The North of Malawi: Livingstonia

From Nkata Bay, my sister and I got ourselves to Mzuzu via a shared taxi and then to Chitimba via a minibus.  Our goal for this day’s travels was an eco-lodge called Mushroom Farm high on the Livingstonia Escarpment.  To get the Mushroom Farm, you have to walk or drive about 15km and 700m of elevation gain to get there.  We decided to walk up with our backpacks.  The first third of the walk was hot, sunny, and without shade, and starting the hike at 1pm didn’t help.  The second third of the hike is very steep with about a dozen hairpin turns to go up.  This is why the hike takes 2-3 hours or 1 hour in a car.  It is steep, curvy, and a badly maintained road.  The last third is reasonable but I was tired and it seemed very long.  Karyn was very nice and walked the whole way with two sisters we met in Nkata Bay.  They were slow and badly unprepared as they weren’t wearing socks, had short jean shorts on, minimal sun protection, and no jacket (it gets cold at night).

Mushroom Farm and Livingstonia is neat because mainly because of the natural beauty but also for the history.  It is one of the few places in Africa we visited that has some historical things you can visit.  Mushroom Farm sits right at the edge of the escarpment and you can look down 700m to the ground below and look out and see Lake Malawi and even Tanzania on the other side of the lake.  The area around Mushroom Farm is very jungle like with lots of vegetation and spiders, and we actually got a downpour of rain on morning for about 15 minutes.  It’s an eco-lodge in a beautiful place.

Livingstonia is named after David Livingstone and was, and still is, an important mission site of the CCAP (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian).  Dr. Livingstone died before he was able to start his mission, and a few years and tries later, the group he was doing this will founded Livingstonia (named after him) and the mission.  For this reason, there is a very nice stone 100+ year old church, a university, technical college, and secondary and primary school.  The missionaries began all these institutions and they are active today.  The missionaries have been so influential that when Malawi gained its independence from the UK in the 1950’s, most of the leaders were educated at one point in Livingstonia.  

The town is surprisingly small considering the historical, cultural, and educational significance of it.  With it being small, it is easy to navigate and tour the church, small museum, university, market, and stone cairn marking one of the first deaths of the mission.  The town is about 10 km from Mushroom Farm and an easier hike to get there.

Between the Farm and town, there is a 125m waterfall which is one of the largest in Malawi.  It was so unexpected to see it because while the escarpment is lush and green, there isn’t much running water on the ground.  I also found out that the slave trade use to be big in the area in the 1700 and 1800’s and local would hide behind the waterfall to escape the slavers.

Karyn and I spend a one full day here and two partial days but the big reason for the trip was to do a five-day trek to Malawi’s first national Park, Nyika NP.  I’ll talk about that part of the trip in the next post.

We camped at Mushroom Farm and this was the view!

Celebration after reaching the Farm 

In and around Livingstonia, there were they beautiful houses that had plants growing on them.

Church in Livingstonia

Church in Livingstonia

Idea of the vegetation and how well kept things are in Africa

Stone cairn

Reason for stone cairn.  There are lots of these "some camped here" monuments....random.

Waterfall

Karyn hiding from slavers

View of Lake Malawi from the top of the escarpment

I thought this house was so beautiful but the kids would not let me take a photo without people

View for Livingtonia towards the lake

One of my favorite things of Malawi is the poinsettia bushes.  They are so neat.

Pastime of all Malawians is pool.  There are pool table in nearly all town markets.

The North of Malawi: Nkata Bay

Karyn and I met up on a Friday morning, and after some hassle of getting the rental car (another post will talk about driving in Malawi), I went to pick her up at her hostel across town.  We spent the day at the chitenge market (a chitenge is a 2 meter by 1 meter cloth that women wear over their clothes like a skirt, use to carry children on their back, use to carry things in on their head, use as a blanket, and use as a ground cover...essentially the all around useful fashion accessory), getting supplies for our journey up north, showing her about the clinic and the ABC campus, and packing our stuff for our bus ride the next day.  Two other short term volunteers at the clinic joined us, and the four of us along with some other friends went out for Ethiopian food for dinner.

The next day, we went to the monthly expat farmer’s market and then hurried to the bus station after returning our car.  We got to the station right as the “correct” bus was arriving, and I fought my way onto it to get us seats.  I was quite pleased with myself until I learned that I was on the wrong bus.  The man checking tickets didn’t notice and I didn’t look at the sign saying where the bus was going.  Thankfully some other “muzungus” (literally translated as aimless wander but is more used for any foreigner in Malawi) noticed and got me off the bus.  We watched that bus and others come and go and found the our bus would be three hours late because of a tire problem.  We waited at the nearby KFC (which also coincidentally has Malawi’s only drive through) until the bus came.  We got on and because it got to Mzuzu so late, we stayed the night at a hostel there.

