Monkey Bay Revisited

Transcom Guest House

S 14º 08’ 04” E 34º 55’ 96”

Peter, Carol and I had enjoyed a few bottles of wine as well as numerous bottles of Carlsberg Green with supper the night before, and although I woke up at the usual time, (5.00 am!) I fell asleep again and only woke two hors later… Paul had already left for school and Peter was preparing to go to work, keeping the economy of Malawi flowing smoothly… (Somebody’s got to do it…!)

I spent the morning catching up on my journal, while my clothes shouted happily from the inside of the first washing machine they had seen in weeks… I had planned to give the “Big Fella” his first wash since Grootfontein, but lethargy got the better of me, and I put this task off until next week, after we returned from the Lake…

Peter and Paul arrived home from their morning’s endeavours, and we packed his Prado with our gear and provisions and headed for the lake. We followed their neighbour Grant’s bakkie, with whom we would be spending the weekend at the lake… We drove through the outskirts of Lilongwe, past fields of maize, planted on either side of the road in every available level plot of land. There was also large fields of tobacco planted close to the homesteads which dotted this area…It drizzled as we drove, and out towards the lake, clouds were building up… We drove due east to Salima, and then turned south, running parallel to the Dedza Mountains to the west of us.

Transcom Guest House, Mangochi, Lake Malawi…

Clouds were draped over the mountains, seemingly held there by the fingers of dense vegetation which covered the range’s flanks and peaks. We turned east onto a gravel road for the final 40km run to the strip of tar road that runs along the edge of the lake from Monkey Bay to Mangochi in the south… The Transcom Guest House was located along this stretch of road about fifteen kilometres outside of Monkey Bay…

Stately Baobabs lined our route, and I marvelled again at the beauty of these magnificent trees… Upon our arrival at the guest house, the staff there gathered to assist us with our gear, and we were soon all settled into the various rooms we had been allocated to. From my window, I looked down over rolling lawns, dotted with large shady trees, including a pair of medium sized Baobabs, and onto the smooth surface of the lake… Small waves lapped gently at the wide beach… This was as beautiful a setting as the house on the lake just south of us, which we had stayed in a few years ago, when we visited Peter and Carol during the July school holidays. My mind flew back to the days we had spent here, when we had all had a fantastic time on the lake, the girls and I spending our days snorkelling amongst the reeds, between thousands of cichlid fish, who were sheltering there, safe from the larger predatory fish waiting in the shallows… It had been idyllic…and I wished that they were here with me again…

We launched Peter’s boat, and in the process of doing so, disturbed a young Tiger snake, which I caught and removed to safety, knowing what would happen to it if the staff set eyes on it…. We piled aboard and with Peter’s son Paul at the helm, chugged out onto the surface of the lake to enjoy the sunset… Paul handled the boat with a confidence that belied his age, and I wished that Roxanne (who had been Paul’s classmate back in Nelspruit) could be here to see him… I knew she would have been as impressed as I was…

Peter’s boat is launched onto a mirror flat Lake Malawi….

The lake was like a mirror, the clouds and the trees lining its edge reflecting off the calm surface… After a few hundred metres, Paul cut the engine, and turned the nose towards the setting sun, where clouds still hung over the Dedza Mountains, and the sun peeped through gaps in them… With Carlsbergs and soft drinks in hand, the eight of us sat watching the day come to an end, while the boat drifted gently towards a pair of fisherman in their dugouts who wee casting their nets hopefully across the surface of the lake…

There is something about a beautiful sunset that brings peace to my soul, and this evening was no different, even though there was so much cloud about… The hills to the south of us marched down towards the shores of the lake and stood starkly outlined against the gray water and even darker skies. For a few minutes, the sun found a gap in the thick cover overhead and a wide molten stripe of orange was splashed across the lake towards our drifting boat… Cameras were hauled out and photos snapped…. (I had forgotten to bring mine, and quietly bit a hole in my cheek in frustration!!) More beers were passed around… “This is my Africa!” I thought… Beautiful setting with great friends, sharing the end of another African day…

With Paul at the helm, the boat heads out onto the lake, with Grant, Peter and Carmen…

We motored back to shore before darkness settled over the lake, moored the boat to a buoy floating not far from shore, and prepared for supper. It was an interesting evening, listening to tales and exploits of the local ex-pat community, enjoying the Oxtail dish which Carol had prepared, complimented by red wine…just perfect…! Towards the end of the evening, (or was that the beginning of the morning!) with a glass of Johnny Walker Black in hand, I sat thinking about the journey I was on, wondering if at the end of it I would have found some of the answers I had set out to find… Answers to the questions about my future, a future without Vanessa and the children as a constant…

That was the last thought that went through my mind, as just after 3.00am, I crawled under my mosquito net for a few hours sleep…

Despite the very late hour that I had finally fallen asleep, I was up at 6.00am, and while the house still slept, took my computer out onto the veranda, and sat writing up my journal. I walked down to the water’s edge and watched as fisherman who had been out on the lake all night, brought their dugout’s into shore and began offloading the night’s catch… I looked out across the lake, to the north, where the landmass of Mozambique met the lake across from the town of Senga, wondering what the roads and conditions would be like when I rode through there in a few days time… The water was warm and clear, as I walked along the edge of the lake, wrestling with my thoughts, which the memories of Lake Malawi had brought back to haunt me…

