Good-bye Mumbo Island, Good-bye Malawi

As you may have gathered from reading my blog, I didn't want this holiday to end. But, apparently, if you're on holiday all the time, it stops feeling like a holiday. I'd like to research that theory... and disprove it!

On my last day on Mumbo island, I thought up a number of research topics which would need me to remain on the island for a few months. Somehow, I believe the professor in charge of research in my department would've vetoed all of my bright ideas.
So, alas, I packed my bags and jumped on the Feersum Enjin, headed back to the mainland and then on to Lilongwe.

I'm so happy that I got to relive the experience here, and make the holiday last a little bit longer. I sincerely hope that one day the road leads me back to Malawi.
If you ever have the opportunity to visit Malawi, you most definitely should!

To end off, here are some pictures of the main form of transport in Malawi.

Mumbo Island

This was the last stop on our journey. A very good last stop!

Mumbo Island is 10km off the mainland from Cape Mc Clear. It is eco friendly, with no electricity on the island and no flushing toilets. There are only cold water taps, the water is purified and safe to drink.

The accommodation is basic, but comfortable. Our tent wasn't really a tent, but more of a bamboo hut, perched on a rock facing east. We thought it was the best tent. There are only 5 two-sleeper tents on the island, 3 facing east and 2 facing west. There's also a family tent which is more child friendly, not being perched so high up. But it doesn't have a sea view, although it is a little more private.  The family tent sleeps 4, so the official maximum on the island is 14 people.

Our tent was the one on the left

Each tent has an ablution area, with an outdoor bucket shower as well as a toilet with a sink inside a little room. The toilet, as mentioned before, is not one of the flushing variety. It has a normal toilet seat over a collection box, which is a dry composter. Once you've deposited your specimen, there is a basket of leaves and wood shavings next to the toilet, which is used as the "flush". You grab a handful of this and throw it in after your specimen. There is a vent, which is supposed to carry away the bad smells. The one and only less than pleasurable experience on Mumbo Island was the smell of the toilet at the end of the day. Early in the morning the smell has dissipated, as the vent has had enough time to work uninterrupted.

Edward, demonstrating how the bucket shower operates

Fortunately we didn't need to have cold showers. When you want a shower, you inform any one of the island staff, who will bring a bucket of hot water from the solar geyser and fill the bucket shower for you. I was surprised to find that one bucket of water was more than enough, even enough to wash hair. At night, solar lights are brought to the tent before dinner and each tent has a wind up lantern which can also double as a torch.

We arrived on the island around 12h00 and had enough time to appreciate the view from our tent and our hammock, before being called to lunch at13h00.

View from our tent

After lunch, the only logical option was to laze on the beach. Since we were two of 6 guests on the island on the day we arrived, there was no trouble getting a beach good spot.
I could go on boring with you with tales of the perfection of the island: the kayaking, the snorkeling, the sunset cruises, the pleasure of swimming in fresh water. The joy of falling asleep to the sound of water lapping against the rocks, waking up as the sun rises, swimming before breakfast. (Anna swam before breakfast, not me.) But I won't go on with the words any more. Here are the pictures.

Anna assumes the holiday position

Full moon, the first night on Mumbo Island

The trusty Feersum Enjin, island transport

Sunset cruise

Night time fishermen, their boat name: Panado!

An early morning sun bather

The Beautiful Lake

Lake Malawi is the third largest lake in Africa and at its deepest is around 560m deep. It stretches from the north of Malawi and runs most of the length of the eastern border of the country, with both Tanzania and Mozambique on it's eastern shores. (Lake Nyasa on the map below, its previous name.)

So we left Mulanje on Tuesday morning with Cape Mc Clear as our destination, which is in the south of the lake, opposite Monkey Bay. We went via Thyolo and spent more time than intended at Satemwa Estate, through Limbe to Zomba and on via Mangochi to Cape Mc Clear.
Zomba is the previous capital of Malawi and is also famous for the Zomba mountains and plateau. As a hiking destination Zomba is a bit less spectacular and more tame than Mulanje. In fact you can drive all the way to the top of the Zomba plateau.