On Sunday (after getting peed on by one of the hostel dogs), my sister and I took a shared taxi down to the lakeside town of Nkata Bay and to our hostel, Mayoka Village.  We got there around mid-morning and ended up camping because they were so full.  After getting ourselves sorted out, we walked into town see it, and buy some snacks.

The land surrounding Nkata Bay is very hilly (almost mountainous) and there are several bays along the edge of Lake Malawi.  This place isn’t full of sandy beaches but of rocky outcroppings along the lake.  This means you must navigate your way down to the lake if you want to swim, kayak, or SUP.  We stayed here until Tuesday morning and in the short amount of time we were here, we kayaked and SUPed around the lake, did a nice walk up the hill behind town to a remote beach, people watched the Peace Corp group and Scottish school groups that stayed at Mayoka, and enjoyed being by the water.  

In Africa, much of the travel revolves around going from one interesting place of lodging to another.  There isn’t normally a lot to do partly because the sun goes down around 1730 and because there isn’t a great amount of tourist things to do.  This means that you do about 6 hours worth of activity a day (ie walking into town, hiking, swimming, etc) and spend the rest of the time hanging out where you stay.  This makes African travel a bit slow but thankfully I had some books and podcasts to fill the time.

On Tuesday, we left Mayoka and two sister we met there joined us on our minibus trip up to Livingstonia.  For the next week or so we stayed near Livingstonia and did a five day trek of the Nyika plateau, but I’ll talk about that in the next post.

The main bay of Nkata Bay

Looks like it just needs some TLC

People moving around on the beach of the main bay

View from hike up the hill

Cabbage patch on the side of the trail

Wooden dugout canoes on a beach

What most houses look like in Malawi

Looks like Santa was doing his laundry in Malawi

Looking at town and the hills behind it

Internet while traveling in Africa is slow at best

Hello!  I have not died or fallen into some African void or hole.  There has not been good internet during my 5 weeks traveling around Malawi so that is why nothing has been posted.  As I type this, I am sitting in JFK airport in NYC waiting for my final flight to Sacramento and home.  I had written a post to put up before I started my five weeks but I ran out of time.  I am posting it below and will post about my five weeks over the next month or so (with pictures).  That way you can read about the interesting things that happened...even if it is late.

Volunteering Done and Meeting up with my Sister

My last post was about two weeks ago but as much as there has been change, most stuff has stayed the same.  Today was my final day volunteering at the clinic and it was sad to go.  Yesterday for lunch, one of the doctors, the clinic administrator, the head nurse, my friends the Millers, the Canadian couple who is at the clinic until the end of July, and I went out to lunch as a going away for me and to thank me for my time.  I was touched by this because outside of the head nurse, I didn’t publicize my last day.  Today, the clinic was work as usual but at the morning devotions, the clinic administrator thanked me for my time, effort, and hoped that this was not the last time I came to ABC and Malawi.

Outside of my preparations to leave, the last two weeks at the clinic have been quite slow and I had quite a few “off” days.  By “off,” I mean that living in the developing world got to me and have me some transitory stomach and fever issues.  Nothing too bad but enough that I was really concerned that it was the start of malaria (key symptoms of malaria is cyclical fevers that occur about every 8 hours) but after an afternoon off and about 12 hours of sleep, I was back to somewhat of normal.

One of my big things to do in the last weeks was to renew my visa.  Malawi makes you renew your visa every 30 days even if you got one for multiple months.  I took a day off thinking it would be an exercise in patience, time wasting, and boredom but it ended up being one of the easiest bureaucratic things I have done.  I showed up around 8am and was done 20 minutes later and out of 10,000 kwacha (about $15) in legitimate fees (and not bribes).

I did help out with a vital sign clinic in front of one of the big shopping stores in the city and that was actually much fun.  It is so fun to people watch and see how the different nationalities in the city move around and dress.  

Tomorrow, my sister Karyn and I meet up in Lilongwe and we will travel the next month in Malawi hitting up all the big tourist places:  Nkata Bay, Nyika Plateau, Livingstonia, Mt. Mulanje and a running race up and down it, Zomba Plateau, Blantyre, Cape McClear, and Likoma Island.  We will be doing lots of hiking, swimming, minibus riding, and eating.  It will be an adventure and it begins with my car rental tomorrow.  I rented a car from someone who works at the clinic’s brother for a day.  I get it tomorrow and am slightly terrified about driving.  Mainly because they drive on the left side of the road but also because driving rules are somewhat loose at times in Malawi.  Here’s to the real adventure tomorrow.