8. Chinteche – Livingstonia – Tanzania 16 – 27th September

We travelled on from Chinteche and parked our van at Sangilo Lodge for the night, before tackling Livingstonia, a little Presbyterian missionary village, at the top of a very steep mountain with twenty switchbacks (hairpin bends), Established by a man named David Law, it is named after David Livingstone. How they toiled up the mountain, and built a school and hospital, as well as other Victorian-type buildings, I have no idea, as the road is a battle for a 4x4 in this day and age!!! We slept up there, perched on edge of the mountain, in an open chalet, and it was a magical experience to see all the lights of the fishing boats dotted over |Lake Malawi…..it is truly ‘The Lake of the Thousand Stars’.

Itching now, to get on to Tanzania, we headed for the border and all the chaos that is part of the African scene. Umpteen people, all very pleasant, but insistent, that we should change money through them, buy cellphone cards, insurance, water and fruit. I felt like shouting ‘What part of ‘NO’ do you not understand?’

We made for a coffee farm for our first night there, and then on the next morning to a place called Kisolansa farm, which grow and produce all their own food. We had a gourmet meal there in the atmospheric ruins of an old cottage, that they have cleverly turned into their restaurant. Somewhere between the coffee farm and Kisolansa, we, (and this is the royal ‘we’, and I think it was probably me), lost Lionels’ phone, which means that we are only contactable with the local number which is……+255 76394 7442.

Onwards towards Dar Es Salaam, we camped overnight at Baobab Valley Lodge, which is a great place on a wide fast flowing river, (complete with resident crocs) and, here too, we had a really good meal. (Still no internet.) Not too many problems getting through Dar and drove straight onto the ferry that links the City with a place across the bay, called Kigamboni. (It is a 600m ferry trip that saves 39km by road.) It was a Sunday, but we couldn’t make out why the place was so quiet, and then we found out……………….

It was Eid, and all the people were beautifully, dressed up to the nines, and out celebrating after fasting. We arrived at our campsite, which is a resort called ‘Sunrise Beach Resort’, to find that the whole of Dar was doing their celebrating there!!!!!! I was in seventh heaven!!!! I grabbed my camera, and sat on the beach and snapped away happily at the passing parade. Lionel was very understanding, and muddled through, setting up camp without my expert help. We had 2 days of the Celebrations, and crowds of people, but it was a happy crowd, and an experience that made me wonder if we Westerners haven’t lost the plot somewhat, with our subdued colours, and casual approach to dress. I have never seen so many beautifully dressed women and children in my life.

We spent some happy days just swimming in the warm sea and generally relaxing, before leaving our rig at ‘Sunrise’ and taking a ferry (3hr crossing) from Dar to Zanzibar.

We were really looking forward to staying in an hotel with an ’en suite’. We led our long-suffering taxi driver a merry dance trying to find the ‘right’ hotel in Stone Town. Once again the camera was pressed into service. The quaint narrow streets with an eclectic mix of people, going about their business with taxis hooting, children playing, dhows bobbing, and fisherman fixing their nets along with the call to prayer echoing through the town. Peeled sweet oranges, ginger tea, dates and coffee, all been sold from barrows and stalls in the streets. Shops, shops and more shops, ………I hadn’t seen so many in a long time……….. I loved it!!!

We booked to go on a Spice tour and it was worth every cent. The bus drives through various villages and onto a farm where the place is aromatic with all the spices that they grow. Did you know that a type of camphor and cinnamon come from the same tree? The cinnamon is from the bark and the camphor is from the leaves. There is also a camphor tree that camphor chests are made of. We visited the slave caves and had a very tasty lunch made with the various spices.

Lionel was very happy to find a good Indian restaurant to satisfy his taste buds. We enjoyed Zanzibar, and once back in Dar took a day drive to discover that there was a Spur Steakhouse in one of the upmarket suburbs! With mouths watering we ordered our meals. The place was really humming and just like the S. African ones, same menu and salad bar. Ons het dik gevreet!!!

Ever onward, we will be travelling north along the coast again tomorrow………we have people to meet, and places to see……….

Lake Maclear – Senga Bay – Lilongwe – Kasungu – Ngala – Chinteche. 30th Aug – 15th September

At Senga Bay we stayed on the beach under trees at the Steps Campsite. It is run by the Livingstonia Hotel (Sunbird group) and had the best hot showers that we had had up to that point. Lionel’s knee-jerk reaction to that, was to have a shower, morning and evening!!! There were actually quite big waves and it was really hard to think of this huge expanse of water as a lake and not the sea!

