I have been shockingly lax recently when it comes to posting things here on the subject that the blog was, originally, ostensibly about : travel.
Here then is part 2 of my diaries from 1996 about my trip to Malawi and Zambia. And, by the way, the title of these posts will, I promise, be explained eventually.
*
I woke early and took my camera for another walk around the area. It proved to be distinctly unphotogenic and after a couple of 'atmospheric' shots I gave up and returned to the hotel. In the grounds of the Golden Cockroach as someone had dubbed our accommodation, was a Korean restaurant - at least that's what it was called but there was nothing noticeably Korean about it. Nor for that matter noticeably Malawian. It was in a building leased from the Hotel but otherwise separate from it. Here we had breakfast, sitting at a table outside eating a plate of bananas, mangoes and fried eggs - a combination a good deal more appetising than it sounds. Barry had a Newman's Guide to the Birds of Southern Africa and at the sight of something colourful in one of the trees quickly consulted it to pronounce 'Redbilled Woodhoopoe' and again a minute later to identify a 'Cutthroat Finch'.
I groaned inwardly at the prospect of another trip shared with a bird-watcher.
After breakfast the Land Rover arrived with our driver and our cook. The cook, Peter, was a cheerful smiling fellow who clambered on top of the Land Rover and within minutes had all our waiting baggage stowed away under a plastic sheet which was firmly roped down to the roof. Soon we were under way, driving out through the flame trees and coral trees of suburban Lilongwe on our way to Kasito Lodge, our overnight stop for Wednesday.
The Malawi Forestry Department has around the country various lodges for guests. The ones in the Viphya Forest Reserve are called Kasito Lodges One and Two. As you climb towards the Viphya plateau from Mzimba the variegated colours of the brachystegia woodland are replaced by the darker greens of imported Mexican Pine with only smaller patches of indigenous trees remaining. Turning off the main road we approached Kasito Lodge Number One along a succession of sandy tracks. When I had read that we were to be in 'lodge accommodation' I had been a little apprehensive. After all that bland phrase could have meant almost anything. Kasito Lodge exceeded my wildest expectations. It is a sprawling former colonial residence which has magnificent views across the valley. It has half a dozen large bedrooms, a dining room, a large lounge with a wide and welcoming fireplace, extensive kitchens and two bathrooms and a shower. All of it is well maintained and comfortable and we had it all to ourselves.
The grey morning had given way to a glorious afternoon and most of us decided to go for a walk around the hills. Only Barry, who wanted to go walking alone, decided against the idea. The guide, wisely not trusting our sense of direction, suggested that one of the lodge employees should come with us to make sure that we did not get lost. Verten, a thin Malawian in dark blue overalls, led us up the hill through the trees. He was aged 30 and had 3 children but his English was not as good as Peter's and that was all I managed to find out about him before we cleared the trees and arrived at a large open space where a number of charcoal kilns could be found. They occupied a flat area at the top of the hill a little way short of the road. They were also conspicuously not working. While the five of us looked around Verten disappeared, re-appearing a few minutes later with Dervan, a former worker at the site whose English was considerably better. The charcoal kilns had, he explained been closed two years ago by the government but he would happily give us a tour anyway if we wanted one. We all agreed that we did.
There were two types of kiln there, hemispherical one ton kilns and cylindrical three ton kilns. They were all ingeniously constructed using a hinged template with two sliding pieces of wood and a hinged peg. This allowed them to create the circular shapes easily and accurately. The rows of the smaller version were built of diminishing sizes of brick to more easily obtain the correct shape. Once built, complete with a number of air vents and a door for loading they were packed tightly with pine logs and then the door was sealed up. The wood was then ignited via channels in the base and allowed to burn for three hours. The vents were then also sealed to starve the fire of oxygen and the outside of the kiln covered in mud to facilitate cooling. The larger kilns also had run off channels so that the creosote that is released when pine burns could be collected and sold.
He had mixed feelings about the closure. On the one hand he was unhappy to be out of a job when he had a wife and family to support, on the other hand it was an unpleasant and difficult job which he had never liked anyway.
The path led in a rough circle away from the lodge. Verten was guiding us and occasionally Sarah would ask him the name of one of the flowers but as he only ever knew the name in his own language, Tambuka, and invariably picked the flower to give to her she soon stopped bothering. The path continued to bend so that eventually it must lead roughly back towards our Lodge. At one point the ground was covered in hundreds of jet black millipedes emerging from tiny holes in the dirt. At our footfalls some retreated into the holes, others ignored us completely and others curled up into tight spirals, as hard as sea shells. Eventually we dipped down a slight slope and crossed a narrow stream. On the other side we climbed briefly and found ourselves approaching our point of departure.
As we approached another Lodge employee came bustling out with a large pot of tea and a plate of biscuits and we sat at a wooden table on the lawn eating and drinking. A tiny frog, no more than a centimetre long and with bright red feet hopped around in the grass and then posed for photographs before leaving us.
Dinner, the first of many to be cooked for us by Peter was a thick and tasty vegetable soup followed by a gigantic helping of shepherds' pie. It was excellent and afterwards we sat with our drinks in front of a blazing log fire and introduced ourselves 'officially.'
Geoff, the Safari leader, was a former South African lawyer who had decided that the city life was not for him and that this would suit him better. He and his wife had been on their way to visit Kenya when they decided to settle instead on the shore of Lake Malawi.
David and Louise were together. They were both vegetarians and both did some kind of work connected with ecology, the kind of people that can say 'minimum impact tourism' and 'ecologically responsible resource management' with a straight face.
Barry, my room mate, was a lifelong fan of Africa and had travelled in almost every bit of there is to travel in. He was certainly knowledgeable but he had a self-aggrandising attitude that I did not take to. His heart was in the right place but he was rather too smug and pompous for me to find him particularly likable.
Sheila was a teaching sister from an Edinburgh hospital and was about sixty years old. She had taught a number of African students who had gone on to return to their own countries to practise, including some to Malawi.
Sarah, a business analyst, was a thirty-something widow, also from Edinburgh.
And, of course, there was me, a thirty-something systems analyst working for a police authority who likes to travel to as many different places as possible and meet as many different people as possible to which end this was my first visit to Africa apart from a thoroughly unenjoyable week spent in Tunisia some years earlier.
We ate and introduced ourselves and sat in the cooling air of an African evening and everyone agreed that it looked like being a splendid trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment