Malawi - Tgon's Travels

Week 75: Mangochi to Maputo

Posted on 19/12/2012

I was sad to leave Cape Maclear and the wonderful people at Malambe camp, but I got up early and managed to get a free lift to Monkey Bay. Then I took the local minibus to Mangochi, which broke down several times on the way into town, from there I took another minibus to Zomba.

I had met an American guy in Lilongwe who was running a charity which brings second hand bicycles from the US to Malawi. He had offered me a place to stay if I came to Zomba, but unfortunately he had left town that week. He was a great guy though, so he contacted his expat friends and found me a place to stay, so when I arrived in Zomba I was picked up by Mike, another American guy who works in Zomba for a research company. I stayed with Mike for two nights, on the Tuesday I climbed up onto the Zomba Plateau to do some hiking. The journey up onto the plateau was a two hour hike in itself so I just wandered around a little while admiring the views and stopped to read next to the reservoir before hiking back down to Mikes place.

From Mangochi I headed to Blantyre and stayed with a CouchSurfing host who was also called Mike, although this guy was from Brazil and works for a mining company called Vale. I stayed with him for another two nights in his awesome house (provided by Vale) while I applied for my visa for Mozambique, which is only $45 from an embassy but is $86 if you get it on the border. Both him and his housemate have spent time in Mozambique, so they gave me some great advice on places to visit. On the second evening we went out with some other Brazilian expats for some drinks and food. The next morning Mike dropped me at the bus station and I started the 7 hour journey over the border to Tete in Mozambique.

Again I stayed with a CouchSurfing host who also was from Brazil and worked for Vale, she was really nice and we went out for a few meals together before I had to leave on the bus to Maputo. This journey was awful. When I went to get a ticket they explained that they had no seats left, but had other tickets for stools in the walkway. The bus left at 4am and took 25 hours to arrive in Maputo, all this with no backrest. The bus was hot and with 12 people extra on board it was noisy, there was also a guy on board who was the second driver, each time we stopped he would push the passengers around and shout at them, then the bus would start to drive away before the passengers were back on board.

I arrived in Maputo at 5am on Monday morning and was picked up by another CouchSurfing host, again he is Brazilian and works for Vale. I went to his flat and slept most of the afternoon, but now we are getting into week 76 so I will tell you more about this in my next post.

Week 74: Recovering, Celebrating and Changing Plans

Posted on 10/12/2012

Most of this week I felt like crap. I still had fever and headaches from the Malaria and I had pains in my teeth which I think was caused by grinding my teeth due to the pain while I slept. Luckily my condition improved a little each day and by the time it was my Birthday (Thursday) I was well enough for a trip to a nearby town. We basically went there to get some cash, but I also bought myself a pack of pork sausages as a birthday treat.

I also met a guy called Tom who is a ‘low-budget traveler’. He specialises in traveling with as little money as possible, so hitch-hiking, couch-surfing and dumpster-diving. He is a really great guy and is currently on a trip called 1000 days of summer. He has just come to Africa from Australia and was telling me about the amount of money you can make working there, the only problem is you need to be younger than 30 to get a working visa. As this week was my 29th Birthday I started to think more seriously about my route for the next year.

The way I see it, this is my last chance to work in Australia. I can fly out there in a few months time and work for as long as possible, saving money for my trip around India. This way I could potentially travel around India for a year without needing to work there, this would cut out the hassle of the work visa all together.

I am planning to spend the next week traveling south through Zomba and Blantyre into Mozambique. It means saying goodbye to Cape Maclear and Malambe Camp but I think four weeks is enough time standing still.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 73: Malaria

Posted on 04/12/2012

Yes, after almost a year in Africa without taking anti-malarial medication I have actually got Malaria. The weeks started with the Israeli girls leaving Cape Maclear to go on safari in Liwonde National Park. I stayed in Malambe with Gemma, a girl I originally met in Lilongwe who was driving to South Africa for charity, two Jordanian guys who are here in Africa learning about Adventure tourism so that they can develop the industry back home and one other Israeli girl. We visited Otter point in Kayaks and spent a few days chilling out on the lake side. Then on Thursday the Israeli girls returned to Cape Maclear, luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, as I was just starting to show signs of Malaria.

On Thursday evening I had a bad fever, I had been looking out for a fever all the time I have been travelling down through Africa and had been worried once or twice, but this fever was something all together different. I had goosebumps and all my hair was stood on end, I shivered and had to get out my sleeping bag which is comfortable to -10 degrees C, even though the temperature is around 25-30 degrees. I wasn’t really all that worried at the time, but everyone around me was starting to get very worried. The next day I walked to the local clinic in Cape Maclear to see about getting a Malaria test, they told me that before I could get tested I needed to pay 50 pounds. This is a charge that only tourists have to pay, mainly because it is a private clinic and they assume that everyone has medical insurance and will be able to claim the money back, the only problem is I don’t have any medical insurance. The only other option was to wait for the local transport to Monkey Bay, which is a truck with lots of people crammed in the back, these vehicles don’t leave regularly and take maybe an hour to get to Monkey Bay. By this point I was pretty sure I had Malaria so I decided to just take the pills that I have been carrying around for just such an occasion.

The treatment consists of 2 pills a day for three days, these pills have 3 active ingredients. The first one is active in your system for 4 hours, the second one for 8 hours and the third for 150 hours. Over the three days I noticed that 8 hours after taking the pills I would have a huge drop in condition, lots of dizziness, headaches and fever. The first day of taking pills my symptoms had already gotten worse than the previous day, I was having pains in my joints and constant headaches and fever, even though I was taking Paracetamol and Ibuprofen quite regularly.

