March 5 2009

Just back from a wonderful long weekend experience on Domwe Island and Mua Mission.

The former was a planned event and the latter a happy last minute addition to the itinerary.

Since Tuesday was a national holiday, the school had worked a four day weekend into the calendar, a very welcome break at this time of year. The rainy season is not particularly onerous, but it does bring with it a ridiculous number of random power outages that tend to get one down almost as much as a long dark Canadian winter. And if you combine that with a major computer network failure, well, let’s just say getting away from it all about now is a really good idea. So ten of us from the school, minus one family of three who had to beg off due to illness, set off for Cape Maclear and Domwe Island. And what a lovely weekend it was. Domwe is a self catering island. We brought our own food and took turns so each couple prepared one meal and then the staff on the island did the cleaning up. Bonus! Left us plenty of time for relaxing in the hammocks, snorkeling and kayaking. We did try hiking up the trail a bit but since that turned into the steam room experience we decided water based activities were more interesting, and those little cichlids are both colourful and cute. All in all it was a delightful time: good food, good company, great scenery. Getting out of Cape Maclear, however, turned out to be more of an adventure than planned.

The road to Cape Maclear is paved most of the way but the last bit is rather rugged, to put it mildly. And after two nights of thunderstorms I guess it should not have been much of a surprise to find our way blocked by a river in flood. When we first approached this part of the road the young men walking through it were up to their armpits in water. This is not a happy picture when you are driving a little Rav4. So the consensus was to turn back and hope the water would go down before it got too dark to drive out. Back at Kayak Africa we relaxed on the deck overlooking the lake, had some liquid fortification and lunch before setting off again. By this time the water was only up to the hips so we took the offer of the crowd of young men who were ever so willing, for a price, to push us through. With the exhaust securely wrapped in a plastic bag, off we went, fingers crossed that the car would start on the other side. And it did. Of course, the other side was blocked by a land rover having its tires changed, but that’s a small thing once you are clear of the water and assured your engine is not flooded. Our friends, who were following, had the same happy result leaving our little convoy clear to head on to Mua Mission. Even the cell phone gods were with us. We had coverage and were able to reserve three rooms for the evening and dinner.

Mua Mission is a delightful spot that was on our list of places to visit, not necessarily on this trip, but as it turned out, a serendipitous turn of events. We arrived there before sundown, a very important factor in this part of the world, had time to look around and enjoy a leisurely dinner followed by a game of cards with our friends before turning in. At breakfast we met a very interesting elderly Swiss couple who are in the midst of returning home, by car, having started in Namibia, quite the road trip they have ahead of them.

Breakfast was followed by the museum visit. The Chamare Museum at the Kungoni Centre at Mua Mission is a little gem: beautifully organized and full of information about Malawian history and culture. The tour leaves one with the usual mind-spinning museum overload but well worth it, and hopefully we will get back again before we leave for a more leisurely stroll through. Here is the link to their site for those who would like more detail.

http://www.kungoni.org/

Of course no African adventure seems to be complete without a little car trouble. So what’s a blown tire among friends? Again, luck was with us as the tire had not even lost air when we heard the problem. And Kristen, who was driving, even managed to pull under a nice big shade tree where the replacement operation went off quite smoothly. Back on the road, to Salima and Lilongwe without a hitch, happy and refreshed.

Here are the addresses for my albums from Domwe and Mua:

Domwe

http://tinyurl.com/domwe1

Mua

http://tinyurl.com/muamission

Now to get this uploaded. If the electricity will stay on long enough…