Day 12 – Nkhata Bay: Three Candles and a Drum

The first morning in eleven days with nowhere to go. We woke in the wooden stilt house out over the lake, the veranda, the hammock, the water right there, and for a while did nothing about any of it, which was the whole point. This was the first real stop of the trip, and after the train and the border and the twenty-two hairpins, waking up with nothing to catch felt like a small luxury in itself.

It did not stay empty for long.

In the morning we took a guided kayak south along the shore, with long pauses to snorkel, the mask and snorkel handed out free at the Butterfly Space. Lake Malawi underwater is an aquarium: cichlids in colours you do not expect fresh water to produce, thousands of them, close in around the rocks. After Zanzibar I had expected a lake to feel like a smaller, tamer thing than the sea. This one did not. The water ran to a horizon with no far shore, and it was neither as cold nor as rough as a lake is supposed to be. Somewhere out there, kayaking and snorkelling, I lost Simba’s bracelet, the one he had finally sold me on the beach in Zanzibar. It is at the bottom of Lake Malawi now.

Back on land Lorena handed over what she had carried all the way from Dublin, felt-tips and drawing materials, to the community project attached to the lodge. There is an office where they explained that it works as a hub for the town, not only schooling but tutoring people in how to use a computer, write a CV, do research online.

We went out into Nkhata Bay for lunch, hunting chambo, the fish everyone had told us was the king of Malawian cooking, the national fish, white-fleshed, usually grilled whole with nsima. We did not find it. We walked the town and could not find a single chambo, and the reason, we kept being told, is that there is less and less of it; the lake’s stocks have fallen, and the national fish is becoming rare. Looking for it at least meant we saw the town properly: the fish market, the shacks built out onto the beach, a lot of hardship and a lot of movement at the same time.

Instead, for lunch, we had a rolex back at the lodge, the rolled chapati and egg we had first eaten in Uganda two years before, in memory of that trip. Forty thousand kwacha.

On the walk back along the road to the Butterfly Space, we passed one wood carver after another. Nkhata Bay is known for them, and many are part of the town’s Rastafarian community, which is strong here and gives the place its loose, almost Caribbean feel. We bought a large carved ark with dozens of pairs of animals inside it, which Lorena wants to put on top of a cabinet at home.

And we found One Love.

One Love is a restaurant, bar and craft workshop run by Kelvin, a rasta on the edge of town. He had no chambo either, of course, but he had butterfish, the kampango, the big freshwater catfish of the lake, which travellers call butterfish because the flesh is soft and rich. He showed us his workshop and his “magic tables”: a carved wooden disc held up by a single piece of wood split into three legs, no joints, no fixings, all one timber. It is a master’s work, and if we had had the room and had not been less than halfway through the trip, I would happily have carried a small one home. We booked one of his three terrace tables for that evening and drank two warm Coca-Colas, warm because there is no electricity there.

The afternoon was a wood-carving and Malawian drumming workshop on nearby Chikale beach. Lorena and I played the drums, badly and with great delight, alongside a Norwegian couple and two American girls. I carved myself a keyring. They suggested I engrave my name on it. I engraved Radio Dublino instead, the radio show I make [www.radiodublino.com]. On the beach, a group of local lads were selling carvings, and the most forward of them, with a wink, asked if I wanted any smoke. The rasta influence of this stretch of the lake, perhaps.

We came to dinner at seven. It was already dark, and we ate by the light of three candles, the only diners there that night. Kelvin builds and plays drums, and he played one for us while we ate. Butterfish, nsima and vegetables, water, thirty thousand kwacha for the two of us, and the best meal of the whole trip. He talked about the rasta community along the lake, and about what he is slowly building on his own land: a workshop, a small glamping site, one step at a time. Small steps, big ideas.

Tomorrow the alarm was set for four. The pick-up was at half past. Ahead of us lay the longest and hardest day of the whole journey, all the way from Nkhata Bay to South Luangwa by road, across the Zambian border and most of Malawi. But that was tomorrow. Tonight there were three candles, a drum, and a fish that is getting harder to find, and for one blessed day we had not gone anywhere at all.

Practical Notes

Where I stayed

The Butterfly Space, Nkhata Bay (details in Day 11). Second night. Free masks and snorkels for the lake, a community project office on site that takes useful donations (Lorena brought drawing materials from home for it), and guided kayaking on the doorstep.

Where I ate

One Love, Kelvin’s restaurant, bar and carving workshop on the edge of Nkhata Bay. Terrace over the bay, no electricity, candlelit at night, three tables.
What I ate: butterfish (kampango), nsima and vegetables, 30,000 MWK for two. The best meal of the trip.
Worth knowing: chambo, the famous Malawian fish, is getting genuinely hard to find as lake stocks decline; we could not turn up any in the whole town. Butterfish is the usual stand-in, and not always available either.
The Butterfly Space lunch: a rolex (rolled chapati and egg, as in Uganda), 40,000 MWK.

What I did

Guided kayak and snorkelling along the shore, masks and snorkels provided free by the lodge. Local operators such as Monkey Business run half-day guided kayak tours from around $20 per person (kayak hire from about $20 per day). Lake Malawi is famous for its extraordinary diversity of cichlids, and the snorkelling lives up to it.
Wood-carving and drumming workshop on Chikale beach, run through the local Carvers Association: drumming lessons are around $15 per person, and carving and other craft sessions are similar. Booked locally at the craft shops.
Note: many of the carvers along the road to the port are part of Nkhata Bay’s Rastafarian community. It is a relaxed, welcoming place; be aware that the ganja you may be quietly offered on the beach is illegal in Malawi, whatever the local culture around it.

Getting there / onward

No travel today. Tomorrow is the big one: Nkhata Bay to South Luangwa (Zambia) by private car, pick-up 04:30 (details in Day 13). Evening before: bill settled, bags packed, USD cash ready for the Zambian border, everything charged, two alarms set.