Worlds apart
Michel FiguetKafue National Park, Zambia
Zambia and Malawi are a wild new twist on the classic bush-to-beach double-hit. Peter Browne revisits the southern Africa of his childhood and finds he is still in frontier territory in a vast and empty Africa.
In bed on my first night in Zambia, blanketed by warm, sweet-scented air, I could hear the intermittent roars of lion and the baritone laughter of hippo. At dawn I watched the first rays of sunlight lick the grassland; all around me, puku and lechwe antelope grazed on the vast flood plains, ears twitching, the horizon a silver shimmy of mist.
Kafue National Park is Zambia's largest and least-visited protected area. Although it has existed since 1950, there is very little infrastructure in the park: successive governments have never had the resources or inclination to invest in such high-class concerns as wildlife management. Surrounded by far more profitable big-game hunting reserves, the government-owned park has until recently remained one of Africa's most intriguing forgotten wildernesses.
This is real wild-frontier stuff, especially in the north, where the Busanga flood plains emerge from the water for just three months of the year, exposing immense, open grasslands - an utterly pristine region unexplored and unknown, vast and unfathomable. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/busanga-plains-zambia
Pictured: the plains of Kafue National Park, Zambia
Michel FiguetBusanga Plains
As I set off on the first game drive with my guide, John D Muleka, the heat of the sun was already dissipating the rosewater shades of dawn; soon any subtleties in the landscape would be lost to the pin-sharp clarity of southern Africa's late-September light; by noon the temperature would reach 38˚C or 40˚C. But for now, with a cool breeze coming off the still-watery flood plains, there were plump, buoyant scents in the early-morning air.
The Busanga Plains fan out from the Lufupa River, a tributary of the great Kafue. In the wet season, from November to about March, the fine, black-cotton soil is slowly flooded save for a few low-lying islands where enormous sycamore figs and palm trees grow. In mid-July, when the water has evaporated, the roads have been rediscovered and the camps reopened, the first people arrive for the insanely short three-month safari season.
The camps are a major commitment for the operators, Wilderness Safaris, an increasingly adventurous South Africa- based company, which uses its own fleet of single-engine Cessna 210 aircraft and one hellishly expensive helicopter to transfer guests to Kafue. This despite the fact that Busanga will never deliver crowd-pleasing, tick-all-the-boxes game viewing. Decades of unchecked poaching, fires and trophy-hunting on the edges of the park have resulted in skittish wildlife, and in wildly reduced numbers.https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/busanga-game-drive-zambia
Pictured: buffalo on the Busanga Plains
Michel FiguetGame drive sightings
But there are encouraging signs of improvement. Here is my list of sightings on that first game drive: red lechwe and puku antelope (thousands grazing together), waterbuck (and an endemic species I had never seen before, without the usual white rump-ring), oribi (everywhere), roan antelope (in surprising numbers), marabou storks, yellow-billed storks, crowned cranes, great white heron and egrets, open-billed storks (the undertakers of the bush), five buffalo, a few wildebeest, one striped jackal.
Towards the end of our drive we came across two lions panting in the shade of a fig tree, occasionally licking their lips after gorging on a fat lechwe. I knew the pair had visited camp the night before (checking for tracks is one of the camp manager's early-morning rituals), and John D introduced us. 'These are the brothers,' he said. 'They service three prides in the area, so as you can imagine they are always busy, always on patrol. They took over from the dominant male, Big John, when he moved north in 2006. John was probably shot dead by hunters, although we will never know for sure.'
The Busanga lions are stocky, with unusually black manes. Because the camps are closed for most of the year, their movements during the floods had remained a mystery until last year when a research group fitted them with satellite collars. The results took everyone by surprise. It had been assumed that they headed north, away from the encroaching water, but it seems they stay in the area, shrugging off a cat's inherent dislike of water to swim between islands and, astonishingly, even cross the Lufupa River (a distance of 80km in some places). In the insufferably high temperatures of October, lionesses have also been seen resting in the low branches of trees to escape the heat and flies - peculiar tree-climbing behaviour previously noted in Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/hot-air-balloon-safari-zambia
Pictured: a male lion
Michel FiguetHot-air balloon safari
The only shade around here, other than on the island-clumps of palms and figs, is in the dense miombo woodland on the edge of the plains, where leopard have been spotted. But this is also where blood-sucking tsetse flies are most prevalent. On approaching the woodland (the road past it provides the fastest access to the game-rich southern plains), the guides hastily light canvas containers filled with elephant dung to hang off the front of the vehicles. The fumes are supposed to discourage the flies, leaving people relatively unmolested and only lightly smoked.
One afternoon we came across a magnificent herd of buffalo several hundred strong; later we took a motorboat out on a series of permanent lagoons and were quickly surrounded by pods of hippo numbering 15 or more. For more than an hour we watched them wallow and swim and snort, disappearing near our boat for disconcertingly long periods, then popping up elsewhere, ears and eyes curious as to our presence; crocodiles slid off the banks into the water; white herons landed gracefully on the shoreline.
