Malawi: The virgin tourist destination
The infectious friendliness is not only evident in smiling bare-footed people; it resonates through a huge billboard with the inscription ‘Exit the land Jeito, welcome to the land of Chishango’ as you enter Malawi from Mozambique through the Southern Region tip district of Mwanza.
As a first traveler to the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) member state, you are bound to be surprised with such a billboard, but the truth is that Malawi is one of sub-Saharan African countries highly affected by the HIV and Aids pandemic.
Sub-Saharan Africa is said to be the epicenter of the HIV and Aids pandemic. No wonder, Malawians seem to increasingly feel that a true friend is one who warns you about any possible danger, a gesture of good will, in a Malawian way.
However, despite the condom advertisement, Malawi, just as its neighbour Mozambique, has stinging statutes regulating sex work.
As if realising that the sex industry cannot be fully controlled, especially behind the curtains, the two countries take pleasure in warning tourists in advance of the importance of safe sex during their days of stay as they remain some of the countries having high HIV and Aids prevalence rates.
Reaching the border post on the Malawian side, you may begin to feel that you might have chosen a wrong destination for your holiday. Occasionally, you see children asking for alms. These are just some of the few-orphaned children that survive on alms they solicit from people going in and out of Malawi.
The blur of some reggae music from the bars just near the border post will soon greet you with the spirit of the warm-hearted nation. As you wait for immigration and customs officials, you probably will be enticed to go and try one Malawian beer, and even food, as most of these bars also have restraints serving a wide range of Malawian and Portuguese cuisines.
“The first time I traveled to Malawi from south Africa, I found the border at Mwanza very boring. I felt like I had landed in a wrong holiday destination when compared to my home in Ontario,” said Christen Hoffman, a Canadian national based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
She recalled that, while she was regretting having chosen Malawi out of all tourist destinations in Southern Africa, a black market forex vendor, who wanted to know if she wanted some local currency, approached her.
“I did not have any local money at that point and was feeling very hungry, having traveled the whole day from Johannesburg to Mwanza and the polite way he approached me just made me feel like I was in my second home,” she said.
She said, as opposed to young men from other countries she had been to, the young vendor treated her like a queen that she instantly fell in love with Malawi.
“The good thing about Malawians is that they are very polite and usually happily come to your side when you need help,” she said.
Driving from Mwanza towards the commercial city of Blantyre, a 110-kilometer drive, takes you about two hours and, as you drive in the December heat, the cicada tweeter greets you as you enjoy the best scenery of Malawi’s natural beauty.
The traditional mud huts along the M6 Road, which connects Malawi to the rest of Southern Africa, will pop their way up your camera lens even before you reach the Shire River, one of the never-miss-to-shoot spots. You would be empty going back home without taking some memory shots at this place.
A word of comfort would suffice at this point: Never be touchy with the seemingly ‘raw’ treatment you get from overzealous police officers at police checks as they go about their routine search.
A tour guide, Edward Sakwata, renders credence to this. He complained in an interview that police officers usually wear hard faces when they see tourists in the company of dreadlocked tour guides. The reason, as you may guess, borders on drugs.
Sakwata alluded to the cat-and-mouse relationship that exists between Malawian police officers and dread-rockers, mostly young men. There are always suspicions of drug peddling.
“When a police officer sees a European tourist accompanied by a young dreadlocked tour guide, their impression is that the two are involved in a drug deal,” he said.
Arriving in Blantyre, you will be feeling very tired. However, you have just started your Malawian adventure, for nightlife in Blantyre is the most thrilling experience to many a tourist.
If you did not have advance bookings for accommodation, there are several backpackers’ parks, offering a variety of affordable prices for tourists.
Most of these clubs do not close until the wee hours of the morning, and you will actually realise the more reason why a huge condom billboard greets you at Mwanza Border Post.
Girls that usually eke their living through commercial sex work will surely not leave the bar counters, their source of income, until they drop dead in sleep or get hooked up by some hot-blooded client. That is the cut-home point for them, when tomorrow’s financial mists are cleared, and they have only hope for better things to come.
Chris Johnston, a British national on some two-week vacation in Malawi, said his first day in Malawi was the most interesting one.
“Upon arriving in Blantyre, I did not have an idea of where I would sleep for the night as I was proceeding to Mulanje Mountain the following day. However, when I went to the Blantyre tourist market, I met this young girl who showed me the other side of Blantyre,” he said laughing.
Ironically, Johnston almost mistook the towering SocheHill— one of the green hills perched gigantically in the ever-clear Blantyre sky— for Mulanje Mountain.
Blantyre, the commercial city of Malawi, is the anti-thesis of a European city: so many industrial establishments, little, if any, pollution at all.
Mulanje Mountain is among Africa’s three highest mountains in Africa, and a never-miss destination for any tourist visiting Malawi. Attached to the mountain is a rich cultural history.
To some hikers, the myths attached to the mountain’s highest peak, christened ‘Sapitwa’ (No-go-zone) sound more less like fairly tales, It would, however, be in your interest to heed what the locals say.
More so because in 2009, Brazilian hiker Gabriel Bushman thought the locals, through a local Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust tour guide, were joking when they told him no one went to Sapitwa alone. Bushman so no sense in such sense and set on the journey himself, telling his guide to get lost!
He never came back, only his lifeless body did, and only after a tasking 10-day search.
What a coincidence that a plane sent by the Brazilian government failed to find his body; the locals did.
People of Mulanje have different theories about people who go missing on the mountain. Others speculate that these people fall into Ruo River, whose source is the mountain that is Mulanje, and are then washed away. Just like that.
Whatever the truth, the spirit tales dominate.
“When one wants to go to Sapitwa, there is need to offer special prayers. Otherwise, there will be no return,” said Maxwell Chifika, a local from the district.
Chifika has seen people go on Mulanje Mountain and come back; or go, and really go. No trace or clue to the living. Whatsoever.
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