Escape plans
dumb-founded perplexity as to what these sweaty, pale misungos (white people) are doing here.
Although landlocked, Malawi is blessed with sandy beaches fringing the shores of its dominating lake, which pours from the Rift Valley and swallows a quarter of the country. Curved by stubbly, parched hills, Robin Pope’s Pumulani Lodge perches above Kasanga Bay in the popular southern sector. The breezy, style-conscious property could challenge some of the smartest beach outfits in Mombasa and Zanzibar; from my clawfoot bath, I watch vervet monkeys swipe at the mango-laden canopy and fishermen row wooden canoes in the lake.
Our breakfast is eaten on a traditional dhow, sailing before the African sun boils the water, and afternoons are spent kayaking along the reed beds.
Cases of bilharzia, caused by a fresh water-dwelling parasite, put many people off swimming in the lake, but several areas – including Bird Island – are regularly tested and deemed safe for snorkelling, providing an opportunity to see the rare, endemic cichlid fish which earned Lake Malawi its Unesco status.
I take my chances while staying at Makokola Retreat, a more rustic Italian-owned resort where thatched cottages spill onto a fine sandy beach. A whirlwind of inky gills flaps around my limbs, but soon fades away – a faint shadow of the shoals which once gathered here.
“When I was a child, fishermen would haul in huge nets of fish. Now they barely have any,” laments Benedetto Calvani, whose family has lived here for a century.
The village beach is a patchwork of nets pulled taut and drying. As the sun sets, women drum on plastic upturned buckets and sing gaily as men in roughly-carved boats set out for a night of fishing, fuelled by laughter and hypnotic coils of tobacco smoke.
Fortunately, efforts are being made to restock the lake with chambo fish, although the demands of a growing population don’t make life easy.
A PLACE WITH BIG AMBITION
CONTINUING our journey around the lake, we reach the mouth of the River Shire and the gateway to Liwonde National Park, one of the prettiest protected sections of the country. An hour’s drive through maize fields and villages is followed by a short boat crossing to reach Mvuu, a simple camp leading to a much smarter eight-room lodge, where squirrels flit across pathways and bushbuck graze fearlessly within arm’s length.
Many of the elephants translocated to Nkhotakota originated here, and signs of their overbearing presence are clear – grass mown so short it resembles a golf course and baobab trunks gnawed like apple cores.
“At the peak, we had 800 elephants,” explains David Nangoma, a community manager for African Parks, who also manage Liwonde, which is a third the size of Nkhotakota.
Alongside major departures, there have also been some new arrivals. Last year, four cheetahs were reintroduced to Malawi for the first time in a century and, this year there are plans to bring lions and leopards into the mix with financial support from Leonardo DiCaprio’s charitable foundation.
Flanked by hornbills with gleaming red beaks, we go on an afternoon game drive through lowland mopane forest in search of eight resident black rhinos, but despite the pleasant ride, we have little success.
The main focus for Liwonde is its river, home to 3,000 hippos who give Mvuu its onomatopoeic name. Gliding along the water, we see several grazing on the banks – unusual and almost suicidal in this skin-roasting heat.
Although fewer cats mean hunts are minimal, there’s still plenty of action on the water. Baby crocodiles the size of sprats wriggle at the frothing waterline, an easy snatch for African fish eagles too swift for the snapping jaws of a protective mother.
In the early afternoon, I return to my thatched tent for an outdoor shower and am joined by a herd of elephants, demolishing their way through the valley below my elevated platform. Suspended in awe and silence, I’m too frightened to even move. But the encounter confirms something David Nangoma told me earlier that day.
“If well-managed, Malawi can be another big safari destination. We’ve got the potential; we just need to play our cards right.”