This is the place for a holiday
When David Livingstone first sailed on Lake Malawi in 1861, he named Cape Maclear after his good friend the astronomer Thomas Maclear. (The highest point on Table Mountain, Maclear’s Beacon, as well as the town of Maclear in the Eastern Cape are also named after him). The 4 km arc of beach is part of the Nankumba peninsula at the south of the lake.
After Livingstone was buried in London in 1874, the Free Church of Scotland established a mission at Cape Maclear in his memory. But malaria played havoc among the missionaries and 20 years later the mission was shut down for good.
If you arrive at a new place in the dark, everything you see in the morning comes as a surprise. The rough brown beach sand starts just beyond the lawn in front of our hut, and the blue water of the lake beyond the beach stretches to the horizon.
Hills lean over the tiny bay from the left and the right, and the sun shines exuberantly.
I walk along the beach to Kayak Africa to postpone our pre-booked paddling excursion. We’re waiting for Dawie’s baggage to arrive.
Every few metres someone is scrubbing a blackened pot or soaping a piece of clothing.
In-between, men mend fish nets next to their canoes made of hollowed-out tree trunks.
The village of Chembe is home to about 13 000 people. Cape Maclear’s lodges and the residents’ huts stand cheek by jowl at the edge of the beach.
“Helloooo…” Small plump hands squeeze into each of mine. I see children everywhere, each one cuter than the next. Adopting a Malawian child suddenly doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea any more.
After postponing the paddle, we search for cheaper lodgings and find rooms at Steven’s Resthouse, costing R50 a night. Then Dawie and I cross the beach back to the Seattle Beach Bar, where we settle down.
 

Play in the park. Lake Malawi National Park was proclaimed in 1980 to protect the lake’s unique fish species and the Brachystegia trees growing on the slopes of the hills.
Cost: R35 per person, R7 per vehicle.

Admire the view. Climb Mount Nkhunguni above the bay to get a good view of the surroundings. Pay at the gate, walk from there to the missionaries’ graves and follow the green dots. The hike takes at least three hours, up and down, including a rest at the top. If you carry on straight along the path, you’ll arrive at Otter Point.

Pause at the graves. Near the start of the hiking trail are the graves of five missionaries who died of malaria. In the tiny museum inside the park I read that malaria was believed to come from the mist over the wetlands, hence “mal” (bad) and “aria” (air). Ask one of the staff to show you the baobab under which Livingstone preached when he passed through the area.

Have a sundowner. Otter Point, a national monument, is one of the best places to watch the sun set. Keep an eye out for otters; they’re particularly active in the early morning and late afternoon.

With a little help from the Beach Boys…
Cape Maclear’s beach boys are not the Californian pop singers of yesteryear, but young Malawians who will do anything to convince you to part with your kwachas. Pick one of the following things they offer:

1. Get a fish-eye view. If you forgot your mask, snorkel and fins athome, rent some from the beach boys, because Cape Maclear is a snorkelling paradise. You can negotiate with them to take you to West Thumbi, the island closest to Cape Maclear, or aim for Otter Point in the park.

2. Feed an eagle. Ask a beach boy to show you the “tame” fish eagle at West Thumbi island. Keep your camera ready as they throw a fish into the water and start clicking as it swoops in for its snack.

3. Dine on the beach. Taste the best fish, rice and tomato fry-up you’ve ever eaten. Watch it being prepared on the beach and eat it right there, sitting on the sand. Ask for kampango, a type of barbel, rather than chambo, which has become endangered due to overfishing.

Go! says: Bargain for a discount if you do a combination of activities. Two of us paid R250 for snorkelling, a trip to photograph the fish eagle and a fry-up – we went out on the boat Zimachitika (which means “it happens”), and it included the snorkelling gear.

Explore a little
Discover what it looks like under the surface of the lake and get to know the town of Cape Maclear.

Breathe underwater. Keen to scuba-dive but worried that you might not like it after spending thousands doing the course? Kayak Africa offers a compromise. Learn the basics, then go on an introductory dive with an instructor.
Cost: This “scuba experience” costs R525 per person. You can do the PADI Open Water Course at Scuba Shack for R1 600.

Wander around town. Get to know the meaning of the word “jambule” with Steady Jali as he accompanies you through Chembe village and tells you about the local traditions. (Jambule means “take a picture”.)
Cost: R28 for two hours. Book at Fat Monkeys.
 

