Malawi has a peculiar system of visas for visitors. On entry to the country a 30 day visa is issued automatically and is free. Before the end of the 30 days this must be extended, a thirty day extension costing MK5000 (about £20). However there is a maximum of two extensions (making ninety days in total). After this you must either purchase a temporary resident visa for six months, which costs around £150, or leave the country. However, having left the country you can then reenter it pretty well immediately. This means that people staying a Malawi for an extended period either time their holidays such that they go on safari in Zambia or Tanzania at the point where they run out of visa, or they simply pop over the border, stay a night and pop back. Mozambique is a favourite destination for the latter method, the entry visa being relatively cheap, so four of us, Cathy, Sarah, Ralph and I, decided to take a mini-break for a week and do the round trip to Cobue, via Likoma Island, and back.
The first step was a very pleasant weekend at Mayuka Village in Nkhata Bay, and having cleaned most of the blue and black paint off our limbs, we set off mid-morning on Saturday to catch the minibus. Unfortunately the trip was slightly marred for me as I had managed to scratch the back of my leg, and once again it had got infected. I don't know whether it's a problem with the circulation in my previously broken leg, or just a lack of suitable Malawian antibodies. Anyway, I didn't want to use up more of my own ciprofloxacin so I popped up to the private clinic in Nkhata Bay. I had to wait over an hour and was finally seen by someone who described himself as a paramedic, didn't even dress the wound, and sold me another course of cipro for MK850. I got the impression he wasn't sure what to give me but I told him cipro had worked last time so he said why not have it again. Not inspiring of confidence! So yet again no alcohol.
We decided to economise this time and sleep in the dorm, but as it turned out there was only room for two in the dorm so Sarah and Cathy got a chalet for dorm price - it didn't work out quite as well as they hoped though, as it bucketed down in the night and the roof leaked.
The Ilala is the ferry boat that makes the trip once a week up the length of Lake Malawi. Named after the boat on which David Livingstone explored the Shire River, the current Ilala replaced the original (which apparently sank with considerable loss of life) in the early eighties (I need to check the facts on this - anyone who knows more details feel free to email). It is a rusty old bucket that looks like it could follow its predecessor at any moment. It arrives in Nkhata heading north sometime in the middle Saturday night, and returns heading south on Monday, when we are due to board for Likoma Island (contrary to what it says on some guide books, the Ilala does not call at Cobue in Mozambique). Like all Malawian transport the timing is pretty unpredictable, and, like the minibuses, it will set off as soon as it is full. However we are assured by Catherine at Mayuka that the Monday stop at Nkhata is where it catches up with itself, so that no matter what time it arrives it will depart reasonably promptly at 8:00pm. She is obviously well accustomed to people doing this visa run, as she also provides a pick-up service for the return trip - the night watchmen will hear the ship's hooter and come down to the dock with a vehicle. This is welcome news as it's a fair old walk up to Mayuka, and we take up the offer with alacrity. She also gives us the number of Becky and Josh, who run Mango Drift on Likoma Island and who offer a similar pickup service.
The Ilala offers four classes - first class is on the deck and costs MK2820 (plus the option of a mattress for an extra MK300). First class passengers also have access to the bar and the restaurant which serves a pretty reasonable meal for MK600. The downside to first class is that there isn't a lot of cover if it rains. Second class is less than half the price at MK1200 and is down below. You can get a seat if you're quick enough but it's very hot and crowded. Third class is somewhere in the bowels of the vessel and definitely not for the white man! We had been advised that if you got a second class ticket you could sneak up onto the deck on the pretext of visiting the bar without any problem, so that is what we decided to do. We didn't do too badly and managed to get a meal in the restaurant before the deck police caught us and booted us downstairs. However we did manage to get some seats together and spent a rather uncomfortable night playing cards and dozing as best we could, crammed in among the people, luggage and assorted livestock (happily there weren't too many people carrying fish!).
Likoma Island is one of a little group of islands that are sort of the Malwian equivelant of the Channel Islands. Lying much closer to Mozambique than to Malawi, and actually inside Mozambique waters, they nevertheless belong to Malawi. Likoma is 8Km long and 3Km wide and has two lodges. Kaya Mawa is far too expensive for us, and anyway was closed for refurbishment when we were there. Mango Drift is on the western side of the island and run by Becky and Josh who also run a diving school. The chalets are very pleasant and there is a lovely lakeside bar, hot showers and an excellent breakfast. We spent tuesday morning sleeping, and then headed into town to start the whole visa process by getting our Malawian exit stamps. This caused a bit of a kerfuffle as Ralph and I were both on the very last day of our current visas, which should be OK except we weren't actually leaving until the following day. Unfortunately we couldn't get to see the chief immigration officer, Francis, but got his assistant Jack instead, who was a bit of a control freak and told us we were already in the country illegally (not true) and would have to be deported. The main worry was whether he was going to ask us for a bribe, but I think he just enjoyed the power, because in the end he stamped our passports anyway.