On our last day at Kafue we took a hot-air balloon safari above the plains; it felt like a grand farewell to this extraordinary part of the world. Beneath us, hippo trails of flattened grass led in all directions from the sparkling pools. As the sun rose higher, we chased our balloon-shaped shadow across the plains, the papyrus wetland and thick woodland. Every now and then a lone figure appeared far below: traditional fishermen from the Kaonde tribe catching bream to dry and sell at market. Since the nearest village is 200km away, fishing trips can last weeks, and I was struck by the vulnerability of these minute figures surrounded by hungry predators and what Hemingway described as 'miles and miles of bloody Africa'. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/lake-malawi
Pictured: hippo trails in the Zambian bush
Michel FiguetLake Malawi
Lake Malawi (also known as Lake Niassa) is the most southerly of the great lakes of Africa's Rift Valley. At 75km wide and nearly 600km long, it is an enormous, freshwater sea populated by about 1,000 different cichlids (exotic fish), many unique to the lake. It lies on the border between Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique, and was a 19th-century hub for slave trafficking, as well as the headquarters for that trade's most vociferous opponents: Scottish missionaries led by David Livingstone, who sailed the length of Lake Malawi in 1861.
Once our little Cessna had puttered to a stop on Likoma Island in the northern reaches of the lake, we were met by smiling staff from Nkwichi Lodge, on the Mozambique side, where we would spend our first two nights. After stopping off at the Malawi immigration officer's house (it was a very sleepy Sunday) to get our passports stamped 'exit', we set off for Cóbuè village, 12km across the lake, to buy entrance visas for Mozambique from the police station.
Nkwichi Lodge is a further half-hour's journey from Cóbuè by motorboat. It is hidden in a little cove on the miraculous, white-sand beach from which it takes its name (nkwichi translates as 'squeaky', as the sand is so clean and fine it squeaks when you walk on it barefoot).https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/nkwichi-lodge-malawi
Pictured: snorkelling off the beach at Nkwichi Lodge, Malawi
Michel FiguetNkwichi Lodge
But if the beach could be in the Caribbean, Seychelles or Mauritius, the lodge could not be anywhere else in the world. There are just six guest chalets, hidden between granite boulders and dense woodland, all with wide verandahs, quirky outdoor bathrooms and huge, four-poster beds fashioned from gnarled old tree trunks. It owes its peculiar style to local villagers who built it with their bare hands. Solar-powered and almost entirely self-sufficient, the lodge is often cited as a model for sustainable tourism. It employs 56 villagers full-time and indirectly supports more than 1,000; a percentage of the room rate goes directly to the Manda Wilderness Community Trust, a UK charity that has helped build schools and set up schemes such as the lodge's agricultural education project.
There are no vehicles at the lodge, or indeed roads anywhere near it, and on my first afternoon I set off on foot to visit the Manda farm along an ancient path created by Arab slave-traders centuries ago.
After about 40 minutes I came to the lodge's agricultural project, where I met Joao Maniamba, the dapper farm manager, who took me on a tour of his chicken runs, vegetable and herb gardens, and mini-orchard of mango, banana, orange and lemon trees. There had been a bumper crop of tomatoes (the sweetest, plumpest I have ever tasted), but baboons had been helping themselves a little too freely. Set up a decade ago as a demonstration farm to teach villagers how to make compost and cultivate crops, the farm now supplies the lodge with all its herbs and salads. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/beauty-of-lake-malawi
Pictured: the honeymoon suite at Nkwichi Lodge
Michel FiguetBeauty of Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi is far more beautiful than I remembered from visits in my backpacking youth. It is gin-clear at the shoreline and bluer than a robin's egg a little further out. Once reassured about the absence of crocodiles (too far from a river mouth) or water-borne bilharzia (too far from the humans necessary to spread the disease), we snorkelled between the granite rocks in our own giant, tropical-fish aquarium. We went on canoe expeditions, and out on the lodge's wooden dhow to explore coves along the shore.
In fine weather, evening drinks are served from a hilariously comprehensive bar set up around a campfire, followed by dinner at a long table on the beach, lit by lanterns and accompanied by good South African wines. The local choir is on hand to serenade guests in the sweetest, most self-effacing way, a world away from the commercial entertainment often wheeled in by some big safari companies. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/utonga-village-malawi
Pictured: dinner at the Busanga Bush Camp
Michel FiguetUtonga village
On our second day we were told about a dance competition being held in Utonga village. It was an extraordinary experience, with seven all-male dance troupes from local villages competing beneath a palisade of ancient baobab trees. The entire village had turned out in their weekend finery to cheer on their team, and the afternoon passed in a joyous haze of dust, dance, music and festivities. The dance is called mganda, a variation of malipenga, which has its origins in military parades introduced by the King's African Rifles in World War I.
Once a year, participating villages take it in turn to host the mganda dance-offs, which are taken extremely seriously and judged by the village chiefs. Men of all ages, some very elderly, don the colonial-inspired uniforms of their village troupes or bandas (white or khaki shorts and long socks with garters, feathered fezes, sashes and medals) and perform their rigorously rehearsed routines to the beat of an ear-shattering cacophony of whistles, drums and calabashes.
