Senga Bay & Makuzi Beach - Malawi

After a very pleasant weekend relaxing and enjoying the odd sundowner or two with Taffy & Jenny it was time for us to reluctantly leave Monkey Bay and Norman Carr Cottages, we had been there a week, it was time we were on the road again.

As we were packing to leave, Nelson appeared to say a boy called Vincent had arrived outside with our wooden Landrover. We went out and sure enough there was a guy holding what looked like a model of Rupert. This was totally unexpected as the agreement was to meet George at 10am on the road and it was hard to believe he would entrust the pay off to some guy we had never seen before plus I was sure George would want one last chance to haggle.

We looked at the Landy it was Rupert alright, it had been done quite well but not all was right. First it was in the two coloured woods, red and the sandy and we had asked it be all in the sand colour. Second it had a surf board on the side where the awning should have been and third the guy told us he had been told to collect 4,500 Kwacha but we only had 3000 still to pay.

Mindful of the episode with the Chambo I asked where George was and why wasn't he here in person. Vincent answered that George was down with Malaria so he had sent him instead but it still didn't feel right. I told him we would go and see George on the way out as planned until then we would not pay for the Landrover.

On the way to Toys R Us we passed Vincent cycling like mad with Rupert under his arm, clearly he was trying to get there before us. At Toys R Us there was no sign of George but his guys were there, neither spoke much English but we managed to get out of them that George was indeed sick and was in the village close by. By now Vincent was just arriving but instead of joining us as we expected he went off the road about 50 yards away and sat under another tree with some other guys, something was definitely not right.

We tried to tell George's guys what had occurred and asked who Vincent was but they couldn't understand, instead one said "wait George is coming" so we waited, 10 minutes, 20 minutes then we saw George approaching from the village. As he approached he gave us his grin but to be fair when he got up close he looked like shit. He explained that not long after seeing us on Friday he had suddenly been struck down with a Malaria attack and had been in bed ever since, this we could believe as with Malaria you can be right as rain one minute and feeling like death the next.

He said he started to feel better on Sunday and since then had been working on Rupert which was almost ready. In his hand he held what could only be described as a sorry excuse for a Landrover, the basic shape was there but it looked like it had been carved by a chimp.

George tried to say he just needed to smooth off the rough edges and it would be ready but we had to say "George look at it, it's crap, the one Vincent brought is much better even with the errors" George looked puzzled and said what do you mean? I pointed over to Vincent and told him he had turned up at NC saying you were sick and he had come instead with our Landy however as it wasn't exactly as we had agreed we had sent him away.

George squinted over at Vincent but didn't say anything so I told him to call him over with his Landy and maybe we could sort something out. Reluctantly Vincent sheepishly joined us, George was eying him suspiciously then he looked closely at the Landy he was holding and started to berate him in Chichewa.

It transpired that Vincent works for a rival 'workshop' i.e. he and his mates work under the next big tree down the road. When they heard George had gone down with Malaria and there was no way he would be able to start work on Rupert they had taken their chance and had started working on their own model working purely from what they could remember Rupert looked like, hence the mistake with the surf board.

It might have worked except they had no way of knowing that we had agreed with George it would be all in one colour and that we had already paid 1,500 Kwacha up front - talk about dirty tricks but you had to applaud their audacity!

By now a full scale argument was going on between George and his guys and the rivals from the other tree which threatened to turn into fisticuffs. To calm things down I suggested to George that he and Vincent get together and using Vincent's model as the base remove all the red wood and replace it with sandy coloured wood and change the surf board for the awning, that way both would get some money out the deal!

One thing about African's as quickly as an argument starts it's usually over just as quick with laughter and smiles all round and that's what happened here, well until we were out of sight anyway.

The big problem now was there was no way the Landy was ready to take away. George asked when we were leaving and we said we where going now to Senga Bay, which is about 110 miles up the lake, if he could meet us there with the Landy in the next 3 days then good and well otherwise he would have to wait till we picked it up on our way back down from East Africa in about three months time.  

