Day 10. Sat 19th August.
Liwonde
For some reason I sleep badly, and am tempted to stay in bed and forgo
the trip to Liwonde, but I force myself to get up at 6. I have decided
to travel light, and leave my main pack and my PC in the lockers at
Doogles, and just take my day sack with the bare essentials.
I
arrive at Grace Bandawe at 8 o'clock and find Maureen and Pam, but,
in true Malawi style, it is nearly 9 by the time the driver turns up.
It turns out that Maureen and Pam are not at all clear about
the arrangements. Obviously no booking has been made for me, but
they are
not sure whether bookings have been made for them either, or even which
lodge they are staying at. There are several entrances to Liwonde NP. When I visited the park with Ken last year
we
entered from Ulongwe, to the west. This is the nearest entrance to
Mvuu Lodge, but is on the "wrong" side of the Shire, so a ferry is laid
on by the the lodge staff. This time, however, we enter from Liwonde
town, to the south, and must drive nearly an hour across the park. We
find Chinguni Lodge first of all, which is run by Darren Bruessow (of
whom more later!). However, it appears deserted, and, remembering my
very pleasant stay at Mvuu last year, I suggest we push on, which we
do, arriving at Mvuu about three hours after leaving Blantyre. We
arrange with Elson, the driver, to meet him at 1 o'clock tomorrow
afternoon, and he heads off back out of the park again, presumably back
to Blantyre.
As
we suspected, there are no reservations in our name, and the lodge is
exceedingly full. I am beginning to wonder if I was wise to leave
my tent in Blantyre - there's no substitute for being self-sufficient
at all times when in Africa. However, we are in luck. There are
two chalets available, one for the ladies and one for me, although mine
is apparently not yet ready.
Mvuu (which is Chichewa for hippopotamus) is owned by Wilderness Safaris and is extremely well organised,
and no sooner are we booked in than we are are offered coffee, and a
man explains exactly what is on offer. We get full board for 24 hours
and two game excursions for $110, with an option on other excursions.
We opt for an afternoon game drive and a morning boat trip. Lunch is
just being served, after which the ladies return to their
chalet. Mine is still not ready, and I am hoping that nothing is
going to go awry at the last minute, but the fates are still with me, and my
chalet is ready in time for me to catch half an hour's kip before the
afternoon game drive - although to get to the chalet I must run the
gauntlet of several warthogs that happily graze around the lodge
grounds. They are generally oblivious to humans, but one of them does get
rather uppish when I approach too close to try and get a photo.
I also take a quick look at the pool, and get chatting to Raymond
Bembo, who is the deputy headmaster of St Andrew's School in Blantyre,
where I went to see the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream last year. He remembers it well, and we reminisce until I realise I am about to miss the game drive.
The
game drives at Liwonde are in proper viewing vehicles - open topped
with raised seats and a bonnet seat for a man with a light to sit on
during night drives. Two are going out on safari now, and we end up
with a group of Southern American ladies whose enthusiasm is nothing if
not vociferous. Our
guides are Angel and Jim, and we have a really good game drive which
lasts about 3 hours. We see impala (of course), waterbuck (they are the
ones who tried to use the toilets on the Ark before the paint was dry -
they still have the toilet seat mark on their rump), bushbuck and
several elephant, and, of course, hundreds of birds, for which Liwonde
is justly famous, including several fish eagles, the national bird of
Malawi, which looks so stately, but makes a noise exactly like a
seagull. At 6:30 we stop for sundowners, and Jim hops up on the bonnet
seat with the spotlight.
The drive has worked up an appetite, and dinner at the lodge is
extremely pleasant. It's a novel experience being a toy-boy for two
older ladies, and the three of us have a good laugh.
They are limited on power here - they quite possibly have no mains
supply and rely on generators or even solar power - and at nine o'clock
all the lights are turned out. There is the option of a nature walk at
six the following day, so an early night is not a problem.