We had lunch at the legendary Uncle Dan's Cafe and Uncle Dan himself kept us company. He told us that the top of the plateau is beautiful, with lots of hiking trails, some streams and dams and forest.

We only arrived at Cape Mc Clear after dark and the manager of Gecko Lounge ,where we stayed, was waiting for us. We went for supper at Hiccups, where we were the only customers. Being a Tuesday, we were two of very few visitors to Cape Mc Clear.

I'm not sure what it was, but Cape Mc Clear's first impression on me was quite mixed. We were greeted by the same kind of friendly and helpful people as everywhere else we had been. But at Hiccups I got quite annoyed with the waiter/chef who couldn't tell us if lemonade was available or not and couldn't offer any alternatives when it wasn't. When we wanted to pay, we had to pay the waiter/chef for the food and then go to the bar ourselves and settle the drinks bill.
Then, when we got back to our room at Gecko Lounge, which we were paying $80 per night for the room, there was no hot water. And I wanted a hot shower after the long day of traveling.
While $80 is a very reasonable price, for a room with a view of the beautiful lake, it was more expensive than anywhere else we had stayed in Malawi. Also, everywhere else included breakfast in the price, not Gecko Lounge.
I went to bed feeling I had been duped, by the proximity to the lake, into paying too much for substandard accommodation.

By 8h00 the next morning I'd changed my mind, and mostly forgotten about everything bad. I'd had a hot shower and came out for breakfast to find it was a perfect day, with the lake sparkling and calm. I sat on the deck waiting for my breakfast to arrive, watching the locals on the beach doing all the things they do in the lake: washing dishes, washing clothes, washing children and washing themselves.

At this point Anna was engrossed in her book (The Book Thief). So I amused myself watching a group of naked children playing with a large piece of cloth in the water. Each one held a corner of it, they immersed it and then brought it up, scooping up water and laughing as they watched the water empty slowly back into the lake. They did this over and over again, until somehow things disintegrated into a fight over the ownership of the cloth.
Another little girl was trying to wash her younger sibling, who kept running away and rolling in the sand. Eventually an adult had to come out and take a bit of a strong hand with the little rascal. He howled all through the process.

We left Gecko Lounge soon after breakfast and headed for Kayak Africa reception, just a few doors down. From here we would be taken to Mumbo Island for 3 nights. We had obviously read and heard a lot about Mumbo Island, which is one of the two islands which Kayak Africa operates, but we weren't aware we were about to find Paradise!

Children of Malawi

See the boy in the purple top

He's captivated by the camera

Or it could be the person behind the camera (Anna at this point)

He literally followed us right through the village!

It's not difficult to see why Madonna wanted one

The children of Malawi are delightful!

A Malawian Cup of Tea

In the south of Malawi you might be surprised to find tea plantations. One of the more famous ones is Satemwa Tea Estate. It's situated just outside of Thyolo, on the road between Thyolo and Blantyre. I had read about their guest house and it sounded quite colonial (silver service dinners) and was very interested in seeing it. Also we had heard that the route between Mulanje and Blantyre via Thyolo was very scenic. All the rumors were true.

