Blue zebras, chilled elephants and laced tea

Blue Zebra's view, sigh...

So glorious the views from Blue Zebra Island Lodge, so delicious the island vibe, so cold the Carlsberg beer - it was only after about an hour that it occurred to me that you don’t get blue zebras. Excuse me?

Turns out the blue zebra is a kind of cichlid, that’s a fish, endemic to Lake Malawi – and one of the many hundreds of thousands of pretty, patterned reasons this lake is a UNESCO world heritage site. About 875 species of cichlids occur in Lake Malawi, giving it the biggest assembly of fish species of any lake on earth and making it an “outstanding example of biological evolution”.

Marelli archipelago mmmmmm

That sounded like a fantastic reason to celebrate – so we headed out on a sunset cruise. The sunsets are wild here, red and riotous; the atmosphere ancient. We saw ducks flying in formation, fishermen in dugout canoes returning home from a day on the water, the twinkle of lights on the mainland. Blue Zebra is in the southern part of the lake, where most of the tourism happens, but it’s far from the crowds, tucked away on Nankoma Island, the only inhabited island in the Marelli archipelago. And by inhabited they mean a few luxury chalets, a restaurant, bar and an infinity pool. 

Birdsong fills the island at dawn. There 350 species here – the birds flourish because there are no nest-robbing, egg-eating monkeys on the island – and all day you hear the cry of the African fish eagle, Lake Malawi being home to  a high concentration of them.We headed out on a morning walk – you can get around the island in a few hours – and saw patches of forest, enormous baobabs, lake views and wild flowers. Being an island of course, this is water activity central. You can do snorkelling, scuba diving, wake boarding, swimming. And because the channels are too deep, there are no hippos or crocs out here.

Hippo poetry in Liwonde National Park, Shire River valley

There are however, hundreds of hippos and crocs further south on the Shire River, the only outlet for Lake Malawi and part of Liwonde National Park.  A small – 580 km sq – Liwonde is drop dead gorgeous, with mountains in the background, water in the foreground and banks of creamy clouds.

The Shire River flows along the western border of Liwonde National Park, so a boat safari is the way to go here. It took about an hour or so to get to Wilderness Safari’s Mvuu Lodge, which is an elegant private concession in the park. Fever trees and palm trees, peeking hippos, chilled elephants - in the sense of behaviour, not temperature, although you never know what you may get with your cocktail at a Wilderness lodge.

Egrets, I have a few, but then again...

Tucked into the bush on the river’s edge, each of the chalets have river views and close-ups of crocodiles. I counted five one morning from my verandah, including a real giant gherkin of a monster, whose footprints we saw later quite some distance away, on the banks. We did a morning walk through the bush, through a patch of mopaneveld, and saw python vines, rutting impalas, frisky zebras and amorous baboons. We ended up with a classic riverbank bush breakfast, drinking coffee and listening to weavers and fish eagles.

The Shire River, Great African Rift Valley prrrrrrr

Later that afternoon we were right at the top of the Satemwa tea estate, G&T in hands, looking down on the Shire River and the Great Rift Valley. What a view. Satemwa is one of Malawi’s oldest and most established tea  estate– it was started in 1923 – and the tea covers slope upon slope right up into the misty hills, where the vegetation changes to montane forests and the evenings are chilly.

“Isn’t this the most romantic view?” said my friend the happily-married Sally. “I wish I was in love with you”.                                                                                  

Satemwa tea estates, Thoyolo, southern Malawi

All alone in camp with a leopard

All alone and the sun is going to go down soon...

Like a character in a Herman Charles Bosman story, I was once alone in camp with a leopard. I was at Leshiba Wilderness in the wild and far flung heights of the Soutpansberg in northern Limpopo. “You gonna be ok alone?” asked owners Kath and Pete. Sure I replied. I’m a bush gal, I know some tree names in Latin and I’ve shot beer cans out of dry river beds.  

