I could join Graeme trekking on the Mulanje Massif. Meanwhile Graeme was having a few of his own problems sorted out, namely a major oil leak with the truck. It turned out to be a broken crankshaft seal that took a couple of days and US$70 to have fixed at the local Toyota dealership, also managed by an ex-pat New Zealander.
After four days resting at Doogles the swelling in my toe began to ease and at last I was confident that I would be fit enough in a couple of days to trek up the Mulanje Massif. Graeme and myself left Doogles late on Tuesday afternoon and drove to Mulanje, 80km to the east. It didn't take too long to leave the urban sprawl of Blantyre and Limbe and soon we were driving along a good road through the Shire Highlands. As soon as we were out of the city we could see the giant, granite massif of Mulanje rising up in the distance, dominating the landscape. This area is the centre of Malawi's tea growing industry as the Shire Highlands provide the perfect climate for the tea bushes to thrive. Tea bushes were first imported from India during the early days of the Nyasaland Colony and today tea is one of Malawi's main export crops. It is a very labour intensive industry and is only really viable in countries where manual wages are very low, such as Malawi. All along the road and in every direction the gently rolling hills were covered in tea bushes, like a thick green carpet. The bushes were so bright green they almost looked unnatural, as the new shoots grew from the tops of the bushes almost luminescent in colour. Amongst the bushes pickers slowly moved, both men and women, plucking the new, bright green shoots by hand and throwing them by the handful into baskets strapped to their backs.
As we neared Mulanje the massif towered in front of us, surrounded by tea plantations and forest on the lower slopes before the escarpment became too steep and rose up from the surrounding hills as a sheer rock face. The late afternoon sun was casting an orange glow against the granite rock; it looked like an ideal place to spend a few days trekking away from life in the always-bustling African towns and cities. We turned off the main road at the small village of Chitikali, just past the Likabula River, and followed a small dirt road that weaved through the tea plantations around the western escarpment of the massif to the Forest Resthouse near to the settlement of Likabula. We arrived just as it was getting dark, which happens very quickly in this part of the world, and set up a tent in the gardens for the night. The rest house was a very smart looking place with a caretaker and cook but the new, very high barbed wire fence around the grounds did give the place the feel of a concentration camp. At the barbed wire fence about eight potential guides had lined up, all shouting at us and offering their services; they had followed our car through the village. It was like being in a zoo; eventually when it got too dark they all slowly wandered away back to the village.
We rested for one more day at the Forest Resthouse, my toe was well on the mend and I was confident that I would be fully fit the next day to start our climb. Continuously during the day we were hassled by one guide who eventually took to just sitting and staring at us for hours on end; a very strange way of picking up business, he would be the last person I would hire to take up the mountain. In the afternoon we went along to the Likabula Forest Station to book the huts and hire a guide for our four-day trek up onto the massif. We intended to trek to the Chambe Hut, up Sapitwa Peak and on to Thuchila Hut from where we would descend the massif. The Forest Station has a list of all seventy registered guides who they use on a rota basis, so we could not pick and choose whom we would take. The guide who had been staring at us all day had followed us to the office and sat outside listening. He claimed that he was the next guide on the list and that he would be taking us up the mountain. I pointed out to him, if that was the case, then why had he been hassling us all day if he knew that he was next on the rota and guaranteed work. Graeme and myself refused point blank to hire him whether it was his turn on the rota or not. In the end we were introduced to our guide, a young lad of 23 with a nasty scar on the side of his neck; we agreed to set off at 08.00 the following morning.
The massif is approximately square in shape measuring 26km by 22km at the 800m contour line, the height above sea level of the Forest Resthouse where we would be starting our trek and covers an area of about 640 sq km. The massif is made up of a number of bowl-shaped river basins that are divided by rocky ridges and peaks. There are twenty peaks measuring over 2,500m, the highest being Sapitwa Peak at 3,001m, the highest peak in Malawi and Central Africa. The massif is made of granite that was forced up through volcanic activity over 130 million years ago; the surrounding rocks are much softer, eroding over the years to now leave this huge mass of granite towering over the encircling undulating hills. The massif is a forest reserve and commercial pine plantations were established in a couple of the basins, the Chambe and Sombani, during the colonial period and now supply timber for the whole of southern Malawi. The rest of the massif is natural forest and grassland.
