Nhkata Bay and the beautiful Lake Malawi

Nkhata Bay Rest Day

August 1^st, Day 51:

            After arriving late last night in Nkhata Bay, I had still not seen Lake Malawi! However, when I woke up this morning and walked outside, it was right in front of me in all its glory and beauty. Now I understood what people were talking about when they spoke of Lake Malawi and its splendor. It should really be a huge travel destination in Africa; the problem is most people outside of Africa have never heard of Lake Malawi unless they have extensively read a travel book about Africa or know someone who’s familiar with the continent. However, the problem lies deeper; we were in Nkhata Bay, probably the touristy town on Lake Malawi, and yet it had no tourist amenities and the only ATM that accepted Visa or MC was about a mile’s walk away. I am kind of a broken record about ATMs, but they are important, you can’t do too much without cash!

            The country of Malawi and its people could really benefit from a substantial increase of monetary support to their tourist industry or try to find foreign investors to help build up towns along Lake Malawi that would support vacationers. Right now, I suspect most of the people who visit the Malawian side of Lake Malawi are young and adventurous or I guess one could be old and adventurous as well. The point is most travelers, especially those with children, like the comfort of hotels, easily accessible activities, and transportation. I’m sure things are a lot more complicated than just throwing money at the problem or they would have already done it, but I think it would be highly beneficial for the whole country if they focused more on tourism.

            Anyway, we ran into this guy from Kenya behind us at the ATM who told us about this hostel called Mayoka Village, which was the place this guy we met in Lusaka told us to stay at and we had forgotten the name. Fortunately for us, the place we were staying, Aqua Africa, let us switch to Mayoka Village without much protest.

            Mayoka Village was a pretty incredible place and we got a nice deal on a room with two beds. It was literally right on the lake and constructed into the side of this mountain. It also happened to have great food and a pool table. We hung out at the hostel for a while, playing some pool (I won) and relaxing in the warm water of the lake.

            Aaron had really wanted to do a night dive in Lake Malawi and apparently it was showcased in the Planet Earth TV series so he arranged to go out with an instructor. I had nothing better to do plus I thought it would be nice to watch the sun go down on a boat so I accompanied him. The night dive I suspect was pretty awesome, I had a pretty good time just hanging on the boat with Amigo, one of the workers at the scuba diving place, so it was enjoyable all the way around.

            The rest of the night comprised of a barbeque buffet back at the hostel along with some pool with some local guys who were much better than me. One game I didn’t even attempt a shot, the guy just hit every ball; that was pretty crappy, but I never thought I’d be a professional pool player so I got over it eventually after he did it to the next guy as well. So we hung around the hostel for a little while before heading back to our little chalet and passing out. We were sad that we would only get to spend one day in Nkhata Bay, but we knew we had a schedule to keep and bike onwards…

-Eric