Our very own island
The jukebox song playing at the Seattle Beach Bar fades as Dawie and I push our kayaks off the beach and aim for open water. Our destination is Domwe Island off Cape Maclear, which is part of the national park.
Kayak Africa, which has been doing business here for 18 years, built an eco camp six years ago on Domwe Island, where it has an exclusive concession. The camp consists of raised platforms and you can rent camp equipment or bring your own.
A guide paddles with us. Although Domwe Island is only separated from the mainland by a 20 m-tongue of water, it’s still a 5km paddle from the beach.
An hour later we drag the kayaks from the blue-green water.
The camp is set out on different levels among wild figs, granite boulders the size of small lorries and a giant baobab. Each of the five platforms is out of sight of the others. The shower is a bucket which the caretakers fill with hot water.
We have the island to ourselves tonight. This must be what Richard Branson feels like!

Into the wind
I wake as a strong wind tugs on the tent canvas. A while later, while I wait for our guide to arrive, I read in Malawi: The Warm Heart of Africa that people call the wind the mwera.
The waves made by the southeaster apparently ensure that the water remains oxygenated as they stir up the lake bed, lifting nutrients and food.
The mwera smacks us from the side as we aim the kayaks towards Mumbo Island, 8 km from here. Up and down we bob. In case you’ve ever wondered – yes, it is possible to feel seasick in a kayak.
We’re green around the gills by the time we greet our Canadian hostess. We eat a few peanuts and lie down until lunch, by which time we’re still a bit pale.
“Sorry that we’ve invaded your private island!” a voice booms next to me. It’s Tim, an American from Chicago, who joins us for the evening with his wife, Ann, and two children.
While they learn to play bao, a local board game, Dawie and I take a walk around the island. If you’re ever in the market to buy an island, look for something like Mumbo: It’s big enough to walk around in an hour and above us the three resident breeding pairs of fish eagles call non-stop.   
Brilliant!
The water around the island is our own personal aquarium. On our first scuba dive the next morning I see gold-and-purple fish, fish with black spots and royal blue fish called mbuna.   
Apparently there are about 1 000 different fish species in the lake and more than 90% of them occur nowhere else on earth.
It’s a difficult call when our visit to Mumbo ends – should we take the lazy route and head back on the boat with the Americans, or should we paddle back on our own?
We’ll be paddling directly into the wind, but we’d like to complete this tour the right way. With only a short distance left on the 10 km paddle, we take a breather in a small bay next to West Thumbi, the island in front of Cape Maclear.
“You’re only the second group this year that paddled the entire route between the islands,” our hostess says when we’re safely back on land. “Well done!”

If you’re camping...

Domwe Island. Rent camping gear or bring your own.
Camp fee: R115 per person (maximum four people per platform).
Contact: www.kayakafrica.net

Chembe Eagles’ Nest. A lodge away from the village. The camp is on grass, but you can’t park your vehicle next to your tent.
Camp fee: R42 per person.
Contact: www.chembenest.com

Gaia. Trees and good showers.
Camp fee: R25 per person.
Contact: 00265 994 8501

FatMonkeys. You pitch your tent on sand and you shouldn’t expect much privacy.
Camp fee: R20 per person. A double room costs R65 a night.
Contact: fatmonkeys@africaonline.net

Golden Sands. Pitch your tent in front of the dilapidated Cape Maclear Hotel. The beach and the silence are lovely, but the ablution facilities are terrible.
Camp fee: R12, but you also have to pay park fees of R55 a day.
Contact: 00265 158 7456

Spoil yourself…

Mumbo Island. Lie in a hammock at this resort with only the sound of water in your ears.
Cost: R1100 per person.
Contact: www.kayakafrica.net


Where to eat:

Tatsanze (Steven’s). The best omelettes and pancakes at only R9.

Labana. Fish and rice for only R7,50. Opposite Gaia Lodge.

Fat Monkeys. Pizza for between R21 and R46.

Gaia. Gaia offers good coffee and a great breakfast.

Self-catering. The nearest supermarket is in Monkey Bay, but you can buy fruit and vegetables at the market in Chembe.
 

On the deck!

I’m still in the People’s Superette, buying snacks, when I hear the horn signalling that the MV Ilala is about to depart.
I make a dash for the first-class deck, but we only leave Monkey Bay, which is 10 km as the crow flies from Cape Maclear, an hour-and-a-half later.
Tomorrow night Dawie and I will disembark on Likoma Island, which is Malawian territory despite being only a few kilometres from the Mozambican border.
That is, of course, provided the Ilala isn’t delayed again.
“In Malawi the answer is always either ‘10 minutes’ or ‘yes’, because people here are always eager to please,” says Adrian Phillipson, a doctor from Sheffield, England.
“‘Does this bus go to Blantyre?’ ‘Yes,’ they’ll answer with nodding heads. ‘Will the bus overturn half way and will I die a long, agonising death?’ ‘Yes,’ they’ll answer with more nods!” he says.
Besides Adrian there are also two Fins, a German couple and a Danish couple on board. Dawie and I and the Germans are sleeping under shade netting on the deck next to the bar, whereas the others are renting cabins on the second deck, where the dining room and showers are. The second- and third-class passengers travel in the hold, along with the cargo.
As the Ilala rounds Cape Maclear’s peninsula, we swing straight into the mwera’s path. To stop the nausea, we lie down on our rented mattresses