George clearly didn't like that idea at all so he promised he would meet us at Senga but could we first give him some money to get there! As sorry as we felt for George we knew this would be a mistake so we said no but if he could hitch a lift or something we would see him otherwise don't worry we would see him in 3 months time - needless to say George never appeared at Senga so the Landy saga is to be continued.

All this hassle meant we were now late getting away so it was early afternoon by the time we reached Salima, the only town on our route, where we needed to try and buy some provisions. Salima is pretty much a one horse dorp with just a few stores but it is quite a pretty town with tree lined roads and we managed to get a few things which was better than nothing.

We were chatting as we started to re trace our way out of town so inadvertently we went the wrong way down a small street, normally being quiet this would be no big deal but just our luck at the end of the road we were spotted by a very large and officious policewoman.

Thrusting out her hand she demanded to know what we were doing, we explained we were just passing through Salima and had stopped to do some shopping but hadn't realised the street we had come down was one way (not surprising given Malawi has virtually no road signs and any that are erected are quickly nicked to be used for something more useful!)

The more we tried to explain the more irate she became until she shouted "do you want me to impound your car", it was clear she just couldn't understand that we had made a genuine mistake and felt we were taking the piss. Having said that we were a bit taken aback by her aggressive manner as usually African police are pretty courteous. It became a bit clearer when she suddenly said "you bloody South African's you come here and think you can do as you like" we tried to say were British not SA but she wasn't listening, it looked like we had the Alf Garnett of the Malawi police here.

Luckily just as she was building up to yet another tirade her mate came along on his pushbike to take her to lunch, which looking at her was probably the highlight of the day, hopping on the back she basically told us to just piss off which we quickly did, we just felt sorry for the other poor bugger who was trying to get the pedals to go round with her on his back! 

Cool Runnings, a number of people had told us was the place to stay at Senga, so we arrived there around 2.30pm with high hopes but on driving through the security gate we were immediately disappointed, this was Fat Monkey's on a smaller scale.

The campsite was very small and even worse was situated in the middle of the property with no views except of your fellow campers. It looked like it had just been plonked there to use up the spare space. We asked about rooms, there were just three small double rooms @ $20 per night, all shared the one bathroom and toilet. The only other option was a basic 4 bed dorm which shared the same ablutions with the campers. Why people thought it was a good place to stay was beyond us especially when we thought what we had just come from!

Not surprisingly we decided to give it a miss and left to check out a place called Steps instead. Steps was described as the campsite attached to the Livingstonia hotel, the main hotel in the area which caters more for the higher end of the market so we didn't expect the camp site to be much.

Imagine our surprise when we drove through the gate to find the campsite was set on a lovely secluded beach with loads of trees and clean ablutions, best of all it had mains hook ups and apart from one other vehicle it was deserted, happy days!

The other campers were a young couple from the UK, Tom & Jeanie and their dog, Alf, who to our great surprise they had brought all the way from the UK, brave souls. They had driven down through West Africa in a yellow Uni Mog, a monster compared to Rupert, you can see their trip on  www.bigyellowmog.co.uk.

Next morning we awoke to a most beautiful sunrise over the lake which we watched from the roof tent. We could hear Alf barking at something and to our horror saw him chasing after a small female baboon, female baboons are one thing but a big male Chacma will rip any dog to pieces, sure enough next minute we hear panic shouts from Jeanie and next minute Alf comes racing back with a big male baboon in hot pursuit. Jeanie just managed to grab Alf and jump back in the Mog before he caught him - we learned later that this was not the first time Alf had had a close shave with baboon.

After breakfast Tom & Jeanie packed up and left so we were all alone on the campsite, it seemed all too perfect and within an hour it was as out of nowhere we were suddenly engulfed by millions upon millions of Lake Flies. We had never encountered anything like it before, one minute all was peace and light next minute we were smothered in minute black flies, very like midges in the UK. There is nothing you can do except dive into cover and wait for them to pass, there must have been billions.

These swarms quite often suddenly appear up and down the Lake, luckily most times they remain out on the lake itself but when they do hit its a nightmare. When we asked a local fisherman where they came from he said they believe that in the deepest part of the Lake there are giant fish which every now and again come to the surface open their mouths and out come the lake flies, later they re-surface and the flies go back into their mouths, a  nice story we thought.