On Wednesday we spent the morning looking around the market and visiting the cathedral, which is apparently the largest in Malawi, which seems strange for such an out the way place.
Transport over to Cobue normally involves enquiring around at the beach until you find a fishing boat willing to take you. However, our luck was in. We ran into Francis the chief immigration officer, who told us that there were a couple of tourists arriving from Lilongwe by plane (Likoma has an airstrip) and going straight out to an expensive lodge just up the coast from Cobue. The lodge had sent their own power boat over, and if the tourists were agreeable we could share their boat for a small consideration slipped to the boatmen. There was some dickering, but eventually a price was agreed and we got a lift with a very pleasant English couple which took less than half an hour, although we did get very wet from the spray.
Accommodation at Cobue turned out to be exceedingly basic - half a dozen reed huts, a bucket of lake water to shower in, and a hole in the ground for a loo. However, there was a bar, of sorts, with some drinks in a bucket of water, and Julius, who runs the place, said he could cook us an evening meal. He offered chicken, spaghetti, beans and rice, which we could order in any combination. We settled for chicken and rice (which we assumed meant we would have beans and spaghetti the following day). Another aspect of the buildings at Cobue was that all the doors were too low, and I for one banged my head on every single one. I mentioned this to Julius who promptly took a machete and hacked a piece out of the door frame, so we didn't bang our heads on that one any more!
The first job was to walk a hundred yards up the hill to the immigration office - one gets the feeling it was put here purely to service people like ourselves renewing their Malawian visas. The procedure went without a hitch but took a long time, as the Mozambique visa requires several forms and includes a sticker in the passport, except that the immigration officer had no finger nails and took 10 minutes or so to separate each sticker from its backing.
My bed appeared to be actually holding up the chalet, or it could have been the other way round, and the bedding was distinctly musty, but we had all brought sleeping bag liners, and settled in fine after our chicken and rice and a game of cards, although using the loo after dark was not recommended as it turned out to be on a time-share with several hundred very large cockroaches who obviously have exclusive rights after sunset.
Breakfast on Thursday was very late - it turned out that Julius has gone off to buy bread. However when he did return it was fresh and delicious, and we got a fried egg each as well, and real filter coffee.
After breakfast we went exploring. There are a few shops and a school, but no paved road or evidence of public transport and it is not clear how you actually get out of Cobue if you want to. The school was deserted, so we wandered in to have a look round, and found the remains of an English lesson on the board - except that it was full of mistakes. Obviously the standard of English in Mozambique (which was a Portuguese colony) is even lower than in Malawi. I couldn't help myself, and, grabbing a bit of chalk, highlighted the most glaring errors, putting the corrections in, and 0/10 at the bottom.
We continued our walk, picking up a little downs boy called Ben on the way, who was very sweet and attached himself to Sarah. However apart from a ruined church there was really very little to see, and we soon retraced our steps.
When we got to the school all the pupils had returned, presumably they had been at lunch, and were singing the national anthem, so we stopped to listen. We were immediately beckoned over by an adult who introduced himself as the English teacher and invited us to look around. I suddenly realised that a potentially embarrassing situation was going to arise if he took us into the classroom where I had corrected the English on the board. However, that was the furthest class, so while he took the others into the nearest, I scooted off in search of a board duster. Luckily when I got to the classroom the board had already been cleaned - I'd love to know what the children made of my amendments.
We got back to the beach to find that Julius had been shopping and got Chambo for supper. This is one of the common fish in the lake, about the size of a trout, but rather thin and bony. Still, it was a welcome alternative to the expected spaghetti and beans, and Julius made a excellent job of serving it up with loads of rice and some greens. He had also arranged for one of the locals to pick us up and take us back to Likoma the following morning.