We left Mulanje early, so that we'd have time to stop for a bit of tea tourism. Unfortunately it had rained the night before and on tea plantations, roads are not tarred. We did have a 4x4, but Anna had never driven it on slippery mud/clay roads before. So off we went, into Satemwa Tea Estate, but we didn't get very far before we started slipping and sliding. We had to get out into the mud and lock the wheels, then figure out how to put it into four wheel drive. It was still pretty scary at first, but Anna soon got the hang of it. (With some telephonic help from Iain and some bad advice from a guy in an Isuzu van.)
It was totally worth it when we arrived at the guest house.
Huntingdon House is picturesque. As we arrived, two waiters - Amos and Ibrahim- came out to welcome us. We wanted scones and tea, but were told the scones would take a while, since they're made to order! We considered the long drive to Cape Mc Clear, and decided we shouldn't stay long. But the thought of hot scones... We decided we could compromise, order the scones and take them for the road. So we ordered our tea, I think I ordered white tea and Anna ordered the classic black Satemwa tea.
Then we had a tour of the guest house. It used to be the family house, and each room is named after a member of the family. Every room is beautiful and decorated slightly differently. There are only 5 rooms in the house, so it can never be crowded.
After the tour we were still thinking about the scones and also how well hot scones would go with hot tea, rather than scones on the road. We tried to find out how much longer it would take for the scones to be ready. However; like things in Malawi are never far away, they also never take too long. So we never did get a straight answer from Amos or Ibrahim about how much longer it would take for the scones to be ready. We decided to order more tea. I ordered some green tea, Anna ordered a different type of black. Even so, we didn't get to try all the teas on the menu.
To our delight, shortly after the second order of tea, the hot scones arrived. With strawberry jam, cream and cheese. They were as delicious as anticipated. Completely worth the wait.

While we had our scones and tea we watched them set up for a game of croquet on the lawn and, except for the good weather, we could've been somewhere in England.

On our way out, Anna had really gotten the hang of the slippery roads and we sailed through, back to the main road. We did come across someone who wasn't so lucky though.

While visiting the tea estates was a pleasurable experience for us from a tourist perspective, it was with mixed feelings.
Freddy (one of our porters) told us that a tea picker earns K270 per day. The equivalent of about R9/day, just over $1/day. They work more than 8 hours a day (probably closer to 12 hours). Not inside an air conditioned office, back breaking work.
Statistics say that many people in Malawi survive on less than $1 per day, so maybe tea pickers are not the worst paid, but it doesn't seem too far off from slave labour.
Freddy also told us that the owner of Lujeri tea estate, where we started our hike, is an Englishman who lives in England. The day to day running of the estate is managed by a white South African. Freddy didn't say this with any bitterness or resentment, he was just answering our questions. He also said that the present manager was a good man, without us asking.
At Satemwa, we bumped into the manager's wife, and she didn't seem Malawian. The lady who seemed to be in charge of Huntingdon House sounded South African to me.
I also wondered about the wages of the waiters at Huntingdon House who served us so pleasantly. I'm guessing it isn't fantastic. Even so, they went out of their way to give us excellent service.

So the question is: by visiting the tea estates, were we supporting the status quo? Or were we ensuring someone a job and doing a little to improve the economic state of Malawi just a bit? Because if K270 pays one tea picker, we paid the wages of more than 10 in the few hours we were there.

Madzeka hut & the descent

Madzeka hut, where we spent the night on the mountain, was very basic. It had two rooms, one with the fire and two tables with benches, and one with piles of plastic covered thin foam mattresses and a cupboard full of kitchen utensils. It was apparently built in 1932. The floor boards had little gaps between them where the wind came through.

We decided to sleep in the room with the fire, because that would be warmest, and placed the plastic covered mattresses all over the floor to try to keep out the wind.

Around 17h00, we were informed that there was a bucket of hot water in the "bathing room" for us.

I suppose it's aptly named, being a room in which you may bath yourself, as opposed to a room which contains a bathtub. Maybe the word "room" was being used a bit loosely, as the structure lacked a door. Anna was the brave one who went ahead and tried it out first.

It was almost an exhilarating feeling though, the warm water and the cold air. Also, it felt good to be clean after the long walk. I put on layers straight after my bath, including long johns underneath, to keep the warmth in.

The "toilet room" did have a door, which didn't close, but luckily the entrance faced away from the watchmen's hut.

If it had been warmer, we would definitely have swum in the beautiful river near to the hut, costumes or none. Maybe next time.