Later that morning, the boat loaded with skis and tubes, Peter, Paul, Grant and his two delightful daughters, Carmen and Kelsey, went out to enjoy the opportunities for fun that the lake provided in abundance. Carol, Charmaine and I stayed behind at the house, relaxing and reading…. A short while later, clouds rolled rapidly in from across the bay, and the first raindrops began to fall. The boat came hurrying back, and was beached and secured in softly falling rain… Then the heavens opened, and it rained hard for the remainder of the day and throughout the night…

The weather suited me just fine, as by later that evening, I had brought my journal up to the present day, sorted through the hundreds of photographs I had taken since December, and was able to relax and watch life unfold around me…. Despite the rain, birds twittered and went about their business in the many trees and shrubs that dotted the garden. A pair of Blue Waxbills carried nesting material back and forth between two shrubs close to the veranda, seemingly uncertain of the best place to build their nest. African Darters and Reed Cormorants continued their fishing in the shallows, while the occasional call of a Fish Eagle drifted across to me from the trees lining the far side of the bay… I wished again that I had brought my bird book with me on the trip, because a few of the birds that flitted in the garden were new to me, and I wished that I could have identified them…

That evening, while taking a stroll along the shoreline, we discovered that the boat was lying very low in the water… There was a leak in the hull, and we were concerned that it might take on too much water to allow it to be put back onto the trailer the following morning… We decided to beach it for the night in an effort to drain as much of the water as possible. While torches were shone into the shallows around the boat to look for Hippos and Crocodiles, we donned our costumes and set about the task of dragging the boat up onto the beach, using Peter’s Prado…

This was easier said than done, and after a few hours of heaving and cursing, in driving rain I might add, we decided to tie it up to one of the large palm trees close to the edge of the beach, and continue our efforts in the morning. By then it was after 10.00pm, we were cold, wet, and tired, and it took a larger than usual number of soothing drinks to restore our flagging spirits….

Midnight came and went, and conversation out on the veranda began to be interspersed with longer silences. This is usually an indication that the party is coming to an end, and we all retired en masse to our bedrooms to welcome the Sandman…

After a hearty breakfast the next morning, we decided it would be easier to get the boat back onto the trailer from the concrete slipway at a lodge a few hundreds metres to the north of our beach and while Paul and Grant motored slowly away from the shore, Peter and I hooked the trailer and drove around to meet them at the lodge.

The lodge was in the process of being upgraded, and the owner showed us around the dining and public area. The shore in front of the lodge was littered with rusting 4 x 4’s, old boats and trailers, which was a pity, as the view across the bay to the islands across the lake was stunning… I thought of what I could do to make this an amazing getaway for visitors to this part of the world… Maybe I’d end up in a place such as this, whiling away the time in as relaxed a state as was possible…

With the help of some of the staff at the lodge, we managed to empty all the water from the hull, and get the boat onto the trailer… We bid the owner farewell, thanking him for the use of his facilities and drove back along the track we had come in on, through deep puddles of water… Allan would have had a fine old time riding through these and taking his “action” photographs…

A storm rolls in from across the lake, whipping up the water, which just a few hours before had been as calm as a pond…

While we were away, Carol and Charmaine had packed away all the provisions that had been left over and were ready to roll… We loaded all our gear into the vehicles and after bidding the staff of the guest house farewell, we set out on the road back to Lilongwe…

The gravel road had not suffered from the constant rain, and we made better time along it than we thought we would. Once back on the tar, we picked up speed, wanting to get home before the rain that was threatening again, came down in earnest… The Linthipe River, over which the Kamuzu Bridge was built, was in full flood when we crossed it, an indication of just how much rain had fallen in the past 24 hours. Its waters had risen to flow through the banana plantations which lined its banks… We drove on through the wet and miserable looking town of Salima, and arrived back home under darkening skies. We had no sooner completed unloading the car, when yet another storm broke over the city… A short while later the power went out and the house was plunged into darkness… Peter was prepared for eventualities such as these and before long we had his generator going, and lights were restored… Despite the fact that the weekend had been a very relaxing one, I was dog-tired, and wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a comfortable bed to lie in…

A small herd of cattle traverses the beach in front of the house, on their way to their grazing grounds…

It continued to rain throughout the evening and on through the night, and I wondered when I would be able to set off to complete my journey to Dar es Salaam… With the amount of rain falling, it seemed I might be in Lilongwe a little longer than I had planned to be… I sent a text message to Allan, to see how his plans were working out. He was planning his ride to Lusaka, and was unsure of how long he would be there… He needed to get new tyres for the bike and was meeting with a KTM dealer there to see if he could assist with the sourcing of the tyres that Allan was looking for…

I suggested he get to Lilongwe as soon as he could, so that we could ride north along the lake together and perhaps even to Dar es Salaam, but Allan’s clock ticks to a slower beat than mine, and it seemed as though the ride to Livingstone might well have been our final ride together…

Time and the weather would tell…

Baobab used as a signpost on the road to Monkey Bay…

© 2008 TBMH