Malawi – Does a blue zebra feel the rain?

 January and February 2022

 

Hello everyone!

 

2022 in Malawi has been…well, wet. Very wet.

Fishermen battling the rain near Blue Zebra

The regular rainy season downpours, which arrived later than usual this time, have been complemented by cyclones drifting in from the east. You may have read about two of them battering Mozambique. The first of them, Cyclone Ana, also affected Malawi, particularly the south.

Rain can be intense

The video above shows an incredible volume of water surging through Majete National Park in an area where you normally drive around looking for wildlife. Some friends had been there just weeks previously, when the region had had no rain and was struggling under the oppressive heat and humidity. The video below show Liwonde National Park. An area I’ve driven through before was now having to be explored by helicopter. Quite a few animals in both parks were unaccounted for.

BBC picture of damage from Cyclone Ana

One of the consequences of these massive torrents has been to damage important infrastructure in Malawi: specifically, the hydroelectric dams which power much of the country. Power is a fragile utility at the best of times in this country; we are now having to ‘load shed’, meaning a regular six-hour period in the day without power.

 

Article portraying the
power problem

The chart - often unreliable - shows when your
part of the city will and won't have power

 That has been the main impact on Lilongwe, which was too far north to feel any direct cyclone effects. It has meant many rainy days. Sometimes you can dodge the showers, other times you feel like you have trench foot as you go about your daily life.

After rain comes rainbows!

Golf in the rain: challenging

This will be our final year in Malawi before moving on to pastures new. In the time we have left, Hannah and I want to explore the few places we haven’t seen whilst also returning to our favourite places. One place which fell in the first category was Blue Zebra, a lodge situated on Nankoma Island in Lake Malawi.

You drive about two hours east to get to Senga Bay,
then take a boat to the island 

A view of the island from Senga Bay 

This is advertised as a place to go to relax and enjoy the best the lake has to offer. Such a place doesn’t come cheap, which is why we hadn’t been in the first five years of living in Lilongwe. After hearing many good things about it, and getting a green season rate at resident prices, we decided that now was the time to go.

The jetty area, complete with pool

Our luxury tent - the bathroom is within the
tent but behind the bed area

The ‘green season’ part is important here. For those reading this who are unaware, many places like this in southern Africa offer a lower price during low season. The time when fewer people visit is generally when it is more likely to rain. From January to April, many more exclusive companies offer a cheaper rate. Not cheap, but cheaper.

A terrible picture of a delicious fish served in a banana leaf

A speedboat trip is a rarity on Lake Malawi!

There is a fairly obvious reason fewer people visit during rainy season. Things are generally easier to do, and appreciated much more, when you aren’t soaked to your skin. It’s a gamble: we’ve done trips before when it’s been dry, we’ve done trips before when we’ve gotten a bit wet. This weekend…well, see for yourself…

The rain was relentless on Saturday morning in particular. In a way, spending the time having a lie-in and reading was what we needed after a hectic few weeks.

A room with a lovely, if wet, view

Plenty of games, which were occasionally joined
by large flying beetles like this one

We had a four-hour window of daylight without rain on the Saturday afternoon, which we used to the max. Firstly we trampled around the island as the rain began to relent, with droplets from verdant trees landing on us as we snaked along the edges of the island.

Hanging vines were a common obstacle

This tree had blown over in a recent storm -
we had to duck very low to get under it

Walking through the forest allowed us to see a large number of baobabs which have flourished on this small rock over the centuries. We also found many different colourful insects as we weaved through the foliage.

These looked particularly cool and slick after the rain

Butterfly

Unidentified insect

Later, when the Sun tried its very best to come out to play, we kayaked around Nankoma. Seeing the ‘blue zebra’ cichlid which lends its name to the lodge wasn’t going to be possible in the muddy-coloured waters, but we saw plenty of birds as we paddled around.

The water had calmed a lot by the afternoon

This was where our tent was - nice view!

I imagine the sunsets are pretty spectacular from Blue Zebra. The two we had were pretty nice – and dry – with the sky changing colour as the Sun dipped beyond the mainland to the west.

View from the jetty

View from our room

There weren’t other guests on the island to share these experiences with. Many had booked and were coming from Blantyre in the south. During the week, this happened…

No road, no trip!

The other visitors...had...wings...

We had to negotiate some tricky driving conditions, particularly on the way back on the Sunday. Puddles like the one you see below were commonplace until reaching the tarmac. Our car went a bit too deep in one of them, causing the battery to fail. We managed to get the car restarted, then sat nervously as plumes of white smoke came out of the front and back of the vehicle. We did make it back, though I haven’t gone to the mechanic just yet.

This was one of the shallower puddles; however,
we still had to go left around those sand piles

Blue Zebra is a lovely spot, and we had a lovely time there in spite of the weather. The food is lovely and the staff very nice, even though it was a bit awkward that there seemed to be about twenty people for the two of us. As the rains ease later in the year and roads get fixed, more people will flock to this secluded and exclusive rock in Lake Malawi.

An amazing peppermint tart

Enjoying a drizzly walk

Blue Zebra: a lovely place

Love you all,

 

Matt