Despite Anna's worst fears, we survived the night without freezing to death. (She had recently been on a mountain in Zimbabwe, in a tent, where she'd had a bad experience.) Since we were in our sleeping bags by 20h00 and only climbed out around 8h00, I'm sure the porters and watchmen thought we were very lazy people. Also, I think the porters were in a hurry to get back down to the bottom and get paid. As soon  as he spotted some movement, Freddy knocked on the door to see what time we wanted to leave. In the end, he was almost packing our bags for us! He cleared out all the dinner dishes and took them to be washed. Then made sure everything was packed away, and we barely had time to convince him to take us on a short detour.

We went via a nursery, which the hut watchmen also look after. It was a very short distance from the hut. In the nursery, they specifically grow a type of cedar found only on Mount Mulanje. It's called Mulanje cedar. (What else?) Obviously the trees are cut down for fire wood, as well as crafting of household goods and tourist souvenirs. The wood is light and has a very distinctive pleasant smell. The nursery is an effort by the Malawi Forestry Department to make sure the resource doesn't run out. Unfortunately, the trees take ages to grow, the bigger ones we saw in the nursery were about 15 months old and less than 30cm tall.

The above picture was taken outside the nursery, by the old hut watchman. I gave him a very quick tutorial on how to use my camera and told him that we wanted to see the mountains in the back ground.  I think he did quite a good job!

Next, I told him I wanted a picture of him too. He ran into the nursery and fetched some of his trees to pose with! There was a younger man, who seemed somewhat cognitively challenged, who helped the old hut watchman. I'm not sure if he's formally employed or just there to do the heavier work which may be getting more difficult for the old man.

We made it down the mountain in about 5 hours. The down is easier on the heart, but harder on the knees. I really felt like Freddy and Maxwell would've run down the mountain if it wasn't for us. They generously stopped at a nice spot for lunch, even though they didn't eat any lunch. They had left their left over food for the hut watchmen. Freddy told me that the old watchman can make it both up and down the mountain in one day. If, for example, he needs supplies, he will go down to the village and back up in the same day. Much respect to him! It's more than I could manage.

The view from our lunch spot

We were happy to make it down in one piece. We stayed over in Mulanje (the town) that night (Monday) at a place called Kara O'Mula. The rooms were pretty basic, but after the mountain hut, an indoor flushing toilet and hot water shower felt like luxury to us.

While it wasn't 5 star luxury, the staff were friendly and helpful, they definitely went the extra mile. We asked about laundry, because all our dirty clothes from the mountain smelled of fire. The clothes were fetched from our room and taken to be washed. We realized the next day that everything had been hand washed, including heavy jeans, because most of the stuff was still wet! Either the washing machine was broken or they didn't have one, but didn't say they couldn't do our laundry. (Or it could've been that the person doing the washing didn't know how to use the washing machine. They still made a plan though.)
The next morning when we arrived at our vehicle to leave, there was someone cleaning the windscreen and wiping away the leaves.

From Mulanje we headed to Thyolo, through more tea estates. We had to make it to Cape Mc Clear, Lake Malawi, by that evening (Tuesday), because we had booked to leave for Mumbo Island on Wednesday morning.

Jam packed weekend, part II

To continue from where we left off in Blantyre: We left Blantyre around 7h00 on Sunday morning and headed for Mulanje (the town) because we planned to climb Mulanje (the mountain). We had been given some good advice and decided to start at the Lujeri tea estate and climb to Madzeka hut, where we would stay the night and descend the next day.

Mount Mulanje is apparently the highest free standing land mass in Southern Africa. I'm not sure how that makes it different to a mountain range (which it looked like to me) but every mountain wants its claim to fame. As far as I was concerned, it was beautiful and worth the effort, regardless of the terminology used to define it.
Sapitwa is the highest peak at 3000m, but we weren't planning on going that high.