A lady of Scottish descent
At the first harbour, Chipoka, the Ilala carefully manoeuvres alongside the concrete jetty where a group of people are waiting. They climb onto the deck and listen attentively as their guide gives an enthusiastic safety demonstration.
“May I take a picture with you?” a member of his audience asks. The young woman’s name is Ruth. She and other staff members from a school in Lilongwe are on an outing and they’re being shown around the ferry. She’s 20 years old and it’s the first time she’s seen the lake. 
I wonder if her guide told her the Ilala’s history. “The ferry was built in Glasgow and sent to Monkey Bay in pieces,” Gift Nyanya, the Ilala’s chief officer, tells me. “She’s been on the water since the early 1950s.”
The boat’s name comes from the ilala palm, which is common in this region. It also means “travel” in Chichewa, which, alongside English, is one of Malawi’s official languages.
“The Ilala won’t sink, because she was built by the British,” Adrian jokes nervously as we sit down for supper in the “saloon”, as the dining room is called.
Outside, the wind is still howling and whipping up the waves.
As I lie in my sleeping bag after a lovely hot shower, I watch the sickle moon swinging like a pendulum in the sky as the boat yaws.

Cabbages and cars welcome
Some time in the night we stop at another harbour, Nkhotakhota. I have no idea how the crew managed to load everything onto the boat in the stormy weather, but when we wake in the morning, the bottom deck is packed with people and the passageways filled with cabbages, tomatoes and mealie meal.
At 9 am the Ilala stops at Metangula on the Mozambique side of the lake. The pulleys that lower the lifeboats start to groan – the lifeboats are used to ferry passengers and cargo. Bags of sugar, mattresses, carpets and baskets of cabbage are piled aboard. Toddlers are swept up and passed along like bags of onions.
Eventually, at 6.30pm, we arrive at Likoma Island.
As we scramble into the dinghy that will take us to the backpackers’ lodge on the other side of the island, a barge pulls up next to the ferry. On it is a silver Toyota bakkie that will be lifted onto the Ilala’s deck next. I would have liked to see that happen!

Ferry facts
How much? We paid R660 per person for the return trip to Likoma, sleeping on deck. In a cabin, it would have cost R1 215 per person. A one-way trip along the entire length of the lake, sleeping on the deck, costs R555.
Pack a sleeping bag; renting a mattress costs R10 a night.
Meals? About R20.
Contact: ilala@malawi.net
 

Feel the faith
After spending 36 hours on the water, I still feel like I’m bobbing around for at least half a day after returning to land. I fall asleep with that feeling in the simple thatched cottages of Mango Drift backpackers while the lake carries on slap-slap-slapping a few metres away.
Mango Drift is idyllic; you live on the beach and big baobabs line the water’s edge like pillars. The bottle-green leaves of the mango tree that serves as the roof of the bar stands out against the yellow grassy hills.
It’s Sunday, so Dawie and I get up early for the church service in St Peter’s Cathedral. Cathedral?
Yes, and it’s as big as Westminster Abbey in London!
The Anglican mission on Likoma was established in 1886; the congregation built St Peter’s between 1903 and 1905 on the spot where three witches were burnt to death in the previous century.
To get to the cathedral we follow a confusing network of footpaths that criss-cross the 8 km by 4 km island. In the old days, the mission hospital’s ambulance was the only car on the island, but nowadays there are 12 (although only seven are in running order).
In the doorway of the red-brick cathedral sits a woman in a purple cotton dress on which an image of St Peter’s is printed. Tickets are arranged on the ground next to her. “If anyone wants to take part in communion, they have to get a ticket from me and give a donation,” she explains.
The two Finnish travellers enter. I go to look at the courtyard. Behind me one of the three choirs starts singing, accompanied by drums and a keyboard.
In a room off the courtyard, a man in a maroon blazer is giving a Sunday school lesson.
“Prrraaaaise the Loorrrrrd!” he shouts, sounding like a wrestling commentator.
“Ha-le-lu-jah!” the children squeak in response.

