Metema Beach

My journey down to Lake Malawi was another successful adventure into the unknown. Leaving Tukuyu I had no idea what time my bus would be as no one had been able to tell me. I set off from my guest house early in the morning and handily enough a mini bus to where I was heading pulled in as I reached the bus station. We traveled through beautiful countryside surrounded by mountains, and at first tea plantations for as far as you could see, which then gradually turned into banana plantations.

I had to change buses in a little town called Kyela and as soon as I got off the first bus someone came and showed me to another mini bus which was apparently going to my planned destination - Metema Beach. It really was the tiniest of mini buses, not much bigger than a large car but still we managed to get 23 of us into it. When I got to the bus it was already quite full but there was a space right at the back. To reach it I had to get into all sorts of unnatural positions whilst squeezing through the people, over the chairs and between them and the very low roof. The very low roof meant that whilst moving along the bumpy dirt road I had to keep my chin to my chest so as not to hit my head repeatedly. Next to me was a rather large lady which although made what space I had even smaller, did mean I had a little padding when going over the pumps. And padding was what was needed in a bus with no suspension.

I was happy to find that the cost of my journey was much cheaper than I'd expected but the happiness decreased slightly when after not going all that far I was told I had to get off the bus as it was the last stop and would be returning to Kyela. With no idea where I was and surrounded by non English speaking people, I managed to gather that I should perhaps go and sit by a little shop and wait for another mode of transport. Children came and surrounded me and an elderly man chatted to me in Swahili. After a while a pick up truck stopped near by and a kind lady motioned that I should get on. The driver insisted that I should sit in the front with him, which I felt quite uncomfortable doing as a lady with a newly born baby and an elderly lady were both squeezed in with me and I would have been quite happy to go in the back giving them a bit more space. However, eventually we all got to Metema Beach.

On the shores of Lake Malawi, with mountains all around, Metema beach is certainly set in a lovey location. Sadly though the beach wasn't all that clean and everywhere I went both children and adults asked me over and over again for money. My experience could have perhaps been different if I had stayed in a tourist hotel, but it was cheaper and nearer the village and cheap food if you stayed in a local guesthouse, so that's what I did. I think I was the only guest there but the owners were very friendly, I had a pink mosquito net fit for a princess, and it provided me with stories to tell - one night I was woken up by a loud knocking on my door and found the nice lady who worked there trying to tell me something I couldn't understand. I gathered that she was going out to party and so I should have the key and lock up after she left. She was drunk and burst out laughing spitting her mouthful of beer out as she did. After she left I locked up and returned to bed a bit confused. Then there was knocking on my window and she'd returned as had forgotten something. I was leaving very early the next morning and so just left the keys in the inside of the unlocked door. I hope that was what I was supposed to do.

Whilst in Metema Beach I spent a day hiking up to a waterfall. My guide (apparently you had to have a guide and the man guiding me thought that this was because without a guide tourists might poison the water and kill off everyone in the village) and I passed through the village where lots of people were growing cassava and drying out the smelly routes in the sunshine, which they had previously been soaking. They would then be ground and used for nsima, the typical staple food here. We followed the river crossing over it and back again several times before finally reaching the falls, which fell down hardly leaving the rocks surface, and a big pool at the bottom. My guide told me that no one had ever been to the top of the falls. He wanted to go but was scared of snakes so hadn't yet managed to. I'm not really sure whether I believe that no one has ever been to the top. Although I couldn't obviously see a path up there, it wasn't that high up and didn't look impossible to reach. I wanted to go but wasn't allowed in case something bad happened to me.

In the evening the guide and I climbed up to the top of some of the mountains and watched the sun setting whilst looking out across the lake toward Malawi, which was very pretty indeed. In my opinion it would have probably been more likely that I fell off the very narrow path whilst climbing the mountains, than it would have been that I died whilst trying to reach the top of the waterfall!