Malawi – Mud Bath

February 28 – March 1

Hello everyone!

The end of the Kuti Mud Run

For a variety of reasons, I haven’t posted yet this decade. Mounting workloads and stresses about situations both domestically (the annulment of last year’s election) and globally (Coronavirus) have left little time for adventure.

The disputed result means there should be another election this year

An information leaflet produced by the Malawian government

Our half-term break is half of what a usual half-term would be, but still gave us a long weekend and a much-needed chance to escape the chaos of Lilongwe. A group of us set off east towards Senga Bay, which sits on Lake Malawi.

It is just under 2 hours to drive to Senga Bay from the capital

This is what greets you at your destination - no crocodiles either!

It’s a scenic drive in rainy season, passing through hills and valleys of vivid greenery as the road snakes past Kuti (we’ll get there later) and descends to the shores of Africa’s third biggest lake.

There's a drop of about 500 metres from Lilongwe to the lake

Stunning

You also drive through the town of Salima. Many people here say they’re going to ‘Salima’ when they’re going to the lake, as it covers a wider provincial area. As with many Malawian towns, it is a street with a couple of off-shoots. Not much to keep you there when the beautiful lake is only a few kilometres further.

The town has a population approaching 40,000

This was taken on a Sunday so it's very quiet - usually it is a bustling place

The house itself was very nice, a large building which had an enormous garden. Apparently it used to be a lot closer to the shore when it was built in the 1980s but had to be moved back due to rising water levels.

This is about 15 metres from the lake - amazing greenery

The large trees also offer much-needed shade

Waters are supposed to rise at this time of year in Malawi. Many people have said that this has been the best rainy season in years – I’m not convinced by that, but there have been some spectacular deluges.

Some of the deluges have been huge

These monsoons can make the ground quite muddy. Perfect for the Kuti Mud Run, and perfectly timed as it was happening when we were staying close by in ‘Salima’. We did this in 2017, as you can see from this blog. More recently, we had come to stay for a weekend which turned out to be quite muddy as well.

An advertisement for the event

The entrance to the Wildlife Reserve

It wasn’t a full-on mud bath, with only certain sections encouraging muddiness. To prevent people getting lost, much of the long grass had been flattened to make a route. Not sure how environmentally helpful that move is for the park. They also had park rangers at every turn or junction…apart from right at the end to tell you to go and finish. I ended up running part of a second lap before getting a bit mad and being returned to the finish line on the back of a bicycle.

It did make the route fairly easy to follow

'I'm flying without wings...'

How they thought I hadn’t done the course when I was caked in mud which I purposefully rolled around in is anyone’s guess.

The start of the course involved swimming through a muddy water pit 

What I looked like after a quick mud roll

We had to leave early - our running friends carried on the muddiness

I’m hopeful that this adventure will jump-start my desire to explore and lead to many more blogs about the marvels of Malawi and beyond. This weekend has been a reminder of some simple pleasures in life, from spending time with friends to rolling around in mud. Literally rolling.

Beauty...

...and the Beast.

Love you all,

Matt