Weekend Getaway

I had an interesting weekend, with a visit to both Zomba and Liwonde National Park.

I thought it was time to try a solo trip into Zomba using the public transportation system. I made plans with Anna to meet in Zomba Town for lunch on Saturday. From my home on the MIE campus, it’s a 30-minute walk to the main road, where public transport runs. I left home later than expected, so by the time I reached the main road, the sun was already high overhead, and I was covered in a film of sweat and a layer of dust. A minibus (a minivan) quickly pulled up to the side of the road and I yelled out “Zomba?” to the driver’s assistant (the guy who scuttles people into the van and collects their money), to which his reply was an enthusiastic “Yes!”

I climbed on board. A word about these minibuses – they are in a state of utter disrepair to say the least. Usually basic things like seatbelts, windows, instrument panel, fuel gage, etc. do not work. Often, widows are missing, and assortments of seats taken from other vehicles are installed. There’s usually 1.5-2 bodies squeezed onto a seat meant for one person, so in the end, roughly 15-20 people are packed in very snuggly. Add in the sacks of flour, suitcases, baskets of vegetables and cages of chickens and you have an authentic Malawian experience.

The 15 km journey on the main road took 30 minutes when I was travelling to Zomba, and more than an hour when I came back home. Why? Well, there’s a fuel crisis in Malawi, so there never seems to be enough fuel in any vehicle. At one point, we ran out of gas, so the driver grabbed what looked to be a one-liter bottle from under his seat and added it to the vehicle. The vehicle then refused to start, so a few of the passengers got out to do a push-start. We were back on the road, but only briefly. We then stopped at a gas station to get more fuel, but they didn’t have any fuel at all, so had to go to a second gas station. And then the driver decided to have one of the tires changed. On the way back home, it was an equally slow trip – with many stops along the way to wait for more passengers to fill up seats. I was shuffled from one vehicle to another twice during the trip, so that vehicles were at full capacity. With the stifling heat, pressing bodies and constant delays, it was a tiring 15 km drive. When I got dropped off in Domasi, it was another 30 minute walk along dusty paths back to the house, and this left me questioning how often I really want to travel into Zomba – though it was lovely to see Anna and I really enjoyed hearing about how she is settling into her placement at Zomba Mental Hospital. She reported that for over 350 patients, there are 2 night nurses and for the 97 patients in the acute ward, there is only one nurse! The understaffing and lack of resources is astounding. I’m very curious to see how her (and Nick’s) work will unfold in the coming months.

I was planning to stay home, relax and read on Sunday, but was unexpectedly invited by the American Read Malawi staff to join them on an excursion to Liwonde National Park. I’ve been very eager to visit one of Malawi’s national parks or wildlife reserves, so I jumped at the opportunity!

Some quick info about Liwonde National Park:
- it’s 548 sq kilometers
- the park has python vines, mopane trees, countless baobab trees, reeds swamp, floodplain grasslands, tall grass savanna and wild flowers, including lilies and orchids
- the most prominent large mammals in the park are elephant (more than 900) and hippo (2000)
- the 2000 hippos live along 40km of the Shire River that cuts through the park and this is one of the densest hippo populations on the African continent
- crocodiles, impala, waterbuck, bushbuck, warthog, vervet monkeys and yellow baboons are very common
- there are some hyenas, leopards, and jackals
- African wild dog and lions have been hunted out but some from Mozambique do pass through the park
- there are 11 black rhinos in a guarded and fenced sanctuary in the park
- there are more than 400 bird species! It’s a birding paradise!

I have a feeling that the visit to this park will be one of the highlights of my time here in Malawi. It was an incredible experience, to see these animals in the wild –and so many of them as well!

The setting is absolutely spectacular – the massive, strangely-shaped baobas, the scorched earth with vein-like cracks, the cartoonish warthogs scurrying around with their tails in the air like antennas, the hippos peeking out of the water, the awe-inspiring stately elephants, the graceful impala bounding through the tall grass, the shockingly bright green, orange and blue birds flitting between leafless trees, the fish eagle diving into the water, and the 10-feet-high termite hills. It was amazing to be surrounded by so much life.

Some photos from Liwonde National Park…

Sign at entrance to Liwonde National Park, Malawi.

Warthog mother with her babies.

From a distance, animals along the bank of the Shire River.

A female impala.

A male sable antelope.

A herd of impala.

Not sure what this is - maybe a waterbuck or kudu? 

These photos were taken with a zoom lens, so we were not as close to the elephants as it appears.

Elephant.

African openbill.

A terrapin.

Malawi has somewhere between 650 to 750 species of birds.  I'm not sure what these ones are!

African fish eagle.

A male greater kudu.

Impala grazing along the river.

Peeking hippos.

Hippos with giant termite hill in the background.