Lake Malawi & Cape Maclear

Lake Malawi is the third of Africa's great lakes and, in the water, the richest on Earth: some thousand species of cichlid fish, most found nowhere else, flicker in blues and yellows over its rocks, and Cape Maclear, at the tip of the Nankumba peninsula in the lake's south, is where the world comes to see them — a beach of a fishing village called Chembe, facing north across a bay of islands, at the heart of the Lake Malawi National Park that UNESCO listed in 1984, the first freshwater park on its list. Thumbi West island, a kayak's paddle from the sand, is the snorkel; Domwe and Mumbo islands have their camps; the fish eagles come down to the boats for a thrown fish; the Livingstonia mission's first station was planted here in 1875 and its graves are under the trees; and from Monkey Bay, eighteen kilometres round the headland, the MV Ilala — when it sails — steams up the lake to Likoma island and Nkhata Bay on the oldest ferry run in Africa. Lilongwe is three and a half hours away, and the Lake of Stars festival, some Septembers, brings the music to the shore.

The traveller comes down from Lilongwe or Blantyre and takes the beach at the village's pace: the morning kayak or boat to Thumbi West with a mask, floating over the mbuna in a metre of clear water; the fish eagles' swoop from the boat; a walk through Chembe — the nets, the boats, the church, the mission graves; a night on Domwe or Mumbo island for the silence and the stars; the sunset from the sand with a Kuche Kuche in hand; the fish — chambo, grilled, with nsima — at a table by the water; and, for the traveller with days, the Ilala from Monkey Bay to Likoma, two days on the deck, which is the lake as it was.

The Guide's honesty: bilharzia lives in the lake's shallows, and the traveller swims with a cool head — the deeper, rockier water off the islands is the cleaner choice, and a pill on returning home is the ordinary precaution —; Malawi is poor, warm and cash-based, the roads to the cape are rough at the end, and the power fails; the Ilala runs to a timetable that is a hope, not a promise; the beach has its hustlers, kind and persistent, and a no said once with a smile is enough; and the water at dawn from the sand, glass to the horizon with the islands floating on it, is one of Africa's gentle wonders, which is why the Guide keeps this page in the shade of its own baobab.