Entries about backpacking

As I roll backwards over the side of the boat, I let gravity pull me and all my extra kilos of equipment into the dark blue depths. I’ve so perplexed that I forget to give the OK sign to the dive boat when I’m pushed to the surface. Typically, the “James Bond entry roll” plunges me into salty ocean waters, but Lake Malawi’s water is (obviously) freshwater. It’s a wonderfully fresh experience – as far as I remember my last freshwater dive was in 2013.

Diving in Lake Malawi is like jumping in an enormous aquarium tank. The water is fantastically bright, and I’m surrounded by thousands of small colourful cichlids endemic to the lake. The aquarium comparison is in no way an overestimation, as 50 to 80 percent for all aquarium fish are cichlids. Just visit your local pet shop, and then imagine the aquarium being 580 km long and 75 km wide.
And it’s not only underwater Lake Malawi has charm. Soft, sandy beaches cover its shoreline in white and yellow colours, and hikes and drives on the mountains surrounding the lake offer stunning scenery of the green landscape around the deep blue lake. I know that this blog entry has begun to sound like a commercial by Visit Malawi (I’m not even sure such an outfit exists), but I’m genuinely excited about what Malawi and its lake have to offer. There has been a decent amount of visitors, but nowhere near what the country deserves. People are lovely and helpful, it’s cheap, and the only reason not to go is that too many people have no idea about what (and where) Malawi is—and maybe that it can be a little tricky to find international flights.

Malawi is one of those hidden gems that is rare to fall over in this globalised world of mass tourism, guidebooks and the internet. But somehow, even with my meticulous pre-trip research, I failed to realise how awesome the country was until I was actually here. It’s not just the quality of the few things you can do around the lake. Hell, here’s eco-lodges tucked away on mountainsides, excellent hiking opportunities all over the country and even a couple of decent game parks for the safari-people.

I cannot completely rule out that the excitement of being back on the road again for a long trip, influences my choice here, but from talking to other travellers, everybody seems to agree. Malawi is one of those few places (like Colombia, Iran or Cape Town) that everybody who has ever visited unanimously agrees are fantastic destinations to visit.
Regardless, there are new places to see and new people to meet; thus, my twelve-day jaunt, 1,000 km through Malawi must come to an end, and I must move on. Not that I’m complaining, I love travelling, in the sense that I enjoy moving from A to B almost more than the actually hanging about in place A and B. So next up will be a short few days’ transit through Mozambique to Zimbabwe – a land best known for its terrible economy and even worse ex-dictator. I’m sure I will have a blast!

I’m basically a backpacker with my own wheels. I have no spare parts, no camping gear, no big plans for my bike once the trip is over. I am, in other words, a terrible overlander (the people who drive their motorbike, jeep or truck across continents). They will happily spend days at a time driving, camp out in small secret coves and live directly out of their vehicle, which they will undoubtedly repair themselves when they have a problem. They have often also built or modified their machine themselves.
Instead, I travel as light as possible, rough it in the hostels and sometimes cockroach-filled local and hook up with fellow travellers for all the silly side trips that people travelling without their own wheels tend to go on. And I know absolutely nothing about motorbikes, relying entirely on mechanics when an issue arises on my bike. In that sense, I’m kind of trapped between two different styles of travel. But as long as I don’t get dragged into conversations about the specs of my bike with real overlanders, I should be fine.

However, there are a few differences between the two ways of getting around. Having my own wheels do require a lot of extra planning. Which roads are sealed, how far is there between gas stations, and where to I sleep if I can’t reach my next destination in a day’s drive. I can’t just rock up at the bus station, tell them where I would like to go and then expect a driver to drive through the night to get me to my destination if necessary.
Don’t get me wrong; I like the extra planning. People who have travelled with me will know how happy I am for travel planning. But I do miss out by doing the driving myself. The proper overlanders I have met (on every continent I have ever travelled) seem to care more about their vehicle than the country they are in—to the degree that the continent they are driving through doesn’t matter much. Cairo to Cape Town, across Asia, or America north to south. Any of the above would be fine as long as they can drive their beloved machine.

It is, however, much more enjoyable to observe the African landscape and its peoples through the window of a bus or shared taxi. It’s tough to do when the bulk of my attention must be surrendered to watching out for potholes, crossing animals and minibuses going down the wrong lane. But there is no greater loss by driving myself then the lack of contact with the locals. Taking public modes of transportation – all insanely overcrowded – is unavoidably a direct way to immerse oneself into the local culture. Sharing peoples’ uncomfortable day-to-days way of getting from A to B leads to conversations, home-stays or, as a minimum, a change for observing people, their behaviour and culture from up close and for hours at a time. On the bike, the closest interaction I have with people around me is waving at the kids as I fly by or by having a quick chat with the men and women crewing the gas stations.
The bike does make travelling both more accessible and cheaper. No more waiting around for hours for the minibuses and taxies to fill up; no more expensive private hire of taxis or motorbike to take me to the weird, far-flung attractions and destinations, I inevitable insist of visiting; and no more dragging my luggage around with me. And of course, the exciting challenge to see if I can actually manage to drive a glorified scooter all the way to Cape Town. Maybe I do have an overlander hidden somewhere within me.