The Travelling Teacher: Malawi - Dzalanyama: almost as hard to find as it is to say…

May 14

Hello everyone!

May is a month with many public holidays in Malawi. One of them is Kamuzu Day, which commemorates the country’s first President. To say he has a controversial past could be seen as an understatement. Nonetheless, his official birthday is a national holiday and gives an opportunity to get out of Lilongwe.

Dzalanyama Forest Reserve

Kamuzu Day didn't happen from 1993 until 2009

We decided to travel to Dzalanyama, a forest reserve southwest of the capital. Looks intimidating to say: silent D. Za-lan-ya-ma. A mere 60km from Lilongwe as the crow flies, it is an easy day trip and somewhere you may be surprised to learn that we haven’t been before.

Dzalanyama is Chichewa for 'Place of Animals' -
we didn't see any

The reserve forms part of the border with Mozambique

It’s not that we’ve never tried to get here. We tried 18 months ago, back when the world was a very different place. That time, we all gave up after seeing the state of the bridge that our group’s packed Land Cruiser would have to cross.

That twig bridge proved a no-go

We were now aware of a better route, which initially heads west towards the main Zambian border post. The map also validated this idea, suggesting it would take an hour-and-a-half. The place’s website also stated that this was the best way to go. All set. What could possibly go wrong?

In 2019 we took the grey road on the right

Mini should have been checking the map
instead of looking sorry for herself...

About half an hour later, I flicked open the map to check how far we were from the turn onto a dirt road. We’d missed it. With hindsight, this was the problem, as the map must have recalculated from our new position.

We had ended up near Namitete -
this was the revised route...

It seemed that there were quite a few villages

It was shortly after driving over a large tree stump that we paused to take stock. This was an hour-and-a-half into the journey. Hardly a tree in sight, let alone a forest. We were slightly off the blue line, resulting in scraping through some bushes to get back to the ‘road’. The road, which was at times as wide as a footpath. Lovely scenery on the way, mind.

One of quite a few bridges we had to cross

Quite a few stumps are hiding in this grass

It was a little over two hours in, and after a brief panic when the phone lost GPS signal and therefore our map location, when we paused to take stock once more. Well, paused and waded through a puddle to decide whether it was too deep for the car to handle. It wasn’t, thankfully.

Maize season has now finished

It was then a pleasant surprise when we approached a wide dusty road. An even more pleasant surprise when we found the reserve entrance immediately to the right of this wide dusty road. With the clock ticking over two-and-a-half hours, we pulled in near Dzalanyama Forest Lodge.

A road we would have liked to have been
on for a lot more of the journey!

Much of the water that goes to
Lilongwe comes from here

This is the base from which to explore. Well, it is if you can pull yourself away from the stream…

It was made a reserve in 1922 to protect the water source

It may look alluring but you need to be pretty brave to get under the water. Fresh is how I would describe it, and I was happy the Sun was out to warm me up afterwards.

This was my cold bath to refresh me after the drive

The Makata stream

There are quite a few walking trails emanating from the lodge. We took a simple one called the Confluence Trail, which was a calm, peaceful and quick route through part of the forest.

This was by far the best walking our dogs have done

Brachystegia woodland stretches across the reserve

A key reason for taking a shorter walk was to give us the chance to get back before the Sun started to slip away. The people we met by the brook told us a different route back. A much, much easier route.

Not a tree stump in sight

A cyclist transporting wood - from the other side,
this looks a bit like a map of Africa

This will be our route of choice to get to Dzalanyama in the future. We will be back. A lovely and, now we know how to get there, pretty easy day trip from Lilongwe.