Business or Pleasure

The first business trip of my life took me to see hippos, and kudu, and baboons, and elephants and bushbabies, and nightjars, and impala, and elephant shrews, and dykas, and a doberman called Grizzly. In my capacity as queen of the stock cupboard and duchess of chalet maintainence I was allowed off the Nyika to go shopping in Mzuzu. As all vehicles leaving the plateau must be put to as much work as possible I got to combine my shopping trip with Mike's trip to Vwaza Marsh and Lake Malawi. Vwaza is a nature reserve like Nyika, and as reserve-employees we were allowed to stay for free and tag along on the night game drive. Never mind the animals, bouncing around the African bush on the back of an open jeep with a huge spotlight is definitely fun. The full moon did keep the critters away but turned the marsh into the eeriest ghostland. We arrived at just before sunset and the hippos were in top form , wallowing and grunting, sounding a little like baritone ducks as they lolled on the banks. I could see them jawing and yawning at each other. Then they melted into the waters again leaving only that postcard image of their ears and nostrils in view. A herd of Kudu came to the water whilst we sipped our sundowners. These animals are the most beautiful antelopes, the males having the most spectacular spiralled horns. A troop of baboons also visited running and scratching and rolling in the dust. It was coming back from the drive that we saw the ellies, for which Vwaza is a bit of a haven. Two cows were leading their calves back from the water and stood guard while their offspring shuffled away from us. We only saw them for a couple of minutes but it was long enough to understand why people fall in love with them. They truly were beautiful. All of the animal sightings were magical, made more so by the pale light of the moon. We travelled alongside a group of Impala drifting through the bush before they scented us and bounded away. The day after we stopped at Vwaza we arrived in Mzuzu at 8am to begin shopping. Here comes the typical tale of the brit abroad frustrated by the embarrasment of haggling ("just tell me the damn price and i'll go and grumble in private!"). It was actually quite fun, and no-where near as stressful as the rest of the Nyika staff had led me to believe. What stressed me out more was the ever present possibility of Mike having an embolism as he repeated the same english phrases over and again with increasing impatience. Ah well. Mzuzu is the captial of North Malawi, yet it is closer in size to a small english town than a capital city. It is hot, and busy and loud though. Exciting and crazy, all to a soca rythmn. After Mzuzu we drove to the Lake. This is Lake Malawi, the ninth largest lake in the world, 560km long, 80km wide and 700m deep and stunning. After the rush of Mzuzu we could relax with Jim, the owner of Nkhwazi Lodge, and Grizzly the doberman. Jim presented another example of the African ex-pat, half-crazy, definitely drunk and damned if he's going back to civilisation.




First photo: Mzuzu
Second Photo: Vwaza