Day 15. Thu 24th August.
Lengwe
I sit and have breakfast watching the vervet monkeys, and a beautiful male Nyala who wanders quite close to the lodge.
There is virtually no mobile signal here, and although I manage to send
the odd text, I do not receive any, and I am wondering if this has been
a good plan after all - at least in Blantyre I have good
communications. Poor Max is battling with his accounts and does not
want to be disturbed, so I potter about, and give the lodge staff a
slide show of Egypt and the visit that Blondie and I made to Knowsley Safari Park in
June.They are fascinated by the pictures, and are genuinely interested
in everything I can tell them about the world outside Malawi.
Finally at one o'clock I get an email with pictures and messages.
Fortunately they have kept the files small and I am able to download
them over Max's modem without disturbing him too much. He has been
amazingly patient and I am most grateful to him. The downside, of
course, is that I don't have as much material from the UK as I would
have liked, but it's a learning curve, as they say, and we'll be able
to do it better next time.
Patricio Ndadzela from the National Parks has arrived from Majete NP.
He
used to be based at Lengwe when he was Regional Manager, but has now
been promoted and is based at Majete, and I haven't seen him for a while. There has recently been a huge elephant
translocation project in Malawi - during July and August 70 elephants
were transported to Majete NP, 50 from Liwonde NP and 20 from the
Mangochi area. To raise funds an adventure expedition was offered to
paying participants - for $10,000US you could be a part of the
operation, fly in the helicopter, and even take part in the darting. I
gather the whole operation was a success, but I never found out how
many (rich!) paying guests had taken up the opportunity.
Traveling south from Lengwe is not nearly as difficult as travelling
north, as the minibuses from Blantyre are likely to have dropped
several people off in Chikwawa and at other stops along the way.
Patricio gives me a lift to the main road, and I quickly pick up a
minibus to Nchalo, and thence a matola to Bangula.
As I arrive in Bangula I come within mobile phone coverage, and all the
texts that Jon has sent me during the day come flooding in!
I find Mr Kariofasi in the Aska bar. He has been down with Malaria. He
phones Mr. Makina to tell him I am back, and I ring Isaac, but he is in
Blantyre.
I end up wandering the street of Bangula with a beer in my hand, and
entertaining a bunch of kids with magic light trick that I picked up on
the internet before I came out. Gaynor phones and we have a long chat,
and then I bump into Mr. Lambiki having a beer at Mama's. He tells me
that I won't be able to visit the primary school tomorrow, as they are
all off for a funeral.