I poured a generous whizzo and sat on the steps of the camp’s main rondavel for a sunset view of Hamasha gorge and its sideways cliffs covered in green and yellow lichen. Then I opened the visitors’ book. Awesome leopard sighting said the last entry, dated from the day before. They saw a leopard? Right here? Yesterday? 

The Soutpansberg has a high concentration of leopards

It’s only impalas I said sternly to myself when I heard sounds of puffing and snorting a little later. Still, it was getting dark so I went inside and closed all the windows and doors, put on some lamps, and decided to cook inside rather. I poured another whizzo. I mean, the Soutpansberg does have a very high concentration of leopards you know.

I made pasta, not my best one ever, and then emboldened by the whisky opened the door and went a short way outside for a peek at the night skies. I was staring at Orion when I hear a leopard growl in the gorge – that unmistakable rumble that cut through the night. I dropped my glass and fled indoors, panting like a fat suburban Spaniel.

I had more whisky in a fresh glass. I checked all the windows again and tried to read the magazines to distract myself but every page I turned showed leopards: leopards chowing impalas, leopards licking bloodied haunches, leopards yellow teeth… 

Oh my oh my, my imagination took flight. Wild flight. 

I am the hapless impala

What a terrible, terrible night. I could hear the leopard sniffing at the rondavel door, eager to crush my little pasta pot before advancing upon the bedroom where I lay, a hapless baby impala. Snuffles, grunts, claws against the door, the window pane misted up with meaty leopard breath. I lay still and tried not to make a sound which is a hard position to hold for a night and as the whisky wore off my mouth got dry, but I daren’t move lest the leopard had somehow slipped in and was waiting in he shower or the bath.

“Oh Lord I made it”, I let out a long, relieved groan at first light. I was frozen rigid with cold and fear. I massaged the pins and needles out of my extremities and decided to leave at once. “You did it girl”, I said weakly to myself and gathered my bags and camera and headed for the car which was parked next to an acacia tree. I opened the passenger door and my heart stopped.

Lying on the passenger seat was a leopard.

I dimly recall the wild gorge of Hamasha echoing back my screams as I flinched in anticipation of the first bite to my jugular.

Yiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Loving your fake leopard skin, doll 

I was still hanging on to my camera bag when I opened my eyes. And the leopard was still lying there, somewhat limply in fact. I looked again and I hate to admit it but the leopard was actually my Marianne Fassler designer leopard print jersey that I’d casually left on the car seat the afternoon before.

I took some time to regain my composure, and I was still rather wide eyed when I went to say farewell to the good people Pete and Kath before I headed, perhaps a little hastily, back to Joburg.

“All cool at Hamasha Camp on your own last night?” They asked.

“Wish I could stay another night”, I replied, tossing the leopard print jersey nonchalantly over my shoulder. 

The road to Vhutuwangadzebu

Clever people will see the mystery d 

You may be forced to answer some soul searching questions when traveling deep in Vhembe, the land of legend. Such as should you take the road to Vutuwangadzebu or the road to Vhutuwangazebu? Both left and right led to the same place it seemed. “Do you think all roads out here lead to Vhutuwangadzebu?” I asked my traveling girlfriend. “Or is it a circular drive?

Her attentions were focused on the enormous surreal baobab tree ahead of us. “When you see a fork in the road”, she replied wisely, “take it”. So being the driver and from the Robert Frost School of Roads Less Traveled By (read his famous poem The Road Not Taken) I decided to turn right to Vhutuwangadzebu, and as Frost himself would have said, that has made all the difference.

The road to Vutuwangadzebu 

It led into the heart of soul country, a long way away from the cellphone-e-mail-Internet merry-go-round, into remotest rural Venda, past brilliant green tea estates, ancient ruins, sacred lakes and holy forests. The road to Vhutuwangadzebu led us on a slow sexy drive into the cool green heights of upper, upper Tshixwadza, past hillside villages that cling onto the mountainsides, where the schoolchildren waved and the tinkle of cowbells delighted our ears.

