The wilder shore

The final leg of a 30-day trek across East Africa sees lan Tyrer and the Africa - Wild & Untamed crew explore both shores of Lake Malawi. Get ready for an overloaded ferry, a croc attack and being surrounded by elephants...

We used a succession of different taxis to get from the MalawiTanzania border at Songwe to Nkhata Bay on the shore of Lake Malawi. This 315 km leg of our journey took 12 hours. Our drivers regularly got pulled over at police roadblocks and told to pay some sort of fine, apparently because of the five zungus in the car… Each delay cost us about 20 minutes and R20 before we could continue our journey.

I was travelling with my son Ryan, friends Pete Meyer and Paul Kalil, and Paul’s son Josh. In Nkatha Bay, we stayed at Soul Rebel Lodge & Backpackers, where we caught our breath for three nights, flattened a few medicinal rum and Cokes and did our laundry. Our first night was noisy – the village dogs were celebrating something. Another example of why I always pack earplugs…

The sweet-as-can-be sunrise over the lake the next morning made up for the restless night, and by late afternoon we’d recovered sufficiently to appreciate what we’d achieved so far. Our so-called Africa – Wild & Untamed adventure had started 22 days previously, when we flew from Durban to Ethiopia. In the weeks that followed, we whizzed through Rwanda and Uganda before heading to Tanzania (first to Mafia Island and then inland to Mbeya) and now here, to Malawi. (See issues #190 and #191 – Ed.)

The lads – i.e. the two youngsters in our ranks, Ryan and Josh – had heard there was a party happening at nearby Butterfly Space Eco Lodge on our last night at Soul Rebel, so off they went. The festivities apparently carried on late into the night…