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Smoke on the Water
Malawi used to be famous for two things: some of the best bud on the planet, and the lake. These days it is famous for Madonna, which is better, because Madonna carries more weight than the bud and the lake combined, so now is without doubt the time to say a few words on Malawi for the sake of our curious readers.
Malawi is a tiny landlocked country situated more or less between 10º and 15º of south, and dominated by the lake that is the most southerly of the defining features of the Great Rift Valley. It is a demographically mixed society, with a small white population, a slightly larger Indian community, and a polyglot jumble of black people made up of a variety of indigenous language groups, alongside many others that have immigrated into the country during the course of the colonial and liberation periods.
Slavery
Malawi began life as the Central African Protectorate, a British dependency dominated somewhat by Scottish missionary and trade interests, and famous at that time for being the front line of the British assault against the incredibly persistent east coast slave trade. Readers will no doubt be aware that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished by convention in Britain in 1833, and had more or less been eradicated in the western hemisphere by mid century. However the Indian Ocean trade, serving India itself, the various potentates of Arabia, and the French Mascarene islands, persisted off the east coast of Africa until beyond the turn of the 20th century.
Once under British protection, however, notwithstanding current liberation philosophy, the Arab and Swahili perpetrators of what Dr. David Livingstone referred to as the ‘open sore of the world’ where banished, and some peace and sanity returned to a highly traumatised little corner of the continent.
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An Empty Place at the Table
At one time the vulture was one of the most ubiquitous species of the African plains, the harbinger of death, the clean up man of the veld, but most visible these days, it seems, only when it is not there.
There is nothing that quite captures the morbid quintessence of survival on the African plains quite like the image of a congregation of vultures tearing to shreds the rotting carcase of a wildebeest. From this it is easy to imagine various vulture species surviving mankind long into the post-nuclear era, but in truth vultures are just another of the many species falling behind in the race to survive the adaptation of Africa, and the world, to the needs of mankind.
Vultures, of which there are nine species listed in the SASOL Birds of Southern Africa, are one of those peculiar indicators that scientists look at to establish the general health of an environment. If vultures are visible in numbers, then all is well on the ground, if not, then grounds for concern exist. In recent years vulture populations have been falling dramatically, and not only in Africa. Countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal and Cambodia are all currently documenting dangerous declines in their vulture populations.
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An African Oddity
Swaziland certainly is an oddity. It is a tiny landlocked country that is viable as an independent nation only in the loosest sense of the word. It is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies in the world. Statistically notable for both its extreme rates of poverty and having one of the single largest concentrations of aids sufferers globally, Swaziland is ruled by a fickle, anachronistic, self serving, preening and pampered multiple polygamist who goes by the name of King Mswati III. Bordered to the west by fiercely republican South Africa, and to the east by thoroughly revolutionary Mozambique, it is hard sometimes to determined exactly where Swaziland fits in.
Controversy
In the interests of getting the ugly bits over first, the myths surrounding King Mswati’s personal indulgence read somewhat like the habits of a feted dauphin of an oil saturated Middle East principality. Inasmuch as Swaziland is indeed an absolute monarchy, Mswati has cultivated an almost medieval approach to governance, characterised by his prevailing attitude of I am very much alright, and be damned to the rest of you.
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I have noticed quite a few comments finding their way back to the site regarding Zimbabwe, Mugabe, and the general state of things between the Limpopo and the Zambezi. While this is a travel site and not a political blog, the two concepts have a certain symbiosis thanks to the fact that politics in the liberation zone often has cultural overtones, so let me air my own thoughts on Mugabe, for what they are worth, and how things are and how they went wrong.
In the Beginning
Before 1980 Zimbabwe was Rhodesia. Before 1890 it was Matabeleland. Associated with Matabeleland was a large area to the north known as Mashonaland which existed more or less to breed Mashonas in order that the Matabele (Ndebele) could kill them. For the Mashona in particular life at that time was brutal, unpredictable, and usually short. The Matabele were a monarchical society ruled by the dynastic succession of Mzilikazi, father of the nation, and later his son Lobengula. The Mashona were a far less cohesive nation, that, although they had at one time been part of an impressive regional empire known as the Mwane Mutapa, had been reduced somewhat by age and circumstance to a weak confederation of clans and language affiliates, with no central leadership, no standing army and certainly no viable means to stand up to the centrally governed, highly aggressive and militant Matabele.
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Canyons, Cheetah & Kruger
Canyons, Cheetahs & Kruger is somewhat cheaper in value as Boots n’all trips go. It is certainly not as good value as the Dunes, Delta & Falls option. In truth adventure travel through Mpumalanga, unless you happen to have to stop and change a flat tyre in a hijack hotspot, or one of those long freeway shoulders where livid red signs warn you for your own safety not to stop, is likely to be minimal.
The main features of the trip: Blyde River Canyon, Kruger National Park, Edeni Private Game Reserve and an endangered species reintroduction program are all worthwhile, but they come across a little as short hop trips of the kind one might take from a backpackers lodge while waiting to jump on an overland truck or to fly out.
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Dunes, Delta and Falls Discoverer
Boots n’all Adventure Travel Shop has launched its Dunes Delta and Falls Discoverer, which, as the name implies, is a journey through the western quadrant of Southern Africa, combining the best of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Victoria Falls.
The trip kicks off in Cape Town, which at your leisure you can explore before jumping on the truck. From there it is north to the first stop of Lamberts Bay on South Africa’s Atlantic coast, which is a charismatic and often quite rustic appendage to the better known South and East Coasts. Here the focus tends to be less on sun and surf and more on whale watching, seafood, perusing the seasonal Namaqualand wild flower displays, and likewise the seasonal spectacle of some 30 000 Blue-eyed Gannets concentrated on Bird Island.
Namibia
From here it is north into the arid regions of the Namib Desert fringe with an overnight stop on the frontier between Namibia and South Africa along the Orange, or Gariep River. Activities are centered on the river, but also the surrounding scenery with it’s focus on a diversity of succulent plants for those interested in such things. The trip really gets cranked up, however, upon arrival at Fish River Canyon, the largest of it’s kind in Africa, and one of the most interesting and rewarding hiking destinations in the region.
The next day the journey into unique desert landscapes continues with a visit to Sossusvlei, which is a largish salt pan situated within the central Namib Desert, and protected by the Namib-Naukluft National Park. It is predominantly a red dune landscape with the haunting silence of a dead zone, but only deceptively dead, as a walk through the dunes with a local guide will soon reveal. Stunted trees, however, are fair testimony to an extremely harsh landscape, some as much as 900 years old.
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