Mulanje and Thyolo are tea growing districts and the landscape and climate are completely different from the rest of Malawi. Because of the mountains, there is rain all year round, and the green of the tea plantations was fluorescent. With the mountain rising behind, the landscape was picture perfect.

We arrived at Lujeri Estate's shed no. 3 just before 9h00 and found porters waiting for us. We had called the estate the day before, saying we planned to arrive at 7h30 and would need two porters.
As we drove up to the arranged meeting place, a whole group of eager men peered down the road at us, watching in anticipation. We deduced that these were the porters, but there were more than the two we had asked for and we were a bit unhappy about having to choose two from a group of 8 or so. However, there was no issue, because the porters have a prearranged rotation schedule, to try to make sure that everyone gets a fair chance to work.

One came up to us, even before the car had stopped and spoke to us in relatively good English. He introduced himself as Freddy and said he and Maxwell would be our porters. He asked how long we would be going for and where we wanted to stay. We told him and asked what the rate was. He took us into a little "office" where the official rates were printed out and we had to sign our names in a log book. The rate for parking our vehicle was also stated.
Once the official business was behind us, we started out without further delay.

Almost immediately upon setting out, we were set upon by a group of excited children walking behind us. When I took out my camera, they all crowded round, including an older teenage girl who was working nearby. They were most excited to see the picture of themselves on the camera screen afterwards and would've gone on posing for me for the rest of the morning, probably. After the photography session they felt more familiar with us and walked alongside, instead of behind. Anna practiced her Chichewa with them a little, and they were quite amused. When the road forked, they went on their way to their village.

After crossing a small river, we came to the village where the porters wanted to buy food. The agreement is that you give them about 25% of their payment upfront, and they provide their own food. We could've gone around the outskirts of village with Freddy, while Maxwell went into the village to get the supplies. But I thought I'd be able to find some bread in the village, to have for lunch, so we all walked into the village. As we approached, we heard little feet running toward us, accompanied by: "Mazungu! Mazungu!" 

The children followed us through the village and the crowd got bigger as we went along. We didn't find bread at the first shop, so we tried another. I ended  up settling for cassava, because the only bread we found was growing mould. The children never got tired of watching the whole process. And when the camera came out, they tried all sorts of poses to stand out in the picture. They were highly encouraged by the fact that they got to see themselves afterwards. Even some of the adults were curious and stood by watching.

Eventually Freddy had to chase the more determined children home, as we left the village and headed up the mountain. Somewhere during the walk through the village, Maxwell had disappeared and went to get more substantial supplies for the two of them.
We waited in the shade by a cool stream for him, which was a good resting spot, as the sun was getting high and it was starting to heat up. The water was very clear, but Freddy said we shouldn't drink it, as it was too near to the village. I did rinse my hands in it though, and splashed some on my face to cool down.
Maxwell came back with what looked like enough food for a week! Then our climb started in earnest. The porters with our two backpacks bounded along effortlessly. Maxwell was carrying all their food in a big plastic bag without handles in one hand, besides the backpack, and managed to leave us behind. Freddy walked behind us and at times needed to push me up! He told me I have very bad balance, or he might have said no balance!

When we stopped for lunch, we were apparently half way there. But with hindsight, I question that estimation. In Malawi, if you ask how far, the answer is always: not far. On the way down, the lunch spot seemed much nearer to the bottom than the top.
After about 5 hours of climbing, we finally arrived. We were drenched. Besides the sweating, it had also started to rain during the climb. When we arrived at the hut, the watchman had already started a fire inside and was busy cutting more wood so we'd have enough for the night. There was also a bucket of water for us, to use for tea or coffee and cooking. Cold mountain water, straight from the river below the hut. No villagers up on the mountain, so the water is safe to drink.
Freddy helped us to unlock the doors of the heavy cupboard where all the cooking utensils were kept. We got a kettle boiling for tea and we put on dry clothes and socks, to try to warm up. It was only around 15h00 and already we were wearing jackets. We knew it was a cold night ahead.