When I was in West Africa earlier this year, I met a girl called Ida, she told me that when you take the Malaria medication, the first day you feel bad, the second day you feel worse and the third day you feel better. I think this third day needs a few more words, it should be ‘you feel better than the previous two days’. I certainly didn’t feel better and still don’t now. However she was right about the second day being worse, especially the 8 hour drop which left me curled in a ball feeling sick while having joint pain, headache and fever, my head felt like it was going to explode. Then on Sunday I took the last of the pills and felt better than I had for a few days, the only problem now was that I hadn’t eaten much for a few days and my body was ready to eat. The third night I was trying to sleep when my stomach started to hurt with a hunger I had never felt before, mixed with nausea. Unfortunately it was night time and all I had to hand was dry bread and water. I would eat some bread, fall asleep for maybe an hour before my stomach was screaming out for more, then I would wake up because of the pains again.

Since stopping the medication I am feeling a little better each day, but still nowhere near normal health. The third active ingredient will remain in my system for 150 hours (from Sunday morning), I’m not sure what good it is supposed to be doing me but it leaves me with headaches and a slight fever which improves each day. After the night of stomach pains I am now gradually training my stomach to deal with food again, but today that feels much better. I had Malaria 6 years ago when I lived in Zanzibar but it was not anything like this time. I think this was because I was taking Larium (an anti-malarial drug) which didn’t stop me getting the Malaria but at least seems to have made it less serious.

I am very grateful to Dawn and all the staff at Malambe who have been so worried and caring while I have been ill, but extra special thanks need to go to Nofar, (one of the Israeli girls) who looked after me the whole time I was sick, only to leave this morning when I am able to be up and walking around.

It will be my 29th Birthday this coming Thursday and everyone here is talking about celebrating, but I am more cautious, I guess we’ll see how I feel closer to the time.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Weeks 71 & 72: Two weeks in paradise

Posted on 28/11/2012

After selling my motorbike I headed straight to my current favorite place, Cape Maclear in Malawi. I’m staying in a great lodge called Malambe Camp (http://www.facebook.com/MalambeCamp), it is owned by a very friendly English woman and has some of the most friendly staff I have ever stayed with. I first visited this lodge around five months ago before I headed into Tanzania and stayed for around ten days, this time I have already been here two weeks and am thinking about staying here until my birthday on the 6th December. I would recommend this place to anyone who is visiting Cape Maclear.

I arrived here on the Monday of week 71 with two Canadian guys, one of which had been working in the camp in Lilongwe where I was spending most of my days. We hung around together for a few days before they had to leave, but as they left I met a really great group of people. Two German guys and one Australian who are riding bicycles from Cape Town to Nairobi (http://longroadup.blogspot.com/). These guys are so upbeat and positive that you have a great time just by them being around, I wish we could have traveled together for a while. We hung out together for a week before they left, heading north around the Lake towards Tanzania. A few days after their arrival we were joined by a group of three Israeli girls, we all spent most of our time together, going snorkeling in Otter Point (a really beautiful spot) and visiting the island in Cape Maclear.

The German guys left at the start of week 72 so I spent most of my time chilling out on the beach with the Israeli girls. This week also brought the first rains of the wet season, the storms have been really beautiful and I have taken what I hope will turn out to be great videos. Unfortunately the first storm also killed my laptop. I left the laptop in the bar of Malambe thinking it was the safest place, unfortunately there was a hole in the roof and my laptop got quite wet. After a couple of days in some dry rice I tried to turn the laptop on and it is broken. I’ve taken out the hard drive so I hope I can get my data back when I arrive in South Africa… if I can force myself to leave Cape Maclear. Since then I have spent my days swimming in the lake, resting in the shade, feeding the Fish Eagles and taking a kayak out to Otter point, Perfection!

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 70: Selling the Transalp

Posted on 13/11/2012

This week I finally sold the Transalp, after a month on sitting around in Lilongwe, going crazy from the boredom. I got a call on Tuesday from a guy who had seen my advert on Lilongwe chat, he came to see the bike and then a couple of days later he called back to say he would take it. He paid by bank transfer, which means I don’t have to take the risk of carrying £2000 cash around Africa. Then on Sunday, once the money had been in my account a few days, I took the bike around to his house to show him how all the bits fit onto the bike and where all the controls are.

It felt strange to hand over the keys, when I was in Zanzibar for 4 months, I didn’t use the bike and I didn’t miss it. Then I got on it again to ride to Malawi and as soon as I set off it felt good to be back on the bike. But it gave me the impression that I wouldn’t miss the bike once it was gone, well on Sunday I learnt that I would miss it, handing over the keys is a totally different thing to just not riding for a while. Plus I now have to carry all my stuff around in a huge backpack, its not very heavy but it is huge and awkward to carry. I may have to dump some stuff.

It seems like the bike sold at the right time because this week most of my friends who live in the compound have left. Ian returned to Belgium and my Pakistani friends have moved out. That and the fact that I started to see through QB’s friendly exterior to his less than trustworthy self. But there were some really nice things that happened this week too, firstly I met up with a German couple I originally met in Greece while waiting for a ferry to Italy, my trip inspired them to make their own trip through Africa by motorbike. I also met up with Belgian Tony, we originally met in Morocco and travelled together to Mali, he was heading north to Nairobi to fly home. So I am happy to say that Sunday was not only the end of my 70th week, but was my last day in Lilongwe. I can now finally get back to my favourite place, Cape Maclear, to clear my head.