After they had gone the ablutions and outside washbasins were full of dead bodies, millions at least. We thought the guys would just wash them down the plugholes but no this being Africa they were collected as they go to make Lake Fly burgers - do you want chips with that Sir?

For the rest of the day we had the whole of the beach to ourselves and spent it by having the odd swim/paddle and chilling out in our hammock, something we hadn't been able to do since Kubu in Botswana. The next day was the same, we were lucky it seems so that night instead of cooking we decided to walk down the beach to the Livingstonia hotel and have dinner there.

We were looking forward to some nice sea food on the balcony overlooking the lake but in the end had to settle for steaks in the rather dreary restaurant inside - shame as the setting for sitting out was perfect. We heard later that the Livingstonia is almost state owned and so has little or no service culture.

Next day we broke camp and prepared to leave Senga, it had been a really relaxing stopover which we had thoroughly enjoyed but Pax the guard had warned us the place would be full by tomorrow as this weekend was a public holiday, Mothers Day - it was definitely time to move on Northwards.

Our route would take us back to Salima where we needed to change money, get fuel and some supplies and where we hoped not bump into the fat policewoman again. Tip here, if you need to change money in Salima then the little supermarket next to the mobile garage will help out and at a better rate than the banks.

The journey up the lake towards Nkhotokota was uneventful until just after a village called Benga, then we could see ahead of us a car was stopped for some reason in the road surrounded by a crowd of rather unsavoury looking characters.  We slowed, our first thought was the car had broken down but as we got closer we could see there were vehicles coming in the opposite direction which had also stopped further on.

As we stopped, we too were surrounded by groups of youths trying to tell us something. I got out to see what was going on and one of the youths said "the bridge has gone" shit what now, the road we were on was narrow flanked on both sides by ditches and thick bush or farmers fields so there didn't look to be any alternative escape route.

I walked up to take a look at the bridge, the couple in the car in front were white but looked scared stiff at being trapped in the crowd of locals, when they saw me the guy got out to join me. It turned out he worked for the British High Commission and said he was the guy who was called in when "tourists like ourselves got into trouble" - I sincerely hoped not as he certainly didn't instil any confidence that he would be much better than a chocolate fireguard!

When we got to the bridge I could see the problem, it seemed two very heavy trucks had gone over last night and had caused it to collapse, not completely but the other end had broken away and the centre was sagging badly over the river.

If we had to take an alternative route it would mean going back at least 60 miles to Salima again! If there was anyway of avoiding this then we would go for it.

I walked across  the bridge and looked at the gap at the other side, to me it looked do-able, if I could get Rupert over without the bridge collapsing then I could go at speed and jump the gap, effectively doing an Evil Knievil and then we should be home free. I was pretty sure Sue would not like the idea and the High Commissioner guy definitely did not, clearly he didn't want us to succeed as at the very least it would mean they would be left at the mercies of the assembled throng!

As it was the crowd were gesticulating to the bush at one side and I suddenly realised they were saying there was a way across through there. At first I couldn't see how there could be any way through as the river would still have to be crossed and the land was thickly planted with tall maize. But a couple of guys insisted there was a way through and as they said this I could see a bus which had come up behind us as we inspected the bridge was being pushed by a horde of guys up and out of the river bed and eventually it came out on the tar road further up.

Right that was it lets go, the high commission guy was not sure he could make it in his saloon car so he asked if we could go first and then wait for him to try getting across, so much for the Brit lifeline in Malawi! 

I walked down the bank where the guys said we would have to drive in to take a closer look at what we needed to cross and was amazed, the village must have been out all night as they had cut a swathe through the maize and had constructed an earthen bank which effectively bridged the river, the only problem was the pull out of the river and up the bank was quite steep, this was where the bus had had to be manhandled.

I was pretty sure Rupert would have no problem but had some doubts about the diplomats car, but there was plenty of willing hands to push and if needed we would winch him up. As we walked back the local guys let us into one other bit of info, we would have to pay to use their road, they had even set up a little barrier across the track!

