Africa is Dead!!!!! Or so it Smells. The smells and aromas that we have passed through, have sometimes been sweet, rotten, flowery, dead – fish, sewerage, forests, cooking, frying, baking, chilly, spicy etc etc. But, mostly bad! And it keeps changing. Every village we pass through has a variety of smells, depending on the distance from the sea, lake, fields etc. Maybe we are just more exposed to them, than in a car??
But actually, Africa is thriving. Since we left the Eastern Cape, we have seen only lush, green, tropical environment. Admittedly, this has been the rainy season, and we have experienced our share of that. Everywhere we go, everything is growing, whether planted or wild. The crops along the roads have amazed us – it seems as though anything will grow, wherever it is stuck in the ground. Maize, Casava, Tobacco, bananas, lots of mangoes, potatoes, sugar cane, rubber tree forest. Unfortunately, very little of the natural environment remains, EVERYWHERE we go, there are thousands and thousands of children / people. It is difficult to find anywhere to stop along the road, for a picnic or P. It is very worrying to see how many children there are, and realize how overpopulated Africa seems to be. In Malawi, there seems to be sooo much aid – Everything runs on aid, schools, clinics, vehicles, so many signs say EU this, or project that. Surely this must be the country in Africa that receives the most foreign aid? We heard that 21 000 classrooms have or will be built by the UK???? Although we still frequently pass groups of school children, being taught under a nearby tree.
I am sitting on a small balcony, outside a small bedroom – no tent – about 8 m above the edge of the lake, listening to big waves crashing on the rocks below. Today we rode 330 km, from Steps Campsite at Senga bay, to Moyoka Village, at Nkhata bay. Took us about 6 hours, so we travel very slowly, due to constant people and villages along the road. About an hour after leaving, we arrived at a detour – for bikes and people only. Cars had to go back, and detour 50km to the north. The bridge on the road was being re-built, and there was a small wooden footbridge a bit lower down the stream, which we managed to cross with the bikes, amidst being hassled, pushed and shoved etc by the touts, all trying to help, and charge some sort of fee. Further on, a huge storm was passing in front of us, and we neared it with a bit of trepidation, only to find that it had passed towards the lake in front of us, leaving some destruction. A very large tree had fallen across the entire road shortly before we got there, and the locals were just starting to try to trim branches etc to get it cleared. We managed to pass, by going off the road, almost to the nearest hut, and passed just beyond the top branches of the tree – again while be hassled by hundreds of locals, and the usual touts wanting to extract a toll fee! A few roofs had also blown of some of the local houses – surprisingly, the thatch built houses seemed to have survived better than those with corrugated iron!
When we eventually arrived at Nkhata bay, we drove around slowly, to find somewhere to stay, and stumbled onto Moyoka Village, where we set up our tent, pegged it down on the steep slopes, and watched a big storm approaching. Then, a luck! Gary and Katherine (owners )offered us a room, at the same price as camping! Couldn’t turn down such an offer! This place is fantastic, little stone huts built onto and into the steep, rocky hillside, with two or three small patches left open for tents. Camping is 850 Kwatcha per person, and the rooms are normally 2300. This equates to about R35, and R100!!! Tonight we will test the restaurant!!
At Steps Camp site, we had met a variety of other travelers, including 3 Dutch people – two guys and a girl (about our age) who flew their motor bikes from Holland to Cape Town, and are making their way to Dar Es Salaam. There were originally 5 of them, but the group has split a bit, but they will all meet again in Dar, to ship the bikes back home. We also met the German people in the overland truck, that we met at Fat monkey. And, a girl whose parents live in Grahamstown, her mother is in the same Rotary club as Sharon – Pauline Mitchell. She and her Zim boyfriend have travelled in a Toyota all the way down the West Coast of Africa, and are now zig zagging a bit, for the next three months. Also in Camp, where some French people, who had had an accident in their Pajero, and were waiting for new front end spares – significant damage.
We are now a bit more than halfway up the lake, and will move to another stop near the top, before crossing into Tanzania in a few days time.
27 /1 /11
Today we will take it easy, as we both have upset stomachs, and Sharon has a very sore throat. Have put her onto an anti-biotic, and will watch carefully to see if she possibly has malaria. We certainly encountered enough mozzies is Moz to make this a possibility! Hopefully, we will have the energy to sort some pics, and find and internet café a bit later, to keep everybody posted.
Wish you were here!!!
L
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