On this trek I had not done much research and had left the planning of our route to Graeme. My main goal was to reach the summit of Sapitwa Peak, a climb that I thought would be the easiest on my trip through Africa being that it was the lowest peak by over 1,500m. I also felt that by having a guide there was less reason to study the route we were taking, all I had to do was follow the guide; you could say I had become lazy, but at least it meant that I was in for a few surprises. Our guide arrived early in the morning as we were doing our last minute packing and checking we had not forgotten anything. The path from the Forest Resthouse lead up to the Chambe Basin following a steep valley cut by the Likabula River into the side of the escarpment. The walking started off fairly easy, walking through forest along paths and tracks, crossing streams, until we reached the base of the climb. We had originally intended to take the longer and easier route along the Chapaluka Path that follows a gentler gradient up the valley, because of the recent problems with my foot. Our guide wasn't aware of this and led us up the Skyline path, the steep and quick route up to the basin. The path is named after the cableway that runs up the side of the mountain that is used to bring sawn timber down from the plantations.
The going was very steep and tiring, as we rested our guide told us that we were not on the Chapaluka Path as intended, but by then it was too late and we had made fairly good progress up the mountain along the Skyline path. The Skyline cableway was broken so the timber was being carried down by labourers, some of them carrying up to three very long planks down at a time. The planks were long enough that they almost scraped the path behind them as they carried them on their head; such was the steep angle of the path. It certainly looked like very hard work as a constant stream of these men pounded down the side of the mountain barefoot, sweat dripping from their foreheads. It made our job look easy, just carrying a well fitting backpack weighing about 16kg with a good pair of boots on our feet. The path followed up a ridge; to the south we could glimpse views through the trees of the Likabula Valley and Chilemba Peak on the other side. Where the path became really steep, steps had been cut to make the going easier, especially as the damp clay was very slippery at times.
After a long, hard climb we reached the top of the Skyline path where the path flattened out as it crossed the Chambe Basin. The whole basin was covered in a rather ugly looking commercial pine plantation that the path lead through crossing over some small streams along the way. A lot of the trees had been recently felled and the area burnt, new pines had been planted but the whole area looked a bit of a destructive mess. It took about an hour walking to reach the Chambe Hut from the top of the Skyline path. The hut was just set away from some nearby forestry workers houses, on a patch of short grass alongside a stream where some tree ferns were growing. It was a wooden hut with a very large veranda at the front; there were two rooms inside, a bunkroom and a dining room where there was a brick fireplace, tables and chairs. It was 11.30 when we arrived; it had taken us three and a half hours to climb the 1,000m from the Forest Resthouse.
The caretaker at the hut immediately lit a fire for us and we borrowed a pan to boil up some water. We were the only two people staying there, our guide stayed in a separate hut just behind ours. The caretaker kept us supplied with firewood and a bucket of water from the nearby stream. I felt exhausted from the mornings climb; the past five days resting with a bad foot had not been the best preparation for a tough hike like this. Despite this I felt quietly confident about tomorrow's climb to the summit of Sapitwa Peak, as we would be leaving our backpacks at the hut and only taking daypacks to carry what we would need for the ascent. We spent the afternoon relaxing at the hut in front of the fire, soon the memory of the Skyline path began to fade and it all began to seem easy. We kept a pan of water on the boil during the afternoon and made soup, tea, noodles and more tea as the afternoon wore on. Our guide came over and asked us if we wanted to go for a short hike but by then we were quiet content sitting around the fire watching the logs burn. No one else arrived at the hut that day and we had the place to ourselves. By 20.00 we turned in early for the night and planned to get up at 05.00 the next morning so as to start our summit attempt at 06.00. Our guide warned us that it would be a long day and the earlier we start the better.
We were woken at seven minutes past five as the caretaker arrived to light the fire for us. Graeme was quick to get up and seemed very keen to get on; I lay on my bunk and said there is a slight problem; it's too cold to get out of my sleeping bag. It probably was not that cold, but it was the coldest I had felt since I had climbed Mt Meru in Tanzania back in March. Graeme had a thermometer that gave a reading of 10'c, it felt a lot colder but then we were probably very used to warm weather, both of us spending over three months in Africa by now. The water was soon boiling on the fire which we huddled around to keep warm as we ate some porridge and drunk a welcome cup of tea. At 06.15, as it was just getting light we began our hike to the summit following the large path behind the hut that lead up steeply through the pine trees.
