DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY
A couple of days later:
The trip down from Livingstonia to the lake, via the short route, is a little hair-raising. From Lukwe, it is about 10 or 12 km to the main road and the drop is almost 800 m.
That short distance took us an hour, during the course of which we negotiated 20 or so hiarpin bends, numerous partially cleared rockslides and innumerable water-gouged channels in the roadway. While we didn't need four-wheel drive, we did spend most of the time in first or second gear because the brakes would have burned out way too early if we'd relied on them to keep us moving slowly enough to enable easy negotiation of the bends and obstacles.
From the main road, things didn't improve a hell of a lot - the main road north to Karonga isn't in the best of conditions although Murray and Roberts are doing their best to make it truly impassable while they construct a new road. There are intermittent patches of tar and gravel with other sections where drivers have just decided to start using the partially constructed new road.
I assume this has been done since the start of the rainy season - coincidentally about the same time as all the construction workers took their Christmas breaks. Still, there are long stretches in which the new road has been churned to mud with two sets of hardened tracks along which you have to steer. The middelmannetjie is high enough in some places that we had to choose alternate paths.
It is along this road that many of the overland trucks have been getting bogged down of late and it was on the only section that posed a danger that we were held up. We had to wait at least 10 minutes while a grader smoothed out and filled the mudholes before we could slither our way through without a problem.
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LIVINGSTONIA IS UP
Livingstonia, 8 January 2002
We're perched in a simple chalet 800 m above Lake Malawi with a view out over the lake and surrounding countryside - the chalet is set right on the edge of a cliff halfway up the mountain with the Nyika Plateau behind us and a drop of about 300 m in front of us to the valley floor.
The Lukwe Permaculture Camp where we're staying has sited its 3 - yes, only three - chalets right on the edge of the cliffs, so drunkenness would not be advisable while staying here. There are also several secluded campsites hidden among the trees and bush, little of which has been chopped down in order to make the camp.
The philosophy behind permaculture is that it is possible to live in nature without doing any major ecological damage or needing to bring in outside resources. Most of what was used to build Lukwe was sourced locally and the camp is sustained using replenishable resources from the area.
Compostible toilets - drop a ladleful of wood ash and a handful of sawdust down the hole when you've finished, please!, paraffin (kerosene) lamps and charcoal-burning - they grow their own fast-growing bluegum trees for the purpose - braziers, along with a wood-fired water heater provide the necessary heating, lighting and cooking facilities while the communal areas are all open-sided thatched areas.
This all imbues the are place with a very tranquil and relaxing feel which is very welcome following a couple of weeks marked by too many people and too much activity - 10 people becomes a huge crowd when you've been travelling for a while! We had planned to stay for only a day but ended up spending three days vegging at Lukwe and picking the brain of Auke, the Belgian traveller who has settled for a while to run Lukwe.
He spent two years travelling from Europe down through West Africa to South Africa and then stopping on his way back. All of this in a 22-year-old Renault 4 with 800 000 km on the clock! (And some of you thought we were mad!?!?!)
While beer is enjoyable in Africa - and each country makes a variety of its own brands, of lager, so don't even think of needing to drink any European or foreign beers - the only true luxury is a hot shower. Anywhere that has a piping hot shower is a good place to stay, no matter what the rest of the establishment is like. And when, as in Lukwe's case, the shower stalls are thatched with walls that extend only chest high, giving you a magnificent view of the elements and view, paradise cannot be far away. It was doubly special at Lukwe to be able to stand under a stream of hot water and watch and listen to a gigantic thunderstorm outside.
We reached Lukwe, about 5 km down the hilll from Livingstonia, after spending 3 nights at the Njaya Lodge in Nkata Bay - it's not bad as a holiday resort but the view from the carpark - where those of us with rooftop tents have to set up - isn't the best. The view from the chalets below the main section (bar, pool table, deck and dining room) is far better with some of the chalets perched 5 m from the beach.
Most of the other guests staying there were South Africans - two returning overland from London and two women from Durban taking their Christmas holidays in a place almost as hot and humid as Durban itself.
Livingstonia is far more interesting and scenic than Nkata Bay with the town itself dating back to the first years of this century when Dr Robert (I think!) Laws moved his mission station for the third time. Set up following David Livingstone's return to Britain after his first exploration of Africa in the 1850s, the first mission was set up near the southern end of Lake Malawi but was moved further north to the area of Nkata Bay in a bid to escape the scourge of Malaria.
This first move proved useless and Laws moved the mission again, this time to the higher ground at Livingstonia, which was named in honour of the inspiring explorer. Driving though the town, which hasn't changed much since it was built almost 100 years ago, I had a strange sense of displacement, as though I was walking through the set of a Victorian movie.
The buildings could all have been transplanted from an English village and the roundabout at the head of the town, overlooked by a clock tower in one of the buildings, heightens this perception.
Dr Laws' house - the Stone House - is set a little out of town on the edge of the escarpment and has a spectacular view over the hills as they drop away to the lake about 800 m below. It's now a backpackers and museum but has a sadly desolate and melancholy air to it. That may just have been due to the typically English weather, including drizzle and mist, which blanketed the town.
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