Mozambique

This might have something to do with why I am enjoying myself soo much!

Just this week

Just this week on my Island paradise (not really an island but anyway!) I ate Kampango wrapped in banana leaves with rice and carrots in peanut butter sauce. All this washed off with a nice Chenin blanc. The moon was full and looked like a huge football suspended from a dark blue ceiling speckled with shiny stars clearly marking Orion's Constellation. There was a fire on the beach which we (my 3 colleagues and I) sat around listening to DJ mixes from the clubbing world that; when lying on the squeaky white sand feels so ancient and several lifetimes away. In the bush behind us came the wailing sounds of a bushbaby crying for attention, in seconds we were both on our feet to investigate. Malcolm spotted him acrobating from one tree branch to another but as soon as the flashlight was on him, he froze unsure of what to do, then slowly he slid behind the tree branch, hiding himself from the flashlight and us. 100meters the lake washed waves on the beach in soft rythymic comforting motions cleaning and smoothing off pebbles in the process.

Another day I sat on the porch digesting my lunch just outside the office. A monitor lizard came by unannounced and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, he felt his way around with his forked tongue possibly looking for a snack to eat. The patterns on his body are vivid and work very well to camouflage him from human eyes, he blends well among the brown and green leaves and dark grey rocks.

had a moment of excitement the other day when 8 of our guests showed up in helicopters, landing right on our beach! Everyone (I mean EVERYONE) left what they were doing to go and check out the helis and see what the fuss was all about, probably the most fun and excitement we have all had since last year when we hosted the Dug out canoes race! For a moment there I thought we were in an episode of "tour of duty" or something

We took a time out one afternoon to lie on the beach, an hour later Maaike woke me up to point at a tree branch that was barely holding up to the weight of a large white bird with black wings, speckled white with a huge orange- red hornlike beak. She wanted to know what it was but unfortunately I missed that section in my bush course, later I found out it was a rare Tockus jacksoni, pretty cool!

Last night as the sun went down and I was enjoying a cigarette with Maaike, an owl landed on the tree branches high above us, he was quiet in his approach and his landing was quite smooth. It occured to me from the size; and shape that this was my first Pell's fishing owl sighting!

At 6am this morning I was struggling to stay awake as I made my way through the sand to the office, a beeeater perched himself just an armslength from where I walked on a low branch, I could see the pinfeather tips of his tail and the brilliant green and red that make up his coat, I immediately felt energize and could not imagine a better place to be.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the loud chatter of squabling weavers, they were in my hut having flew in from the wide gap above my door, good call for I probably would not have woken up otherwise.

If it goes on like this, I may never leave the land of Squeaky sand!

where only the loud mouths get fed!

I have made friends with this lovely family of 5 who live above the door of our office. The kids are still quite young so they do not talk so much but the mother is always chattering especially when she is trying to get to the nest and she thinks I am in the way. I worry sick every day for the altricial babies thinking I will find them splattered on the floor having suffered a terrible fall. Watching the mom she is quite diligent flying more than 50 times back and forth all day collecting tiny morsels for them to eat. I wonder if she keeps a system on who needs to be fed next. It seems who ever opens their mouth wide enough and makes the most noise gets fed. So far they are all thriving although I haven’t heard a peep from them today and am afraid to look. I am afraid the sun has finally won today and they have been cooked in the heat…we’ll see. Or maybe I should just have my own children and not worry about other people's kids.




Mosque Swallow
Cecropis senegalensis

So where in the world is Kat??

I live on the shores of Lake Malawi, which on my side is called Lake Niassa near a small one horse town called Cobue. It takes about 3 days to get here by bus, ferry and boat from Lilongwe and about 3 hours by plane then boat from Lilongwe. This by the way is the quickest way to get here. My new home is located in the Manda wilderness reserve a piece of land that was set aside for conservation and to improve the livelihood of the locals through sustainable tourism and other self sustaining projects that provides the villagers with income while they play a big part in conserving the land. My part in all this is marketing the lodge and getting people to come and visit and enjoy themselves while I enjoy myself at the same time. It's quite satisfying knowing that I am working to make other people's lives better. I also manage and train the Guest Relations department upgrading their skills and raising the level of service. And when it gets hot; I have my own private beach to swim and frolic in! This is the last leg of my year of self discovery, travel and experimenting in different living environments, food and way of life. But for now, life in the bush (and now beach as well!) continues!

Daily visitor


Am curious to know what all this experience will have made out of me in the end. Living by water my head is clear as the blue waters. Waking up to waves gently lapping a snow white beach that "squeaks" when you walk on it makes me lucky to be alive. I wake up some mornings to find leopard spoor on my front door leading to the spot were I peed in the grass the night before. At lunch time I sit outside listening to the African fish eagles calling in the distance and a monitor lizard slides by camouflaged by rocks that sparkle in the sun. And for the moment I can't think of any other place I should be or anything else I should be doing except look forward to opening a nice bottle of wine in the evening with my new friends Maaike and Odin and shoot the shit on the beach.

My Beach


My Hut



We have no electricity here so am getting used to working with the sun, unfortunately I have had to limit my writing and night reading but at the same time I have so much more around me to inspire me. I am looking forward to spoting Hohm's bee eater and Pell's fishing owl rare elsewhere but common as pebbles here. Our food consists of whatever the locals bring in from land and lake but thank God Mozambique produces coffee so I can still get my hot cuppa every morning.