The trail lead up out of the pine plantation and through some indigenous forest where the tall Mulanje Cedar was growing. We were soon crossing over open grassland where many of the indigenous flowers and plants grew, including the vellozia plant, a few still in bloom with their white flowers. At last we were away from the pine trees that we could see below us covering the Chambe Basin. The path followed a narrow ridge that joined the Chambe and Thuchila basins together, at times the path was very steep and slippery as it lead through the forest. After two and a half hours we reached the turnoff for Sapitwa Peak, I was already feeling tired, there seemed to be no energy in my legs. On hearing the news that this was the start of the trail to the summit and that we had almost 1,000m to climb I began to feel depressed and doubted my chances of reaching the summit. It had already felt like we had climbed halfway up the mountain just reaching this point from the Chambe Hut, but all our climbing was just to get over the ridge between the two basins. We had climbed up out of the Chambe and descended into the Thuchila; all of the climbing we had done we had also descended accept for maybe a couple of hundred metres. Now the hard work would begin.
I was still unaware of how hard the climb would be. In front of me I could see a broad ridge leading up to a slight saddle between two peaks, Sapitwa was further on behind this ridge. The path crossed over a small stream and wound it's way through grass until we reached the base of the main ridge that was a sheer slope of large granite slabs and giant boulders; it looked hard. There was not a path as such from here onwards; the trail was just marked out by red splashes of paint on the rocks. There were huge boulder fields we had to cross, scrambling up or around these giant lumps of granite. Plants continued to grow in this rocky wilderness, finding a foothold in the cracks in the rock including the aloe mawii with it's bright red flowers. At other times we were walking up slabs of granite at an angle of between forty and fifty degrees. My legs were quickly turning into jelly, a problem I had not had before on this trip; I was becoming seriously concerned whether I would make it to the summit. I decided to see what was on the other side of the ridge we were climbing, if we had to go down again to reach another ridge to the summit I would give up, I no longer had the energy to climb this again. It was a 550m slog to the top of the ridge where we sat down and rested sweat dripping off of me.
We still could not see the summit but at least the trail continued upwards but at a far more gentler angle. Despite the easing of the gradient the hiking did not become any easier. The trail wound a tortuous route across a huge boulder field and through gullies and ravines that were thick with giant heather. It was a constant battle scrambling up or between the boulders; some were so large that the only way past them was to crawl through tunnels underneath them. The gullies were just as challenging where it was easy to loose the trail in the thick tangle of vegetation. Eventually, just when it felt like we were never going to reach the summit, we came up over a small ridge and there in front of us was the summit, the cairn clearly visible. It was one last hard push for the summit crossing another deep, overgrown gully and then along under an overhang from the summit where there was a small pool of water covered with a thin layer of ice. We passed a cave and then scrambled up the last few metres, crawling through another tunnel under the boulders to emerge on the summit.
I was totally exhausted as I stood by the cairn, I could hardly believe I had made it, the final 450m ascent had definitely been one of the hardest climbs I had ever attempted. The views across the massif and beyond were stunning and suddenly all the hard physical effort seemed worth it to gaze at these wonderful views. There was a blue sky above us and some cloud had begun to bubble up over the massif and the hills far below us. There was hardly a breath of wind at the summit and as we sat in a grassy hollow between the rocks it was perfectly still; there was not a single sound to break the silence around us as we ate our much-deserved lunch. It was exactly midday, it had taken us five hours forty-five minutes from the Chambe Hut, far longer than I had expected. We sat on the summit for an hour, it was pleasantly cool but not cold under the bright sun; all the time the cloud was rolling in around us and wisps of cloud would float past. Eventually we had to begin our descent in order to get back to the Chambe hut before it got dark.
