“It’s so calm; it looks just like a lake.”
“It is a lake Chloe.”
To give Chloe credit, it is easy to forget that Lake Malawi isn’t a sea, but an enormous lake stretching as far as the eye can see. But it’s not a sea, it is a lake, with crystal clear fresh water that’s absolutely beautiful to swim in. It’s been ridiculously hot of late, the kind of heat that soaks you with sweat the moment you step into it, so for the past week swimming is about all we’ve done.
After trekking across Mozambique on the train with a lady who did her whole months shopping out our window, catching a bicycle taxi across the border and almost breaking it with the weight of our bags, and a few elephants at Liwonde NP, we made our way to Cape Maclear for some well deserved R&R. The lake was the first, second and last thing we did. Children climbed all over Chloe in the water before splashing away as soon as I started swimming across. As Chloe watched me complete my dive course whilst lying sick in bed in Mozambique, she was quite happy to go for a dive in the UNESCO world heritage Lake Malawi NP.
We gathered a few travellers together and charted a boat across to Senga Bay – figuring that it would be far more comfortable than a minibus. We set of with relatively calm waters and an oddball collection of travellers, musicians and hoboes and cast our eyes into the distant waters. About halfway they stopped engines in the middle of the lake and we all clambered onto the roof of the rickety boat to perform bomb dives, back flips or belly flops into the tranquil waters. The boat started it’s engines again and for a second we though they might drive off with our bags, passport and cameras and leave us in the middle of the lake, but they just drove a little closer so we could climb back onboard for the remaining hour of our trip. It wasn’t long before people realised that a few hours on a small boat isn’t as comfortable or romantic as it appeared from the outset.
We arrived at Senga Bay for the 5th International Lake of Stars Festival – a UK based three day music festival featuring Malawian and British acts including Seth Lakemann, Scratch Pervert and a bunch of other people we’ve never heard of but are apparently not too shabby in the UK as well as a bunch of great Malawian acts, with all of the profits going to charity. We signed on as photographers and have been snapping away like crazy and having a little boogie in our down time. We’ve become used to waking at sunrise and going to bed at sunset and all of a sudden we’ve entered a festival working in British time where things go all night, and after taking photos all day in the heat, we become quite tired quite quickly, but still love every minute of it.
Next stop Livingstonia, so until then “Tionana”
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/289
http://www.lakeofstars.org/
http://thelakeofstars.blogspot.com/
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