We are enjoying the Malawian people, they are generally very friendly, polite and most importantly they speak English!!! (Even the police who are everywhere are always polite. (English is the official language.) Malawi has a long history with missionaries and organisations, who have built schools and hospitals, and because of this, the standard of education is good and discipline, and a good work ethic, are taught as well. There is a softness to Malawi that was not so evident in Mozambique, and the people all seem to have little brick houses (they make their own bricks from the clay soil) and a few of the homes have plants in pots and bougainvilleas that give a glorious splash of colour. (I guess this is the missionary influence as well). Not too many Malawians own cars, and bicycles are everywhere that you look. Not only are they used for carrying the family around, all on the same bike, but they are used for transporting all manner of goods including goats, pigs, chickens strung from the handlebars, firewood and anything that you can imagine and a whole lot more besides!!!! I have never seen so many bicycle repair shops and am of the opinion that all those bikes on Leisure Isle are absolutely under-utilised!!! Maybe Sue and Chris, and all you other cyclists, next time you go for a ride, you might think about lifting Lionel and I around, once we are back in Knysna!!.

While we were in Cape Maclear our car‘s idling had started giving problems again. We asked the Nissan garage in Lilongwe to order a part (idling solenoid) that Nissan Knysna said they thought was faulty. After much persuasion, Lilongwe said okay, that they would, and that it would take about a week to arrive. Well, that wasn’t such a problem, as we were going to stay in the area for at least a week anyway, and then would move on to Senga Bay which was only about 120 km from Lilongwe. The plan was that we would drive the car through there to have the part fitted, and get on with this business of discovering Malawi!
Well, the long and short of it is, that they never did order it, (and you can imagine that Lionel had fire coming out of both nostrils). We were now in Senga Bay, and decided that if anything was going to happen, we would have to travel through to Lilongwe for the day, and get Nissan to have a look at the car and see if they could find the fault.. They said that they thought it was the diesel injector pump, and no, they didn’t have one in stock, and it would take 7 working days for it to come from S. Africa and then they didn’t know how long it would take to clear customs!
It was now Wednesday and very frustrating………… time to get the family involved………..Lionel phoned Mike (our son-in law) who dropped everything, and after much to-ing and fro-ing between Nissan Knysna and Nissan Pretoria, he located the part and would fetch it that day in Pretoria. Hah, not so easy, Nissan had, by mistake, couriered the part to Knysna! Mike then tracked it down in Bloem and told them that they must deliver it to Nissan, Cape Town, and that it would be fetched from there the next day. Andrea who had in the meantime been put on standby with her passport, collected the part in C. Town the next day, and on Friday she flew the part to us in Malawi. It was a double bonus………..special time to spend with Andrea, who stayed with us for 4 days (and probably took about a thousand photo’s during that time), and finally, the part that would be fitted to the car. As it turns out, the diagnosis from Knysna Nissan was the correct one, and we only needed to fit the idling solenoid, which is a small part of the fuel pump. We were so happy that the car was once again purring along, for we had decided that if the car couldn’t be fixed, then we would return to S.A.
In Lilongwe we found a great campsite called the Sanctuary Lodge (located in a nature reserve in the city) and it was so good to hear the hyenas at night, instead of the thump thump of the African Music which is a feature of most evenings, particularly in the cities!!

Back on the road again we drove up to Kasungu Game Reserve…….didn’t see much, but it was a very peaceful place with the campsite overlooking the dam. We headed back to the Lake the next day through beautiful mountainous countryside and stayed at Ngala campsite for the night, and for the past 3 days have been at Chinteche Inn which is top notch, and in a beautiful position on the lake.

During our time here, we took a beautiful day drive through rubber plantations and mountains, (7 hrs there and back) through to Mzimba to meet Ellen, (our gardener, Trouble’s, wife). Ellen, Trouble’s mom and dad, his uncle and grandmother, brother, James who is in Malawi at the moment, and all their children all live in their own homes in a compound together. Ellen, or any of the young married women, are not allowed to be in the same room as their father-in-law, brother-in-law, or any male who is not a blood relative…………..She is not allowed to even look at the men, so that if they walk around outside she has to go out of sight immediately! James explained early on in the visit, that this is their culture. The family were wonderfully warm and very appreciative, and wanted to know why we didn’t spend at least 2 nights with them. Protocol was broken for a while because Trouble’s father decided that he wanted us to take a photo of the whole family together and he sent James to call the ladies and explain that it was okay ….…..……….. Incidentally, like Trouble himself, their home is very clean and neat and they have flowers on the patio. (Photo enclosed of their home and his wife and children). It was a really interesting time and we learnt a lot about the Malawian culture there. The patriarchal system is well and truly alive in Malawi!!!! We also now understood why we had never seen mixed groups of people walking along the roads……….we saw either groups of men or women, or a family of husband, wife and children.

Wherever we go we meet the most interesting and lovely people, who share their experiences and give tips on where to go, or not. All this helps us to plan as we go, the next day or so. We have been in Malawi for three weeks and will now make our way towards the Tanzanian border with a couple of scenic and historical stops along the way.

It is not so easy to access the internet here, so the blog has taken longer than usual to be posted………I love all your comments…....... and as requested, a pic of Lionel and I……………