To me this seemed fair enough as they had clearly put in a lot of effort and you had to admire their enterprising attitude. Mr High Commission seemed a bit more aggrieved but realised he had no choice, when I asked them how much they asked for some outlandish amount but we eventually agreed on 500 Kwacha (~ £2), the entertainment factor was worth this alone.

We went first and as it was when we got to the worst bit Rupert just romped through no need for any help. Once we reached the tar we could have just shot off but I went back to make sure the high commission couple got through, which they did albeit with plenty of shoving from the guys.

I went to take some photo's of the bridge and to pay our 'toll fee' to one of the guys, by now more vehicles had turned up and the owners where contemplating their situation - I turned to one of the local heavies and said "you stand to make a small fortune out of all this" he just turned and smiled and said " today this is our bridge"!

All this had delayed us a bit and we still had 200 km to go before reaching our planned stop tonight at Makuzi Beach but luckily the roads in Malawi are good and mostly empty so we made good time and reached Makuzi around 3.30pm. The place had been recommended by Taffy & Jenny from Norman Carr and they had made a good choice.

Makuzi lies along what is called the Chintenche Strip, just over  half way up the lake. My first impression was that we had wondered onto the set of the Munchkin's village in the Wizard of Oz as the gardens were very lush set amongst them were small round thatched rondavals. The camp site is small and is set on tiered levels looking onto a lovely beach, when we got there there was just one other group camping, two couples in one car, not bad.

Makuzi is owned by Brett and Lara a young couple from South Africa. As we checked in I asked Brett if there was any power on the campsite, he said no but if we parked close to Rondavel 1 and our lead would reach then we were welcome to plug into the power in the room. We then asked was anyone in Rondavel 1 and he said no, some people were expected the next day but he would sort it out with them as he felt they wouldn't mind us plugging our lead in through their window, This was very good of him and that's Africa for you, imagine this happening in the UK - no way!  

Sure enough the next day two Indian families turned up to stay for the weekend in Rondavals 1 & 2. Brett didn't seem to be around as they moved in so we were a bit concerned as to whether or not they had been warned about our cable in their room especially as they were paying US$116 for the rondavel whereas we were only paying US$10 to camp!

Our camping neighbours for the first nights were as I say two couples in one car, it was only after we had set up camp that we noticed the slogan "Watchtower Society" on the side of he vehicle, shit we were camped with Jehovah's Witnesses and they would always know when we were in!

As it was they were very nice people, one guy was a Brit but lived in Lilongwe, the other guy was Austrian but lived in Zimbabwe, there wives were African and Asian respectively. Over two days we chatted with them and can honestly say not one copy of the Watchtower came out, nor did the conversation turn to religion - we guessed they were on holiday and off duty or they saw in us a lost cause! Although we do have an open lunch invitation to the Kingdom Hall in Lilongwe whenever we are passing!

The day they left two South African families in two cars and a load of kids pitched up, bugger we thought there would go the peace and quiet but in fact they weren't too bad, they spent most of their time in or on the Lake so they were fine, no much worse was to come.   

Makuzi does not have Internet access but just 20 minutes away back Southwards at a mainly overland and backpackers resort called Kande Beach there is much to our surprise an internet cafe - happy days we could chill at Makuzi, do emails and the website off line then hop down to Kande to upload whenever we wanted. 

When we got back from Kande on our second afternoon we discovered another group had camped, an middle age couple Brian & Margaret, with two very dear old ladies Sophie & Nan.  Sophie was Margaret's Mum and Nan was her dear old friend from Blantyre. The old dears were well into their 80's and on sticks, but they took to camping like mountain goats. They were of the old school colonials who had come out to Malawi when it was Nyasaland back in the 40/50s and when their husbands retired and eventually died they had just stayed on - very interesting to talk to about what life was like in the old days.

They were just overnighting en route to Nyika Plateau where Brian had about three weeks work to do and where to our surprise they would all be camping.  We were uncertain about whether or not to visit Nyika as we heard being high it got quite cold but Brian and co raved about it being there favourite place in all of Africa so we thought we must go have a look see and said we would probably see them in a few days.

They left very early the next morning so it was just us and the South African's left on the site, we looked forward to some   soothing days of sun, sea and sand but I'm afraid fate had other plans for us.