The day didn’t get off to the best of starts when the lad in Mulanje View Motel’s restaurant decided that he wasn’t going to serve us any breakfast. He’d taken our order but then promptly went on to serve everyone that came in after us and give us nothing. We walked out in a huff, picked up our bags and wandered up to the bus stand. Fortunately there are always street vendors selling snacks so we grabbed something for a matter of pence.
Even though we knew we only had about 300kms to cover today we knew it wasn’t going to be straight-forward. A van to Limbe was steadily filling up and we were lucky enough to get the front 2 seats – we’d hoped to secure these as the police don’t allow them to cram in a third person. The leg of the journey took about 1 ½ hours and cost Kw900 each. Our van driver was kind enough to point out the next vehicle going to Monkey Bay and again we bagged the front seats. Once more we’d managed to negotiate a change of transport in Limbe without losing any of our valuables or possessions. We paid our Kw4000 each and settled in for the 6 hour trip to Monkey Bay which we hoped to reach in daylight as we would have to find somewhere to stay.
We should have known things were going too swimmingly! On reaching Mangochi about 4 ½ hours later our driver decided he wasn’t going to Monkey Bay after all and we had to transfer onto a different vehicle. We’d paid all the way to Monkey Bay and to be fair he did pass on the required amount but unfortunately this was for the empty van not the almost full bus. We sat there for over an hour waiting for the van to fill up but eventually continued to make progress. On reaching the junction to Cape Maclear a pick-up truck was collecting passengers and we were bundled from van to pick-up without having time to think about our actions. It was a slow, bumpy final 18kms in a heavily laden truck (Kw 1000 each) and the sun had set by the time we reached Cape Maclear.
There were a couple of other tourists on board who were headed to Fat Monkeys so we thought we may as well get down there too. Unfortunately they only had dorm rooms left which was probably a blessing in disguise as their private rooms were $65. We had no choice but to retrace the kilometre back to town in the pitch black and hope that someone else had a vacancy. The receptionist at Fat Monkeys reckoned that Mgoza Lodge had room available so we headed there. They had a few rooms to choose from but they were all being offered at the inflated rate of $65 without breakfast. In the end the lad who showed us the room persuaded us to stay saying that we’d be able to negotiate the price with the boss in the morning. It was dark, we were tired, hungry and thirsty so decided to take the gamble.
It had taken us 11 hours and 4 different vehicles to cover a relatively short distance – I wouldn’t care but the road surfaces are pretty good here. The trouble is the vehicles travel slower than they’re capable of due to overloading and the mini-vans stop umpteen times to unload and reload goods and people. It’s not even particularly cheap travel due to the high cost of fuel – about the same per litre as it is in Britain.
Cape Maclear
The good news is that the boss was willing to accept our maximum budget of $50 a night so we could relax and enjoy our time here. We then discovered that we’d reached this popular destination during a long holiday weekend and they weren’t sure how many nights we’d be able to stay for. In the end we stayed 3 nights but had to change rooms for the last night. With everywhere else being fully booked that forced our hand and dictated how long we’d lounge around by the lake. On checking out other accommodation options we soon established that we’d been lucky enough to find a room in the best place in the bay.
Mgoza Lodge has an excellent set up with the rooms overlooking a well-kept garden that leads right down to the lakeshore. The rooms are simply yet attractively furnished and we got loads of piping hot water in the shower. Only one room has a private balcony (we had that for the first 2 nights) but there’s loads of comfy chairs etc in the garden. The restaurant has a good menu, the food is very tasty and we couldn’t find anywhere that offered better value for money. You might have guessed by now that we liked it there! The only negative thing I can say that as soon as the sun was up it was quite noisy with children playing in the lake and people washing pots and themselves. http://www.mgozalodge.com/
In fact the whole shoreline throughout the village was a constant hive of washing, playing and fishing activity. People are constantly trying to sell you goods and services but they’re certainly not pushy. The children with their homemade instruments can be a tad annoying but that could be down to us finding it sad seeing bairns ‘begging’ for money. At least they were trying to entertain and not just sticking their hands out demanding; “Give me money”. We’d read good things about snorkelling in the lake but had simultaneously read about the real risk of contracting bilharzia. We asked around to find out that there is a preventative medicine available but unfortunately only in the larger cities. So that put pay to any water based activities that involved getting wet – I know Steve was disappointed as he’d fancied the idea of fresh water snorkelling for a change.
So what did we do? For the first day we were happy to simply potter around and relax following our few days trekking on Mount Mulanje. Cape Maclear is a bigger village than we’d expected and it’s spread out along several kilometres of shoreline. People live in very simple traditional huts and the place generally has a well ordered, neat and tidy feel to it. Although one area had a decidedly abandoned feel to it – rather like a Sri Lankan beach resort in monsoon season. As you wander through the town people will warmly greet you and we didn’t encounter anyone who wanted to try to extract cash from us for whatever reason. We contemplated a boat ride but they were relatively expensive and we felt we wouldn’t actually see much. Instead we decided to walk to otter point to see if we could spot any of my favourite aquatic mammals. Well, that was the plan until we reached the entrance to the small protected area of forest to find it would cost us $10 a head to enter. That’s the same price as the proper national parks and we knew it wasn’t worth it so that put pay to that activity too. In short we lounged around with novels, typed journals, pottered, ate lots of nice food and supped sunset beer. This is a holiday after all!
