Safari Malawi

January 7-9, 2003

About two hours later, we stopped at a village to confirm our route.  As we awaited instruction, a small crowd of children began to form alongside the truck.  They seemed curious, but mostly excited by our presence.  Zach was the first to realize the photographic potential of the situation we were in.  As he leaned out the window and pointed his camera in the direction of the children, they all shrieked with delight.  Their bright faces and intense smiles made us forget about the long, convoluted drive behind and potentially ahead of us.  We each took turns leaning out of the window to take a picture and the children directed their attention to each and every lens.  They cheered after the shutter snapped and bid us farewell with frantic waves and bigger smiles still.  Then it hit us.  We were officially "off the beaten track," or as our guide said, "we were going where no Drifters truck had ever gone before."  To the children we weren't merely tourists, but special visitors of the likes they rarely, if ever, saw.

We were in Malawi for only three days, but our time there colored our entire African experience.  And what an assortment of colors!  The original itinerary was straightforward: two nights at Candy Beach on Lake Malawi, followed by a night at Chitembe on the north end of the lake near the Tanzanian border.  On January 7, we left South Luangwa in Zambia, retracing our tracks over the infamous road to get to the Malawi border.  Our guides told us that our bouncing bums would get a rest once we reached Malawi--it should be smooth sailing from there.  The following course of events was completely unforeseen and can only be classified as pure African adventure.

 

About sixty or seventy kilometers before we reached our campsite the road officially closed, only there were no signs, roadblocks, or authorities to let us know.  Technically, we were on an unfinished road.  The fact that the tires of our truck were sinking six inches into the ground as we progressed could have been a clue, or just another example of the quality of African roads.  After a few minutes there was just too much sand and gravel and some guards standing at a gate to the adjacent national park flagged us down and provided explanation.  We shouldn't have been on the road in the first place because it was under construction.  But we couldn't continue, even if we wanted to, because several kilometers down the road had been washed out by a flood two days prior.  They offered directions to a detour and we followed them.

across the frame that had been spared.  Inching our way over the logs was the only time during our back-roads adventure that I was actually afraid.  In the end there was no reason for me to be and I look back on the whole adventure with the fondest of memories.  Th e countryside was gorgeous, the people warm and friendly, and the roads full of character.  We reached our campsite at Senga Beach after dark and set up our tents on the sandy shores of Lake Malawi.

 

--A

Next, an event of an entirely different nature.  We came upon a ditch in the road.  A drain pipe had collapsed and left a hole about four feet wide and five to six feet deep.  It covered nearly two-thirds the width of the road.  Jacques and Martin got out of the truck to assess, and after some deliberation Jacques got behind the wheel, Martin guided from the road, and we went forward.  The severe lunging to the right and the sound of the engine straining to pull the wheels over the ditch gave us an idea of the seriousness of the situation, but the expression on Martin's face as he watched on (sheer terror) made it absolutely explicit.  We made it safely through and in hindsight it was pretty thrilling!

Up the road, bridge washed out, turn around, back down road, take a right, bridge too narrow, turn around again, another right, and once again the ditch lay before us.  Now we needed to cross back over it.  Only the ditch was in a slightly more precarious state as it had been traversed by our sixteen-ton truck just an hour before.  This time we all got out to watch Jacques drive over it.  The back left tire had a rough time and for a second it looked like impending disaster, but suddenly the truck was in the clear.  In between ditch-dodging and run-around we got to see a boy wearing one of the most frightful masks I have ever seen--it was part of a coming-of-age (including circumcision) ritual practiced by a local tribe.

One more bridge.  It had been washed out in the floods, but enterprising locals made a make-shift bridge by laying logs

Anyone for tarte tartin? (And we're not kidding.) Lake Malawi.

And a flat to top it all off. Somewhere in Malawi.

Photographs and Text:  Copyright 2002 & 2003, Zachary Maler & Amy Leffert