I was not looking forward to scrambling back down this huge boulder field; it was definitely going to be a test for my knees and leg muscles. It took two and a half hours to reach the stream at the bottom of the peak near the turn off from the main trail. At least the granite was not slippery and my boots gripped well as we slowly walked down the huge slabs of granite at almost impossible angles. Along the last section through the grass I fell over twice, the energy completely drained from my legs. We stopped at the stream to refill our water bottles and rest; I had drunk two litres of water already and could of drunk a lot more. As we sat by the stream I could not imagine going hiking tomorrow; the trail we would be taking to the Thuchila Hut would double back past the turn off for Sapitwa Peak and would take about five hours. Graeme was thinking exactly the same thing and didn't want to go anywhere tomorrow. We both decided with relief that we would take the day off tomorrow and spend it recovering at the Chambe Hut relaxing. We were both relieved we were thinking the same thing, after all this was supposed to be a holiday, not a military exercise.
Somehow we managed to struggle on back across the ridge to the Chambe Basin. I suddenly felt a lot more energetic and found myself leaping up boulders along the path; that is when the adrenaline kicked in and I realised that I had over stretched myself. The only thing going through my mind was to reach the hut before nightfall. The sun disappeared behind the huge mass of the Chambe Peak, 2,557m, and the light began to fade. Our eyes adjusted to the dying light as we continued on and back through the pine forests. By now we were walking into branches we could not see over hanging the trail and stumbling on rocks hidden in the deepest shadows of the gullies that cut across the path. As we turned onto the last path that lead back down the hill through the pines to the hut it was as good as dark and the stars shone brightly above us through the branches of the trees. Finally we were back in the grassy clearing and could see the dark shape of the hut and once again hear the gentle sound of the stream splashing over the rocks. We had made it and it was just past six, twelve hours after we had set out.
I never knew that it would be such a long hike and in ways am glad I never did read up on the route; if I had I might have been in two minds about climbing Sapitwa Peak, which I later found out means, 'don't go there' in the local language. As we stumbled into the hut the fire was burning brightly and the caretaker had put on a pot of water that was almost boiling ready for a cup of tea. We collapsed into a chair by the fire and talked briefly with two Americans who had hiked up along the Skyline path that morning while we drunk a cup of tea and ate some noodles. Within an hour and a half we were fast asleep.
I woke up the next morning, my legs feeling better than I expected, but glad that we were not hiking anywhere today. I would enjoy a day sitting at this hut doing nothing. Meanwhile Graeme was not feeling too well, a slight case of diarrhoea, so all in all we were both happy with our decision to abandon our original plans of traversing the massif. We spent a lazy day at the hut doing very little; time just seemed to slip by. I heated up a bucket of water and found a secluded spot out in the pine trees to take a bucket shower; it was great to feel clean and refreshed again. The rest of the time we sat on the veranda or in front of the fire keeping a pot of water on the boil to make lunch, dinner and a few cups of tea. Some day visitors came past in the morning, a couple of Germans who stopped by for a chat and a drink. Apart from that the place was quiet and we had the hut to ourselves again by evening.
The following morning we left at 08.00 to walk back down the Skyline path to the Forest Resthouse. The weather had changed and low cloud and mist hung over the basin, shrouding the surrounding peaks. We thanked the caretaker for all his work and for making us feel at home and for a tip gave him our leftover food supplies that he was happy to receive. We then began our trudge back through the plantations across the basin through the mist and light drizzle, which made the clay path very slippery indeed. When we reached the steep Skyline path we took it very slowly so as not to slip on the wet clay. After two and a half hours of careful walking we were back at the Forest Resthouse, none of us slipping over during our descent, which I thought was a minor miracle. After thanking and tipping our guide and also thanking the staff at the rest house we jumped back in the truck and returned to Blantyre and reached Doogles in time for lunch and a much-deserved cold beer.
Both of us were next going to Mozambique, but along different routes. Graeme was leaving the next day and travelling along the Tete corridor, meanwhile I was planning to leave in a couple of days and cross the Mozambique border at Milange and to explore the north of the country. The staff at Doogles had my passport back from the Mozambique consulate, complete with my entry visa, so I was all set to start my next adventure on Tuesday. On Monday morning Graeme left for Tete and once more I was back travelling by myself on local transport. I spent an extra day in Blantyre to have a look around the town properly, something I had not been able to do before we went to Mt Mulanje because of my bad foot. I also got myself organised ready for my trip across the border tomorrow and managed to purchase US$100 worth of Mozambique Meticais at a foreign exchange bureau on Victoria Street.
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