Every morning the fishermen and farmers come to the lodge and dump their wares on the verandah sometimes the fish is so fresh its still jerking around expelling its last breath and the bananas are still bleeding sap from where they have just been hacked off from their mother trees. Eggs are a bit of a problem going for 45 Meticals each, gotta think twice before having an omelette. We tried to raise chickens but the leopard and snakes got to them before we could. I have a new respect for instant noodles which I get from Lilongwe from begging and pleading guests coming this way to stick some in their bags. We are very good about keeping ourselves well stocked with good wine and beer though for obvious reasons.


Menu tonight: tomato soup


Menu tonight: deep fried fish



And the adventure continues!

Am back!!

After a much needed break from the bush I am back online and happy to be. With my time finished at Lion Camp; I took a well deserved break and spent some time with a good friend in Lusaka volunteering at an HIV clinic she is setting up there and a week in Joburg shopping! I took a flight to Lilongwe where I hung out at Mufasa backpackers for 4 days and met up with Tiffany who has been doing Cairo to Cape the last few months. We then took a long sweaty chicken bus(about 11 hours of it...and yes! there really was a chicken)


The bus took us to picturesque Nkhata bay on the shores of Lake Malawi, the lake of stars, there we spent spent 2 nights there waiting for the ever so unreliable Ilala which arrived a whole day late. The Ilala ferry is an ancient contraption that prawls the waters of Lake Malawi ferrying people, grain, boats and a lot of unidentified Katundu from one port to another. The Ferry runs fine, is fairly clean and has a friendly kitchen that produces edible food. The problem is the loading and unloading at ports, this takes anywhere between 2 to 8 hours!! Most tourists book the top deck as its spacious, lots of fresh air and unlike the rest of the ferry not crowded. The ferry is most of the islanders only form of commercial and individual travel it gets packed with all sorts of cargo. I slept in my tent which we erected on the top deck most of the way and quite enjoyed the trip when the ferry was actually moving.


My tent and random guy's cute toes!


Needless to say we arrived in Likoma in one piecealbeit hours behind schedule. Likoma is the last Malawian port before Lake Malawi changes to Lake Niassa on the Mozambican side, our final destination. It is also the home of a beautiful precolonial church built by the Portuguese when they inhabited the island years ago before Malawi took it back.
To get out of Malawi and catch the speed boat to Mozambique we had to first find the immigration officer to get our exit stamps. He wasn't at his office, nor was he at the air strip, we even looked for him at his house and finally caught up with him at the local drinking hole. This was his "satellite office" he said and while he stamped us out he chatted about Big Brother Africa putting up a really good defence for Munyaradzi his favorite house mate. Another speedboat and half an hour later we were at Cobue on Lake Niassa which is really Lake Malawi on the Mozambican side. Once again our driver had to wade through the water and run on the beach in search of the immigration official who would stamp us in and no surprise like his counterpart across the pond he too was at his satellite office; a bar on the beach. Another hour later and we were at Nkwichi lodge my new home. The lodge is about 90% green and ecofriendly which means I have a lot of adjusting to do in terms of my diet and way of life. We are battery and solar powered here so definitely no tv and menu is determined by what is available or what the villagers bring to our doors to sell. I live in a hut and I have my very own beach access on the shores of a freshwater lake!

When a crocodile eats the sun

Even the cold blooded killers need a little warmth from time to time. I came across these killing machines lying on the sand banks of the river catching some rays in the morning. For optimum warmth they open their mouths wide so the heat can go directly where its needed. Crocodiles mostly absorb heat through their thick scales by a network of small capillaries that push blood through the scales and capture the absorbed heat. The nile crocodile has a unique ability to hunt both in and out of water with notable altercations with female lions, leopards and even cheaters. From one of the local languages in Zambia, crocodile translates to "Flat dog" which is quite appropriate when you observe crocs floating just above the surface of the water like a ..well a flat dog.



Crocodylus niloticus

Feeding Frenzy

The lagoons are quickly drying up causing the birds to become anxious and desperate, their feeding patterns changing they are now engaging in feeding frenzies as the fish get more and more concentrated in the tiny patches of water. It's nature's unique way of removing all forms of water dependent life before it dries up completely. This way nothing goes to waste, eggs have already been burrowed deep into the mud for the next rainy season, their life cycle almost complete the amphibians now serve as a feast for the birds; their last feast before the sun unleashes its unforgiving rays, scortching the earth and making life impossible for those left behind. These feeding frenzies will get the birds through the hard times, provide much needed fuel for migration and the circle continues..



Marabou stork, yellow billed stork and even the saddlebills came to work together to take advantage of this last good meal. After that its back to lion droppings and rotting carcasses for the Marabous and for the rest; whatever they can find, be it small mammals, rodents and frogs which are less tantalizing but as carivores they can adapt.

What was disheartening though was watching the Great African Fish Eagle, a mascot for Zimbabwe and Zambia reduce itself to a scavenging thief; an opportunistic feeder. There they were cawing and fighting each other for the best vantage point where they could watch the other birds at work at swoop in at the right moment for a free (stolen) meal. Abandoning the use of their magnificent art of fishing for their meals. I know they are just trying to make the best of a presented opportunity but I still expected more from them.