Ibn Ibn Battuta

Likoma Island: Finding Bliss on Lake Malawi

Malawi map

The eastern sky blushed a peachy glow as the Ilala chugged into Likoma Island's harbor at dawn. Along with the other mzungus aboard, I clambered into a small motorboat which drove us around the island's southern shores, past the idyllic Kaya Mawa lodge. We continued to the secluded western side of the island and disembarked at Mango Drift, a hostel made up of several squat bandas right on the beach. Atop each building's reed sides a grass roof perched slightly askew, cocked "just so," like the swank straw hats of Art Deco sunbathers. Nearby, the hostel's shower had been carved out of the hulking trunk of a baobab tree, and was overgrown with bougainvilleas sprouting electric pink blooms.

At breakfast in the open-air beachside bar I made the acquaintance of a few British and Dutch guests before they set out to visit to the island's witch doctor.

Not So Lonely As I'd Planned It

Malawi map

In hostels all over the world, travelers enjoy lamenting the shortcomings of their guidebooks. It's something everyone can agree on, and thus makes for an easy starter conversation among traveling strangers, just like how much we don't miss home (though we all really do), how cheap local prices are compared to back home, and how much George W. Bush is ruining the world we so love to explore. Out of earshot, the guidebooks' authors make an easy target. Also, their omissions, errors and exaggerations are much easier to spot "in country" than when you're standing in the "Travel" section of the bookstore back home.

Useful to a great degree, and more so once you learn what to trust them on and when to ignore them, guidebooks rarely lead one astray. In some cases, however, they can become "victims of their own success."

At Vwaza Marsh, Things That Go Bump in the Night

Malawi map

Our packed minibus flew southward down the highway as the sun rose off to the left, highlighting the mountains of Mozambique which sloped up from the far shore of the lake.

Malawi’s own craggy hills jutted upwards to rival them, and we drove along the cliffs' base, passing through small coastal farming and fishing communities. Thanks to its small size, Malawi was able to maintain a network of smooth, well-sealed roads, something that had been very evidently lacking in Tanzania.

We crossed over several streams trickling down the mountainsides. Children were bathing and women washing clothes – two activities in which, like elsewhere in Africa, Malawi’s men seemed to show noticeably little interest. In every country I have visited on the continent, the women carried much of the burden of caring and providing for...

Welcome to Malawi

Tanzania map / Malawi map

Saturday morning I grabbed a big tour bus to Mbeya, the transit hub of southwest Tanzania from where I would enter Malawi. Sitting in the rear of the bus, directly over the back wheels, I felt every pebble along the rough dirt road, and soared high off my seat on several of the larger bumps.

Across the aisle, in his mother's lap a baby's cheeks jiggled as we clattered across the region's beautiful, mist-covered hills. After a few minutes of trying in vain to read, I looked back over at the baby in time to see him clumsily grab a piece of banana from his mother's hand as she looked out the window. Then, slowly and deliberately, making sure not to miss any parts, he wiped the banana across the side of his mini basketball hightop sneakers before cramming it, along with most of his fist and a decidedly satisfied smile, into his mouth.

A Plan to Laugh at Later

East Africa map

When I purchased my tickets for this trip exactly a week before my departure, the only return flight available was for August 15, two weeks after the program end date. "I'll travel or something," I assumed, and so I booked it, then spent the past six weeks turning plans over in my mind about how I would spend those last precious days in Africa.

Plan One was an overland extravaganza, leaving from Dar es Salaam by perhaps one of the world's longest trains, a three-day marathon to Zambia whose length is likely only bested by the Trans-Siberian Railway. Ultimately, after a few more bus rides, I would arrive in the town of Livingstone, in southern Zambia, at the most famous section of the thundering Zambezi River, Victoria Falls. A slower, more