We are safely back in the UK after a couple of cancelled flights from Malawi, arriving a couple of days before the country went into lockdown, giving us time to get the necessities before being confined to quarters. So we are safe and settled for the time being, having left the van near Lilongwe in Malawi.
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| Maputo railway station |
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| Old and New Maputo |
Leaving eSwatini we crossed into Mozambique where we had to provide a printed copy of a hotel booking - all to generate some revenue for the border people, so we stayed overnight in Maputo. A sprawling city on a river estuary, but with a certain faded charm, with a few old colonial buildings, particularly the rail terminus, and the old market hall, and a nice seafront promenade.
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| Main N - S road |
We spent the afternoon strolling round the older part of the city and enjoyed the luxury of an air conditioned hotel room. The main road north undulates through forest and uncultivated scrub, passing scattered villages with their fields of maize. After a couple of nights staying at campsites on the beautiful sandy coast we reached Tofo Beach. A beautiful sheltered curving sandy beach backed by low rise lodges and accommodation. Probably the most developed tourist site in Mozambique, but still very laid back, with a couple of surf shops, several restaurants on the sandy streets, and a couple of boat operators offering trips to see the manta rays and whale sharks. Unfortunately on the two days we were there none were sighted.
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| Miles of deserted beach - only crabs for company |
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| Tofo Beach |
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| Mozambique secondary road |
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| More deserted beach |
Continuing north, the main road follows relatively close to the coast and we spent a few more nights by the ocean before reaching Inchope where we headed north west to Tete to avoid the stretches of road subjected to attacks by local rebels. The landscape becomes more cultivated the mountains bordering Zimbabwe to the west and rocky granite outcrops from old volcanoes scattered across the Zambezi plain. On crossing the Zambezi at Tete we found a small campsite on the banks of the river, but near the town centre - a real refuge.
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| Local fishing fleet |
The border into Malawi is just 70kms from Tete at the top of a pass. An easy crossing, but it immediately feels very different. Every tiny area of ground is cultivated, with hillsides terraced to grow maize, and many more people walking on the roads, and more frequent villages. The road drops down into Malawi which is situated in the rift valley, with the rift valley edge clearly visible stretching north along the lakeside. Blantyre, the main commercial centre of Malawi, is a sprawling old colonial city surrounded by mountains and we camped in the grounds of the old rather rundown Colonial country club, an oasis in the city.
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| Zambezi bridge at Tete |
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| Malawi highlands tea plantation |
The highlands in the south of Malawi are home to its tea and coffee plantations which stretch across the landscape. Spectacular granite mountains rising almost vertically in places to 3,000m with trails and waterfalls. It was lovely to be able to gain some height to cooler weather and take some walks in the wooded hills around Mulange Mountains and then further north on the Zomba Plateau, where there are wide views across the plains to Mozambique.
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| Market day |
We had been monitoring the progress of the Coronavirus outbreak around the world as we headed to Liwonde National Park, and hearing that South Africa was to close its borders we decided to head home as soon as possible. Having booked a flight from Lilongwe three days later we spent a day in Liwonde, a beautiful park set along the floodplain of the Shire River and extending into the rocky hills to the east. We seemed to be the only visitors as we drove the track spotting a male lion in the long grass right beside the road, as even a brief glimpse of a cheetah. The real spectacles were the herds of elephant in the long grasses bordering the river, and the large numbers of hippo grazing the river plain in the daytime. A huge number of bird species inhabit the park with some lovely sightings, especially the palm nut vulture.
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| Lake Malawi View towards Mozambique from Zomba plateau |
As we headed towards Lake Malawi where we planned to sort out the van before leaving it in Lilongwe we heard our flights had been cancelled, so had an additional relaxing day by the Lake, then after parking the car at a storage place in Lilongwe discovered the rebooked flight had also been cancelled. Fortunately we managed to be rebooked onto a flight via Nairobi and Paris, arriving back in the UK at a deserted Heathrow on Saturday 21st March.
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| Mozambique village surrounded by maize |
