Lake Chilwa - Boating to Chisi Island

Time for the real Africa again. 45 minutes of partial dirtroad take you from Zomba to the boatlanding at Lake Chilwa. In dry season, such as now, this road is well traveled by all sorts of bikes and pedestrians. Total distance is no more than 35 Kms, 

Other than that you might just run into a truck, apparently broken for days, stranded in the middle of the road within a village. It just stands there, loaded with maize, amid the drying crop lying on big white blankets along the side of the road.

And sometimes cars drive over the food. Just so you know where your Nsima has been...

And sometimes you have to detour through the riverbed because a new bridge is being constructed, Malawi style. The structure is actually rebarred, and some portland has been used, as little as possible though, for it is much more expensive than the local dirt they use as filler. It will be used by trucks.

Arrival at the landing, Chisi Island in the background. The Island is known for it's big indigenous trees as well as some refuges built in the 18th century to evade slave-traders. The Island's circumference is 15 kms, so you could walk around it in a day, seeing the marsh side on the north as well as the lake on the other side, which stretches all the way to Mozambique.

Silke and Tijl did a "Titanic" on the stern.

This is the most interesting part of any boat, the bottom. It did not look too strong, but it got us there!

And this is how, the ferry masters punter all the way, about 2,5 kms, to the island. Their poles are about 6 m long, made out of bamboo. Near to the island the lake gets at it's deepest, about 3,5 m It is hard work to get the boat from one side to the other.

At the island, the children were delighted to see white children, as they are not so common around Malawi. Silke and Tijl got to hold hands for a long time, and we were followed around for quite a while. 

We did not do a complete tour around the island, but went to the hospital and back. Along the way these water pumps are to be found. 

And Baobabs, big ones. This one hollow with an entrance at ground level

This is the hospital. We had a chat with the head nurse, who is responsible for everything since there is no doctor on the island. The inventory is old, but drug availability is no problem. 

Tijl climbed a tree tgether with his african counterpart, who proved to be more agile...

And we headed back for the landing. The children were now mimicking everything Bregje said, which made for quite some fun.

On the way back, we tried some punting ourselves. It is much harder than it looks, in fact. Getting the boat to point in the right direction by applying force at just the right moment seems to be the trick. A trick we have not yet mastered. 

We had some cake at African Heritage in Zomba on the way back. Silke seemed to have taken up an interest in punting as well.