We had spent the previous night at a thoroughly charming place called Madi a Thavha, in the foothills of the Soutpansberg mountains, south of Louis Trichardt. The Soutpansberg or Tha vhani ya muno (mountain of salt) gets its name from the salt pans here which have been spicing up life here for centuries. Madi a Thavha is a guesthouse and gallery dedicated to promoting traditional arts & crafts; and having given us a night of warm hospitality, they then gave us a divine breakfast and a map of the Artists Route, a self-drive route which takes you to the studios and workshops of various potters, sculptors, weavers and fabric makers.

Makhambani tea estate

But being artists ourselves, and magicians and storytellers, we ended up instead on the road to Vhutuwangadzebu, immersing ourselves in the names of the places around us, those with a different soul and psyche: Mufungudi, Mutshindudi. Phananani. Phiphidi. Fondwe. Fundudzi. Tshamanthatshe. We ended up knee deep in amazement in the heart of bright green tea estates, delighting in the sheer spectacle of it all. I photographed the reflection of tea slopes in silver dams, from a million angles, and the baobabs that stud the mountainsides.

Change your relaxing style 

 We bought Zamaleks from the Speakeasy Bar (Don’t change your lifestyle, said the billboard outside, change your relaxing style!) and we drove on and up into the land where the pythons still dance and the drums still beat under the water in the pools at Mashovhela and the holy forest is protected by Nthathe the supernatural lion. Yes people, the road to Vhutuwangadzebu took us far, far away from this wearisome global village… And knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if we should ever come back. 

I doubted if we should ever come back

The Immaculate Sunset

Down and delicious at Lagoa Poelela, southern Mozambique

Just what is it about an immaculate sunset? Is it the colour, the timing, the feeling it brings? Its meaning is quite different to a sunrise, which for me is the joyous outbreak of new possibility. A sunset is the slow farewell, the heart breaking goodbye, the last kiss before the lover gets on the train. It is pain and pleasure. It is the onset of darkness, the end of reason. It is Hesperian depression exquisitely personified.

I have spent a good part of my life as a travel writer chasing the immaculate sunset. And I’m pleased to say I found one a while back at Lagoa Poelela, near Inhambane, in southern Mozambique. We are 1hour 15 from Inharrime said their SMS with directions. Sunset at 5pm. It was all the bait we needed to put foot. From the main EN1, we turned off the road to Ponta Zavora, upcoming dive-n-surf spot, and barrelled down coconut lane (Inhambane province has over 3 million coconut trees) arriving within half an hour of the sun set.

Oh my.

High drama on the Indian Ocean 

To the distant thrum of the unseen sea behind enormous dunes, the orange sun and the copper waters of Lagoa Poelela performed an extraordinary, almost obscene, farewell dance. As the sun slipped sexily down the skies, there were pink and coral clouds, wild bronze and mackerel silver reflections. Flocks of birds shadowed the sky. The jetty poles stood in black silhouette. We stood in wonder.

Well just for a moment. Then we quickly got out cameras, being media types and all, graciously accepted G&Ts and got stuck into the perfect sunset. Chatting, snapping, sipping, more snapping. Once upon a donkey’s years ago I worked for a travel magazine whose delightful curmudgeon of an editor, if you’ll indulge the paradox, made his young underling photojournalists swear they would never, ever, on any account whatsoever submit a photograph of a sunset. He would have no truck with chocolate box rubbish he said, sunsets were simply natural occurrences that happened daily and did little to expand our understanding of humanity or travel. I spent many unhappy hours restraining myself (those were pre-digital days, we used film, expensive film) from taking sunset photographs, even in the Zambezi where they are famously wild and red.

“This one’s for you bru”, I said out loud, as I snapped my thousandth shot of the perfect Lagoa Poelela sunset.

The sunrises aren't too bad either 

Lagoa Poelela faces due west and is an eco-lodge with pleasant self-catering chalets overlooking the shores of Lagoa Poelela, a lake that never reaches the sea. It’s pretty surreal because you hear the sea but you can’t see it. It’s about 2km away over the dunes, and you can walk there or drive.  The lagoa (lake) covers around 76kms square and is surrounded by wetlands, estuaries and coconut groves. It’s fairly low in salinity (you could mix it with whisky at a push) and high in birdlife. Plenty, plenty birds.