The next morning dawned dark and stormy for our departure. Overnight, the lake had turned angry and volatile. High waves crashed over the jetty, so we walked for half an hour along the old slave-traders' path to find a more sheltered spot from which to embark on our journey to Kaya Mawa hotel on the south-western shores of Likoma Island. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/likoma-island-lake-malawi
Pictured: primary school pupils
- Places to StayThe best beach hotels in Europe
Michel FiguetLikoma Island
Likoma is one of two inhabited islands on Lake Malawi. In 1886 it was chosen as the headquarters for an Anglican mission, resulting in one of Africa's most curious colonial relics, the austere, solid-granite St Peter's Cathedral. Completely incongruous and utterly bizarre given its remote setting on a tiny island, it is modelled on Westminster Cathedral and was finished in 1905. It can hold 3,000 worshipers, almost half of Likoma Island's current population.
There are no tar roads on the island, or mains electricity (there is a generator, which is switched off at 10pm). Kaya Mawa - which translates rather evocatively as 'maybe tomorrow' - is on a beautiful beach in the south. The hotel first opened in 2000, the realisation of a dream of two British adventurers, Andrew Came and Will Sutton, who created a slightly whimsical world of handcrafted chalets built into rocks and crowned by thatch. In 2009 James Lightfoot, who had been the general manager at the property, bought the place with Nicholas Brown, a regular guest, and closed it while he gutted the interiors.
Since it reopened, Kaya Mawa's combination of low-key sophistication and well-rooted honesty has proved irresistible. Kaya Mawa is a talking point with savvy, moneyed travellers who are bored with the big hotels of the Maldives and other snazzy Indian Ocean islands. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/kaya-mawa-malawi
Pictured: the sun terrace of the Nkwhazi room at Kaya Mawa
Michel FiguetKaya Mawa
Each of the 12 bedrooms is slightly different (the best are private houses with plunge pools), but all have acres of creamy, polished concrete floors, idiosyncratic, Zanzibar-influenced design details, huge open-plan wet rooms, and beds covered in cushions. The hotel is smoothly managed by Michelle Cavanagh, a former Upper Class flight attendant on Virgin Atlantic.
Her husband Richard Greenhall, who trained chefs for Jamie Oliver, makes sure the food (dreamy lunches of feta and pumpkin salads followed by light-as-air lemon cheesecake) is of a super-high standard. The Lightfoots also recently finished building their own home, Ndomo House, a four-bedroom villa with a private pool and tiny beach, which is now for rent and is the most stylish place to stay on Lake Malawi.
Kaya Mawa is the island's biggest benefactor; its projects have included piping water to two villages. We took the lodge's shiny new quad-bikes out for a tour of the island and stopped at nearby Nkwhazi primary school, where Kaya Mawa supplies the books, and at a fabric workshop run by James's wife Suzie, where women embroider tiny, delicate beads onto yards of soft linen.
Pictured: the deck of the Mainja room at Kaya Mawa
Michel FiguetMbamba
At St Peter's Cathedral, a trainee priest showed us the lace-draped altars, ivory crucifixes and stained-glass windows; and at the open-air market in Mbamba, the main town on the island, music blared from wooden shacks where hairdressers applied odorous chemical straighteners, and Chinese shoes and bags were stacked beneath posters of Barack Obama. We met Mozambican traders selling firewood, tomatoes and red onions, bulbous local pumpkins and roasted utaka fish.
The fishermen still use lanterns and nets to attract and capture their haul, sailing their wooden dhows out into the inky waters at nightfall. More than 150 years ago, Livingstone was inspired by this seemingly celestial sight to name Lake Malawi 'the lake of stars'. It is still a bewitching place with a timeless rhythm, a life-giving force of nature in one of the most beautiful and remote expanses of African wilderness. https://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/amazing-journeys/safari-and-beach-holidays-in-zambia-and-malawi/getting-to-zambia-and-malawi
Pictured: a lakeside hut at Kaya Mawa
Hannah GeorgeGetting to Zambia and Malawi
GETTING THERE
Because of the remote nature of the camps and lodges, transfers between them can test the patience of a saint. Our flights (11 in all) were in small, single-engine planes. Getting to Malawi from Kafue National Park necessitated an overnight stay at Flatdogs Camp (www.flatdogscamp.com) in South Luangwa, Zambia, before connecting to Lilongwe in Malawi to clear customs, and then on to Likoma Island. Flatdogs (the colloquial name for crocodiles) is a decent camp with a good restaurant near the entrance to South Luangwa National Park. A good tour operator is essential for coordinating flight times and transfers. Our trip was arranged by African Explorations (01993 822443; www.africanexplorations.com).
A similar trip to Zambia and Malawi with three nights at Wilderness Safaris' (00 27 11 807 1800; www.wilderness-safaris.com) Busanga Bush Camp, one night at Flatdogs Camp, two nights at Nkwichi Lodge and two nights at Kaya Mawa costs £5,199 per person, including all international and internal flights, meals and some drinks.
WEATHER TO GO
The camps at Kafue National Park are open June-October. This is also the best time to visit Lake Malawi.
Published in Condé* Nast Traveller September 2012.*