Getting Mozambique exit stamps in our passports was very quick and easy, and by nine o'clock we were loaded up onto a small fishing boat. We had all been rather looking forward to sailing across, the boat we thought we were getting had a sail made entirely of flour bags, but the boat we ended up on didn't seem to have a sail, and anyway there was no wind, so we were paddled by four husky fisherman. Surprisingly the trip only took about an hour and a half, although we dropped rather unceremoniously at the south-eastern point of the island, being the nearest, and had to walk the rest of the way to the dock, where we had to go through the final procedure of getting new Malawian entry visas.
I was getting very worried about my leg by this time. Although the course of cipro was nearly over, unlike the previous sore this one was showing no sign of healing. Becky had told me that there was a quite reasonable public hospital on the island, and I decided to go there while the others headed back to Mango Drift. It turned out to be quite a good hospital by African standards. The first thing that happened was that I was sent off to buy myself a health passport, which is what all Malawians carry and contains all their medical notes. Unfortunately they were sold out, which is a bit of a shame as it would have been a good souvenir. Someone managed to rustle up a blank sheet of A4, and I had to make do with that (if a Malawian doesn't have his health passport, doctors will quite happily write notes on an exercise book or a bit of paper, but the patient must supply something to write on. I learned this when I took Johane, one of the Kapanda pupils, to the hospital at Chinteche with his injured eye). Anyway, there wasn't much of a queue and I was seen fairly quickly. The doctor "prescribed" (ie wrote on my bit of paper) a different antobiotic (flucloxacillin) which I then had to pick up from the dispensary (but it's free this time) and then report to dressings, who had unfortunately gone to lunch. This meant I missed pizza at mango Drift and ended up with scrag end of unidentified animal and rice at the Hunger Clinic down by the quay. However, I did get my leg properly dressed, and I was told to return the following morning before twelve to have it dressed again.
It's a fair old hike from the quay to Mango, over a fairly big hill in the middle of the island, and a hot shower and a good meal on my return was very welcome.
The next day was Saturday and we were due to catch the Ilala back to Nkhata Bay in the evening. I had to be at the hospital before 12 (half day on saturday) and did wonder whether to simply stay at the dock and wait for the others, but in the event I decided to come back, and visit the local "traditional African healer" on the way home. This turned out to be not so much a waste of time as a positive embarrassment. As always when a mzungu visits an African institution he never sees what actually happens because the normal procedings are completely scrapped in favour of what is essentially a fund raising exercise. I was ushered into Dr. Kumpalotta's sanctum along with a bunch of other people (who were presumably wanting to be healed and can't have been too pleased). After a lot of prayers and bible readings (nothing very "traditional African" there then!) I was welcomed, and encouraged to raise money for the Doctor on my return to England, given a potted history of the Doctor's life (in Chetonga, translated by my own private interpreter) after which several people were paraded in front of me to show various limbs which had allegedly been healed by the doctor. I was then told that I could take photographs, at which point the doctor donned a red robe and some sort of turban and proceeded to strike a number of ridiculous poses using a sword and some sort of horse whip as props. I was then asked if I would put something in the collection, and I said I would. I was asked again of I would donate and I assured them I would. I was then asked if perhaps I would like to donate now, so I put MK200 in the box, at which point the doctor opened the box, asked me which of the notes in it were mine, and suggested I might put in some more. The whole charade was finished off when he gave me a beer, and I had to explain to him that I couldn't drink it because of the modern antibiotics I was on. After that it all seemed to fizzle to a halt, and I made my escape and made my way back to Mango Drift.
The Ilala arrived particularly early on this particular Saturday (in Becky's words "it's so early it's almost on time"), and at 2:00pm, just as I was considering a nap, Becky arrived to drive us and our bags down to the key. I should have mentioned that the port at Likoma Island is too shallow for the Ilala to dock, so goods and passengers are ferried to and fro in boats, which can be quite exciting, and means it takes a good couple of hours to get everyone off and on. Nevertheless we were underway pretty much on time at 18:00. We opted for first class this time and, together with Lars, a very nice Swedish researcher, ate our meal and then scattered ourselves across the deck on our mattresses, which was fine until about midnight, when it started to pour.
We arrived at Nkhata Bay about 2, very grumpy, but the Mayuka guys were as good as their word and were there waiting for us with a battered old mini van, so that by 3 we were tucked up in bed in the dorm, and very welcome it was too.
It was still sousing down on Sunday morning, so we lay in, enjoyed a Mayuka full monty breakfast and hopped onto a minibus about three in the afternoon, to arrive back at Mwaya just in time for supper. An early night, and back to work on Monday, and I've picked up a streaming cold somewhere along the way.