Finally, Vwaza Marsh
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
25
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
Rumphi,
Malawi
Monday, April 23, 2007
Elephants seen in the bush
. I gladly changed my money here, and proceeded to Malawian immigration.Again, there were no queues, and I was given my free one-month visa without any trouble. I was required to state how much money I had on me, and was worried when the guard conferred with his colleague upon acquiring this piece of information. Fortunately they didn't find any reason for me to have to share my wealth with them, and I was waved through.
I walked along a little path to reach a small village, with one-story shacks, where I found a matola (Malawi's name for a matatu) that would bring me as far as Karanga, about two hour's drive away. Once full, we drove off, and I excitedly looked at the new country I was passing through. The landscape was flat, often with wet marshlands, where there were fields of rice growing. The road was in fairly good condition, paved, although often potholed. The people looked quite poor, although to be honest, no more so than in southern Tanzania.
Karanga was a small transit town, about 2km of a street lined with little houses and shops. It was a novel experience to be able to climb down off the bus without any hassle whatsoever - I walked right out of the bus station without anything but hellos and smiles
Elephants, just before they charged me...
. I had a vegetable curry with a coke (for less than a dollar) in a little restaurant across the road from the station, and went back to find a bus to Rumphi, where I would spend the night. I found a bus that was nearly full, so I wasn't waiting long before we took off for the final four-hour leg of my trip.Unfortunately the seat I got was a particularly cramped one, and within half an hour my whole right leg was in agony. Sleep was impossible, so I just grimaced and tried to ignore the increasing pain. We broke down after two hours, and for once I was delighted at the inevitable pitstop every African bus journey seems to have. I was able to walk around, and drew some unusual looks from my fellow passengers when I bent over and grabbed my toes in order to try to get rid of the cramps I had in my leg.
Eventually whatever was broken was repaired, and we set off again. I started chatting to the man next to me for the rest of the way, which served to distract me from my leg pains. Paul (not his real name) told me he worked as a journalist for the Malawian Broadcasting Company (MBC), the state-owned radio station. Malawi has had two presidents since the president-for-life Dr. Hastings Banda was ousted from power in 1994. The first, Bakili Muluzi led a particularly corrupt government, most famous for its role in the disappearance of $5m of aid money meant for education in the country
I had to ask if I could have a photo with it...
. They were still a welcome change from Banda's dictatorship, but their corruption had further stagnated the economy of one of the world's poorest countries. Bingu Wa Muntharika was elected president in 2004, and Paul told me that he is popularly supported for trying to improve things in Malawi. He has made a strong stand against corruption, although this is no proof that his government has not been skimming money from the state coffers themselves. Paul said that it is too early to judge whether he has been successful or not, and any evidence of corruption will take a long time to surface.After an hour or so I arrived at the junction where I would get further transport to Rumphi, and bid Paul goodbye, swapping emails with him so that I might hope to meet him when I reach Mzuzu. I found another matola immediately and made my way to Rumphi, only ten kilometres away. Every matola (or matatu, for that matter) has two workers in it, the driver and the conductor, who collects the fares from the passengers. I chatted and joked with the conductor of this matola all the way to Rumphi. He only charged me 50 Kwacha instead of the usual 70 Kwacha after hearing about my long journey, saying I must find it very expensive and that he would like to help me a little. This was not the first time that I had been impressed by how kind, warm and incredibly friendly the Malawian people are. Despite their difficulties in life they seem to be a very happy people, and always go out of their way to help the wandering mzungu, and to make him feel welcome
Impalas by the lake
.Rumphi was a lovely little town set against a backdrop of green hills, with dusty streets and one-story dukas and houses. I found a great hotel there for about $3 and dropped my stuff, feeling incredibly happy that my long journey from Kigoma was nearly over. The receptionist in the hotel came to my room after I had showered, and timidly asked if I would mind calling out to see him later; he was interested in hearing about Ireland and my travels. I went out to him and told him all he wanted to know. He asked, as many others have, if I knew a way that he could get to Ireland. I told him that it is difficult to get a visa there, and that he would need a lot of money for his flight, and then to live in our ludicrously overpriced country. He couldn't believe that it is perfectly normal to pay $7 for a sandwich in Ireland, and then told me that he earns $10 a week in his work. He works fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, and never has any time off.
