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No Nik Naks in Nyika
"He's nicked my Nik Naks!"
Angela's despairing cry was sadly too late to save the last packet of her favourite savoury snack from the talons of a white backed raven. I did feel for her, her second last packet had been snatched from the rear parcel shelf of the Landrover by a very agile Vervet monkey in South Luangwa!
Naughty animals have been a running theme of our trip north of Namibia. Sat around the campfire at Mukambi Lodge, Zambia, with Jerry & Lisa, Angela had uttered the fatal words "it's too dark for the Vervets now". Barely had she finished the sentence when a male Vervet descended from a nearby tree, dashed to our campfire and extracted 2 foil wrapped baked potatoes from the centre of the flames. His sense of timing was perfect, except in regards to the temperature of the potatoes. Watching the monkey attempt to juggle the spuds once he realised how hot they were was one of the most hilarious animal moments we've had in Africa!
Apart from ravens and tyre chewing Spotted Hyaena (they were having a holiday when we were there fortunately) Nyika National Park in Northern Malawi has no naughty animals to worry about. It had taken a bone jarring, car bashing 7 hours to drive up to the park, a 2,500 metre high plateau covering 3,100 square kilometres. The road had got worse after Rumphi (stop it Carol, Rumphi is the name of a town and the last fuel stop, well it would be a fuel stop if they'd had any petrol in the pumps!) so it was a relief to get to the park with everything still attached!
After the heat of Lake Malawi and the close proximity of hundreds of thousands of Malawians, we were craving for some wild open spaces and Nyika did not disappoint. Imagine stunning vistas of rolling moorland with granite outcrops and wooded valleys, which made us alternately homesick for Scotland, Dartmoor, the New Forest and the Brecon Beacons (I lied about the latter, being homesick for an area of Wales is a bit of an oxymoron!)
Unlike the UK this moorland is a vast uninhabited area, populated by a variety of antelope species and, preying on them, the most concentrated population of leopards in Central Africa. Incredibly Angela managed to spot a leopard in thick bracken (the latter imported by homesick British colonists to make it more like Scotland!) in the afternoon sunshine. This means that we have seen leopard in every African country we've visited, (OK it makes us happy, maybe we should get out a bit more?)
Nyika's other great asset apart from wildness, beauty and animals is the climate. Despite being on the edge of the Great Rift Valley and almost halfway up Africa, an altitude of 2,488 metres meant that we were glad of a huge log fire each night at the campsite.
Whilst sat around that fire with Dutch friends Eric and Simone (are there any Dutch people left in Holland?) we had a very moving close encounter with…a small herd of zebra. By keeping still and quiet (not easy for Angela) we were able to relax the zebra to the point that they were content to graze up to 10 feet from our fire. With our vision aided by full moonlight it was a rare privilege to be so close to these notoriously shy animals.
Nyika is also a treasure trove of wild flowers and orchids, rare butterflies and moths and the most southern Juniper forests in Africa. It is truly a unique landscape and a UK based trust has been set up to look after it. Jerry and Lisa (Landy 110 friends who accompanied us in Caprivi and Kafue) ran the Trust here in 2009 and we had thought about volunteering to do the same for this year.
With hindsight we are glad we didn't, it is the sort of place where you could end up with cabin fever, especially in the summer rains season when going to Mzuzu, (the nearest town for provisions, fuel, internet and mobile reception) requires some advanced 4x4 driving and an overnight stay. Just as an aside Michael Palin described Mzuzu as the friendliest place in Africa, and if the fruit and veg sellers in town are anything to go by he is probably right.
Andrew, the current manager of the Trust and fellow Brit, had clearly got a touch of cabin fever and was looking forward to the end of his tenure in December. The remoteness combined with the joys of dealing with 100 local staff, their dependents, a logging company and a very odd Australian couple managing a private lodge down the road would even wipe the smile off Michael Palin's face!
Malawi has been offered a US$5 million grant over 5 years to improve the tourism infrastructure of Nyika to generate much needed foreign exchange income. It is rightly conditional on the subsistence (and uneconomic) pine logging industry (started by the British in the 1950s sadly) being closed down and the plantations being gradually replaced by indigenous trees. The President's brother in law and the ex head of the Malawi Dept of Wildlife own the logging company so you've guessed it, the logging continues and the grant remains pending!
We reluctantly descended from Nyika (to avoid running out of fuel) to the hot and sweaty lake shores of Vwaza Game Reserve and a re-union with our old friends, hippos, in this case hundreds of them forced to get on with each other as the lake waters evaporated in the heat. Vwaza re-united us with another familiar but less welcome adversary, the tsetse fly. Fortunately, the tsetse here, perhaps taking their cue from the Malawians, seemed very laid back and less keen to tap in to our blood stream!
After Vwaza it was time to find some fuel and head back to the Lake to do some washing (us, clothes and the car, Nyika's roads were coated in fine red mud dust that got in to every orifice) and relaxing on the beach.
This time we chose the stunning setting of Makuzi Lodge, a beautiful white beach protected by headlands at either end, a peaceful quiet and relatively empty spot on the Lake. You could easily imagine yourself to be in the Caribbean or the Seychelles with the added advantage of no nasty sea going predators like sharks, stonefish and jellyfish.
The illusion of paradise on earth was popped by fellow campers Chris and Sabi from Hong Kong when they mentioned the 'C' word to us, crocodiles! It transpired that last April a guy swimming out 300 metres to a small island outcrop was grabbed by an 11 foot croc. Fortunately he was able to fight it off and recovered from a badly mauled leg after being airlifted to J'burg.
Up until this point we had been thinking that Bilharzia represented the only downside to paradise. This snail borne parasite is prevalent in Lake Malawi and if it gets in to the blood stream can cause serious liver damage. We assiduously followed the prevailing local advice of staying clear of stagnant, reed areas of the shore and ensuring that we swam in open water…where the crocodiles were likely to be….!!!!
Spare a thought then for the original Scottish missionaries who followed Livingstone to this area in the 1880s to save souls. Crocs and Bilharzia were not a problem for them, as they no doubt thought swimming was ungodly, but they succumbed to a far more notorious killer, malaria.
The graveyard at the Bandawe Mission church (built 1881) bears testament to the ravages of this disease, judging by the number of young Scots buried there. The living accommodation, sadly no longer standing, was built with the doors and windows facing away from the Lake in the mistaken belief that 'miasma' from the Lake was causing them to die. Eventually the mission was abandoned and a new one built in a healthier climate further north.
For us the options are easier, we take our weekly Lariam tablets and try to avoid being bitten by mozzies, the latter is easier said than done for me but Angela remains unbitten. I think I should donate her body to the anti-malarial campaign!
Time to head south to explore yet more beaches in the lower end of the 365 mile long lake and some of the game reserves nearer to the Mozambique border.
Life is hell in Africa!!!!
Thanks are due to Andrew at Nyika Trust for lending us a sleeping bag to stave off the relative cold of 10C night temperatures, and for giving us some insights in to the park and it's politics. Good luck with the rains!
Thanks also to Eric & Simone for the company at Nyika, Vwaza and Lilongwe and for all the provisions, thanks also to Chris & Sabi for the Mozambique advice.
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