The product
The international visitors were split into five groups that headed off to different parks and properties. My first stop was Mvuu Camp and Lodge in Liwonde National Park.
The ride there took six-and-a-half hours from Lilongwe on mostly good roads, though we (and, it seemed, every other vehicle heading in our direction) were detained at a speed trap/roadblock for 30 minutes. Unlike in some safari destinations, we did not see any large animals in the countryside from the road.
Our destination was on the Shire (pronounced SHEER-ah) River, which was still overflowing its banks more than a month after a devastating storm, Cyclone Freddy, tore through parts of Malawi.
Mvuu is considered to be one of the premier properties in the country and is in an area of the park populated by lions, elephants, black rhinoceros, cheetah, wild dogs and hyenas, among other animals.
My group, however, was not particularly lucky in big-animal viewing. Although we spoke to Mvuu guests who had recently seen elephants and lions close to their rooms, our two game drives — one at dusk and one the following morning — yielded mostly smaller animals (jackals, warthogs, hares, mongooses, baboons and bush babies) as well as common antelopes (impalas, kudus, waterbucks and bushbucks) and, in the water, hippos. The only trace of lions we saw were pugmarks on a dirt road.
But I have always depended upon the kindness of rangers, and the ones leading our drives did not disappoint. One was expert at spotting birds. We stopped frequently to look up into trees or down into the grasses, and what we saw ranged from the appropriately named little bee-eater to the majestic martial eagle. Even when we paused to watch the sunset along the banks of the Shire to sip gin and tonics (Malawi was a British colony), we saw a pied kingfisher in the reeds, flocks of Egyptian geese flying over the water and a fish eagle high in the sky.
The detached rooms of the lodge were comfortable and of generous size, with both indoor and outdoor showers, and there was even a small plunge pool on the deck. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were uniformly excellent.
While we were in Mvuu, a separate group of travel professionals visited Kutchire Lodge, also in Liwonde National Park. Mehdi Langanke, product manager for the German tour operator Lernidee Erlebnisreisen, has been on safari in five other African countries and told me that, although the accommodations at Kutchire were “basic and clean, quite budget,” he also felt it may have yielded his best safari experience yet.
“As we saw a family of hippos leaving an area, a group of six lions moved in and began hunting warthogs,” he said. “And there were lots of elephants. It was like being in a movie.”
His second stop was at Mumbo Island in Lake Malawi. Arriving in the dark, the group was led to their rooms, unimpressed by what they could see by the weak light of the portable lamps they were handed. (There is no electricity — or WiFi or cell service — on the island.) “We were a bit scared, to be honest,” Langanke said.
But when they awoke the next morning, a different story emerged. “The place is very special,” Langanke said. “It has a Robinson Crusoe feeling, it was just so beautifully and wonderfully decorated. And everything was sustainably done.”
There were no animal drives, but kayaking, snorkeling and laying in hammocks offered enough in the way of diversions. “It was a hideaway, a boutique hideaway. Beautiful scenery. It was one of the nicest places I’ve ever visited in my life.”
Langanke’s group and mine came together later in the week at the Makokola Retreat, on the shores of Lake Malawi, for our final stay. Makokola is, by far, the property that is most geared to Western sensibilities; walking in, you could believe you’ve entered a four-star beach resort in Mexico or the Caribbean. It’s a large, beautifully landscaped resort, with an expansive dining/bar area, swimming pools and a wide beach. The large, well-lit rooms have balconies facing the water.
But there’s a significant difference between it and the vast majority of the world’s beach resorts. As inviting as the water looks, crocodiles lurk below the surface, and guests are forbidden to go in. I did venture out in a kayak and saw what might draw the crocs to these particular waters — it’s adjacent to a large fish market, where scraps and offal are simply thrown into the water.
Makokola has its own landing strip, and just on the other side of it is a nine-hole golf course, Mlambe. Having played it, I can say it was challenging for a novice like me and not particularly well-groomed. And among its many water hazards are crocodiles, one of which I encountered quite close to where my ball had landed. My caddie ran at the animal with the push cart, and it scurried into a pond.