The following day I went to Vwaza Marsh National Park, about 30km from Rumphi. I had hoped that getting transport there in the form of a matola would be fairly straightforward, but it was not to be so. I learned that there were no matolas going that way any more, as the road was too bad. Instead I had to wait four hours for a pickup truck to go
Impalas, running
. As I was one of the first to claim a place inside it I was given the more comfortable seat up front. In between the driver and I sat a girl of no more than fifteen with her young baby. The child was very sick, with sores on its head and a terrible cough. The girl smelled very badly, and flies swarmed around them, further aggravating the poor baby who cried most of the way there. Due to the bad road conditions the journey took two very slow and bumpy hours.I was dropped at the gate of the national park, and walked inside, hoping that I would be able to get accommodation, food and some sort of a "safari" without having a vehicle. Vwaza is one of the few national parks in Africa where none of those things are needed, and this is one of the main reasons I was coming here. Safaris in the Serengetti or Masai Mara in Tanzania and Kenya respectively were far out of the reach of my budget, so I hadn't really seen much of Africa's big wildlife yet. At the park headquarters I was told that all was possible, and was led inside to a simple hut where I would spend the night. The hut was looking out on a marshy lake, within which I could see the heads of hippos popping up from time to time.
The problem of not having my own food was also easily solved, Stanford, one of the park's guides, drove me to a nearby village where I bought some food for the evening: small tomatoes, dried soya pieces, rice and vegetable oil
Kudu, by lake
. The camp's cook later managed to turn these simple ingredients into quite a tasty meal, which he cooked for me for free (although he did get a tip in honour of how good it tasted). That afternoon I set off on a walking safari with Stanford and an armed guard, as protection from any animal that should try to take us on. Within three minutes of going into the bush we came across a family of African elephants, who stood only ten metres away from us on the path, eating leaves from the trees. We couldn't continue that way, as the elephants are too dangerous, so we returned and walked around the lake for a while. By the lakeside we saw baboons and impalas in a group together. Stanford told me that the impalas like to stay close to baboons, as the baboons (who are often high in the trees) offer them warnings of approaching predators. The baboons also knock some fruit from the trees which the impalas will then eat.
We returned to the bush then, and walked along a path for an hour or so, without seeing any animals. There were wonderfully coloured birds to be seen, though, with most unusual calls. The walk itself was nice also; it was my first time to be in proper African bushlands. The trees were mostly low and thick. Many trees had been pushed over by elephants, so that they could get at their leaves
Peek-a-booh, Mr. Hippo
.When we came back out to the lakeshore the lack of animal sightings was more than made up for. First we saw several groups of impalas, then two warthogs, two Kudus, and another group of baboons. We spent about ten minutes watching hippos that were only three to five metres away from us. These huge, dangerous animals were incredible to witness, coming up for air, and sometimes yawning, showing off their enormous jaws. Hippos kill more humans than any other animal in Africa. They are herbivores, but if one goes into water where they are resting, or comes between them and water when they are outside they will charge and kill. It is mostly fishermen that fall victim to their powerful jaws, as they often fish in areas where hippos live; fish are plentiful in these areas because of the good food source provided by the hippos' droppings.
I returned to the hut about an hour before nightfall and sat outside enjoying the beautiful scene before me cast in the fading orange light of an African sunset. Stanford called me a few minutes later to tell me that the elephants had come to the camp, and were only about 50m away. I went up to see them, again they were feeding off the trees by the side of the dirt track. I took a few photos and admired their graceful power, remarking how different they looked to Asian elephants. What happened next brought my encounter with these animals a little too close for comfort
Sausage tree
.A car drove down the track, from the park's entrance, placing the elephants between me and it. The elephants took fright and started to charge towards me. For animals that lumber along almost in slow-motion when tranquil, they can charge at a frighteningly fast rate. It took me about a second to realize that they were heading straight for me (about 10m away), and that I had better run if I wanted to live. I turned on my heel and ran faster that I have ever run in my life, heart pounding, hearing the elephants thundering behind me, roaring in fear. I reached my hut and turned around to see that they had stopped running, as the car had turned the other way. I was fortunate that they were running away from the car and not charging at me, as I feel that if it had been their intention to trample on me that they could have easily done it. Only three weeks ago some tourists in Zimbabwe met their death in this most unpleasant fashion.
After quite some time trying to calm myself down and stop shaking my dinner arrived and I ate it in the fading light. There is no electricity in this camp, and I sat outside my hut using a kerosene lamp to see around me, admiring the stars of the African sky. About an hour after dark I could hear the hippos sloshing out of the water, coming to feed for the night. I fell asleep to the sounds of them chomping grass around my hut and bellowing at each other. Needless to say, any desires to pee during the night were ignored.
