Truck Time – Malawi to Zimbabwe!
The blissful shores of Lake Malawi at Kande beach proved to be a welcome retreat from the road for a couple of days. Not a whole lot to report from here apart from a huge amount of chilling out, feasting on a barbequed pig, attending a local village dinner, the 50 cent beers (as if we needed an incentive!), meeting a few Irish Boyos at the camp site and an impressive hair cut! The highlight was probably kayaking to an island about 2km’s from the shore and spending a few hours jumping from 30ft rocks into the pristine waters of the lake. Need to keep an eye on the symptoms of Bilharzia as Lake Malawi is apparently littered with these worms that enter your body through the skin and set up camp in the Liver. We’ll gobble up a few antibiotics in South Africa to be on the safe side!
Chilling at Kande Beach
The morning we were due to leave Kande Beach and continue to Lilongwe offered an eventful few hours. After spending the previous night marvelling at a spectacular amount of lightning over the lake, we were soon to be splashed, splattered and splished by the most surreal rain shower I have ever experienced – which went on, and on, and on and on. Apparently, when it rains in Africa, it pours. No drought around here then! So after wading through the torrential rain to roll up the drenched tents, we got our rain kissed selves out of Kande beach. Relieved to be back in the shelter of the truck, what could go wrong from here? About two minutes down the road, we were slipping and a sliding and all of a sudden, swoosh. We were stuck in the mud, much to our dismay. Nah, I lie. It was frick’n great fun digging and pushing the truck out of the mud, giving us a great photo opportunity, as below! After a half our of mud wrestling with our truck, we were back on track.
Heeeeeeeeaave!
A day of travelling brought us to the doorstep of Lilongwe, which again was flustered with precipitating cumuli with several powerful leaks. This home sick diminishing weather was the catalyst for many an upgrade from tents to dorm rooms over the succeeding days at Manyara Backpackers, Lilongwe.
Lilongwe was a likeable and interesting city. It certainly looked and felt very different to a lot of generic Africa cities that we visited, most notably in terms of how green and undeveloped the city was. The friendliness of the people was also a factor which made the city a very likeable place, even in the rain. Essentially though, we were really only stopping here to arrange our visas for the day so while Ian, our main man was sorting our visa’s we got a chance to explore! After checking our the rain ravaged city, my day was spend pretty much waiting around the very posh and paradoxically fancy golf club to try and fit in a round of golf with the lads on the tour but alas, the weather prevailed and it wasn’t to be.
Irish Spuds Anyone? In Lilongwe, Hmmm....
Malawi was fantastic and a favourite so far. It is however, incredibly poor with an average life expectancy of only 40 years of age and over 1 in 5 people in the country suffer from AIDS. Shocking statistic.
And then we were on the road again, biding farewell to the monsoony weather of Malawi and into the scenic North Western highlands of Mozambique. With a new currency, new people, new food and new language (they speak Portuguese here!), our insight into Mozambique was as brief as it was beautiful. Very picturesque but very brief as we were burning the road to get to Zimbabwe pronto! Pretty much two days of solid driving ahoy with a bush camp in between but on the bright side, we came upon some scintillating scenery which I’m certain is only the hors d’oeuvre of what Mozambique has to offer! Interestingly, was the first country to be part of the Commonwealth that was never colonised by the English, sheerly because the one they call the Queen loved it’s beauty so much.
Before we knew it we had crossed the Zimbabwe border and were in the midst of a surprisingly modern (relatively speaking) and developed Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. Laden with rain showers that made the place look uncanningly similar to a city back home, a quick trip to the supermarket lifted spirits big time! They simply had everything – ice cream, meat, delicious bread, chocolate, cider (for Triona) and all the commodities of home. After the supermarkets of Malawi teased us with a selection of beer, rice, pasta and a meagre selection of other bland essentials, the supermarkets of Harare were a magnificent treat! Due to the rain though, our original camp site in Harare was closed off so we had to appease with an alternative location 50 km’s back out of the city for the night. This place was bang in the middle of nowhere and after stocking up on liquor at the market, there was really only one thing to do to burn an evening, get smashed. And boy did that happen, apart from the respectable Irish contingent that is…
Party Time with the help of some local Gin!
While on the truck en route to Zimbabwe, I watched a DVD of the movie Mugabe & White African on the netbook. A fascinating movie which gives a very raw insight into the political scene of this part of the world but the movie primarily looks at Mugabe’s fundamentally racist land reform and reclamation policies and the turmoil that followed. The movie was both touching and maddening and probably one of the first times I’ve really gotten an insight into the racism that exists in political circles towards white people in Zimbabwe. It also made for pretty bleak expectations of Zimbabwe and how people may react to a truck load of white folks bopping through their country and taking all their Gin. We’re delighted to report that we have encountered zilch xenophobia so far in Zimbabwe and everything, from the attitude of the people to the standard of food, campsites, etc is superb.
Irish Spuds in Lilongwe, now Irish Rain in Harare - aaaaaaah!
I mentioned earlier that relatively speaking Harare & Zimbabwe is notably modern & comfortable in comparison to some of the countries and cities we have visited to date. After getting a chance to visit the centre of Harare and spend a horribly hungover day wandering the streets, it is evident that this was once a very powerful city in Southern Africa. What is even more obvious is how the city and country is slowly becoming more and more decrepit & defunct under the dictating direction of Mr Mugabe, particularly in terms of it’s infrastructure, pubic amenities & level of inflation (which was seven sextillion per cent but has subdued somewhat in recent times due to the adoption of the US Dollar as the official currency). It’s like a country trapped in time, strangled by political corruption and the greed and selfishness of dictatorship. In the 70’s, Zimbabwe flourished. In 2011, it looks like something from the 70’s.
On a more positive side, we did manage to find a fantastic pizza parlour and milkshake café in Harare.
Aaaaaah, the perfect cure….
intrepidirish 