The okes here quite rightly decided not to allow any motorised activities alongside the shores of this gentle lagoa, no quad bikes, no motor boats, no jet skis. So it’s very Zen hanging out here. I think the best thing to do is to slip off quietly on a kayak and go explore the mangroves and estuaries. It’s a gentle pursuit, and very good for the tits, girls. Move slowly and lightly, quietly, through the waters, exploring lagoa’s edge, listening to the birds, eyeing the silver horizon …. 

Loving the Afro-brolly on the beach at high tide 

For more information check out www.mozambiquehappenings.com 

or www.safarinow.com; 

Are Malawians the slowest walkers in the world?

Going at a fair clip, this man on Likoma Island 

I was in Malawi recently when news broke that an international survey of walking speeds in major cities found that people in Malawi are the slowest walkers in the world.

Researchers conducted the experiment by secretly timing thousands of pedestrians’ speeds in city centres around the world. According to the survey, Singapore was top followed by Denmark’s Copenhagen and Spain’s Madrid. Malawi’s Blantyre was ranked the slowest walkers in the world.

Funnily enough I was lying down at the time at the time I read this news. I was lying down on the beach on an island in the Marelli Archipelago in the southern part of Lake Malawi – and I have to say the people around me, were all also somewhat horizontal. The thought of walking simply didn’t seem right, not with this beauty, this exquisitely cold ale...

Not much walking in the Marelli Archipelago 

I encountered the news via a blog called Muli Bwanji which means hello in the local Chichewe. “A few weeks ago I wrote about time management in Malawi”, sighed the author, “Today’s paper had this interesting article that sheds some light on how laid back Malawians really are..”  

The reaction of the readers was interesting: “I remember from my school days that many Malawians are very fast runners” wrote Nancy, putting a positive spin on things. “I bet Malawian ladies can carry much heavier load on their heads than their equivalent in Japan”, said Douglas, introducing another angle. “I think that slow walkers are appreciating life”, said Fred and then James: “Having lived in Malawi for over ten years I have always wondered how it’s possible to walk as slowly as the Malawians do.”

I’m kinda with James and not so much Fred on that one. I spent a few days in Blantyre having just come back from New York, which ranks eighth in the survey of walking speeds, and no one could ever accuse Blantyre of being the world’s speed-walking capital. First of all it’s one of the world’s poorest cities, so what’s the rush exactly? It’s not like everyone’s tearing off to the Prada sale.  Secondly Blantyre is hot and dusty and noisy. The taxis are terrifying, the potholes are magnificent and the average Singaporean would probably faint at the sight of a Blantyre street.

The Japanese came in 19^th out of 32. “Whereas a Tokyoite takes an average of 12.83 seconds to walk 60 feet (about 18m), residents of the Malawian commercial capital Blantyre take 31.60 seconds.” said the survey, “Malawians have great difficulty walking on a treadmill set to the average Japanese walking speed”. I lay languidly on the banks of Lake Malawi trying to picture the researchers – a psychologist-led team apparently - plucking some unwitting young lads off the squalid, potholed pavements of outer Blantyre, giving them Hello Kitty t-shirts and strapping them onto Japanese-speed treadmills.

Did the Japanese send a walker to Blantyre I wondered?

And then I found out the Japanese actually sent a comedian to test the research. “They set up an experiment”, says the website Japan Probe. “Three friends of their guide are told to meet them at a location approximately 800 metres from each of the friend’s houses. The friends are told to leave their houses at 10:00. The earliest friend takes 26 minutes to arrive, the second friend takes 29 minutes, and the third takes 48 minutes. The friends say that it’s no big deal, since people in Malawi don’t stress over hurrying up or waiting for things.” 

https://intomalawi.wordpress.com

www.japanprobe.com

www.malawiantourism.com