Island idyll
The dhow in which we’re sailing to Chizimulu, Likoma’s neighbouring island, heels dramatically for the umpteenth time and we miss taking in water by a hair’s breadth.
I imagine the boat scooping a wave and capsizing, Dawie’s camera disappearing into the depths, along with all the photos of our trip.
Today is Monday and the last day of our holiday – tomorrow we get back on the Ilala for our return trip to Monkey Bay, the drive to Lilongwe and then the flight home.
We decided to charter a dhow and spend our last day on Chizimulu Island.
The dhow’s sails are a cleverly stitched patchwork of mealie and cement bags. Within minutes of getting in, my hands are sticky with tar as I nervously cling to the gunwales.
We reach the island in an hour (record time, apparently). We walk over to Wakwenda Retreat for a delicious breakfast of omelettes and pancakes. Then we put on masks and fins and explore the rocky shallows around the sun deck.
After I’ve had enough of peering at the colourful mbuna fish, I hoist myself onto the platform and bask in the sun. Every once in a while I see the tips of Dawie’s fins disappearing in a splash.
I close my eyes.
“Thirteen years ago I planned on spending only a month in Malawi,” “Chizi” Nick, Wakwenda’s owner, told us earlier. “Back then I still had a full head of hair… and no grey ones!” Like Kayak Africa’s diving instructor, our hostess on Mumbo Island and other foreign residents we’d met in Malawi, Nick decided to swap his life for a simpler one.
One of the lodges in Cape Maclear is urgently looking for a manager, I suddenly remember.
I open my eyes.
Around me the clear water slaps on the granite rocks and the baobabs raise their fingers into the blue sky.
Maybe I should phone that lodge and find out more...

Go to church. Visit St Peter’s Cathedral in the middle of the island. Father Vincent, who is almost 80, will show you around. St Mark’s is even older than St Peter’s. It’s on the hill above Kaya Mawa.

Eat in style. If you’re tired of eating fish and rice, drop in at the Kaya Mawa Hotel and enjoy a three-course meal for R250 per person.

Sail to Chizimulu. Transport by public dhow costs only R5, but it sails at 5am. We rented a dhow for R150 to take us across. You can also sail across on the Ilala or call Nick to come and fetch you for R25 per person if you plan to stay at the Wakwenda Retreat.

Hang out at the bar. The Hot Coconut is close to where the Ilala stops. An array of cartoons, featuring, among others, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, decorate the walls.

Stay over
Mango Drift. This lodge was taken over by the community a few months ago, so there are still a few growing pains where service is concerned. But the location is unbeatable. They’ll fetch you from the Ilala free of charge; going back costs R20.
Cost: R42 per hut.
Wakwenda Retreat. Drink a G&T with your toes in the sand.
Cost: R70 for a grass hut, R12 per person for camping.
Contact: 00265 934 8415 (cellphone) or 00265 135 7272/286
(This is the post office number – ask them to call Nick, then phone again in five minutes).
 

Samarie Smith was born in Malawi and often goes back to visit. She recommends the following…

Climb Mount Mulanje. In the south, you can hike, climb and rock climb, or simply admire the views.
Contact: www.mountmulanje.org.mw
See the plateau. Explore the beautiful Viphya plateau in the north with a guide who knows the area. The plateau is also a mountain biker’s dream.
Contact: Luwawa Forest Lodge wardlow@malawi.net
Play in the parks. To the north of Viphya is the Nyika National Park. It’s ideal for horse-riding, hiking and cycling. Besides Nyika, there’s also good game viewing in the Liwonde National Park.
Sleep over. You’ll find affordable lodgings in Lilongwe at the Kiboko Town Hotel (www.kibokohotel.com) or in an A-frame huts or tent in Mabuya Camp – the cheaper option (www.mabuyacamp.com).

Craig Barlow, a South African, has been living in Malawi since 1999. These are his suggestions…

Stock up. Malawi nowadays has the ubiquitous Shoprite and Game shops, but a visit to the local People’s Superette is still something we look forward to. We always stock up with Kamba crisps and Tambala peanut butter.
Try Taiwanee. Taiwanee Reef at Chizimulu Island stands out as a scuba-dive destination for its beauty and because getting there is a holiday in itself. The reef is an underwater mound of large boulders that reaches depths of more than 100m. The aquatic life is astounding, but this reef is for experienced divers only, as the currents can be dangerous.
Rave about Ruarwe. Visiting the village of Ruarwe is an extreme off-road experience, but the reward is being able to swim under a waterfall. To get there, drive to Mzuzu in the north, then find your way down a 30 km mountain track to the Usisya peninsula, a truly remote place. Ruarwe lies 5 km further. You can reach it either by walking through the forest or by paddling there in a canoe. The plant life, bird life and snorkelling around this area are among the best in Malawi.
Contact: info@lakeparadise.com
 

Best time to visit? Craig Barlow of Kaya Mawa says April is windless and not too hot. South Africans swarm to Fat Monkeys campsite in December.

Airfare? We paid R3000 per person for a Johannesburg–Lilongwe return flight.

Currency? The Malawian currency is the kwacha, but US dollars are widely accepted ($1 buys you about MK140). The prices we mention in the article, converted to rands, were correct at the time of travel.

More information? www.malawitourism.com
 
(Note: Prices accurate in October 2007)