Before dusk I drag myself away from the ocean. We arrive back at the hut dazed by sun and happiness. Time to unpack. Ant and I turn our backpacks upside down, take out every single item of clothing, pack and refold it onto shelves. We even HANG them.
The bed, a massive king size, has starchy white cotton sheets. We could lay spread-eagled like starfish and still not find each other. The honey-coloured tiles cool our feet after the burning sand. The windows are shuttered and we can choose whether to let the daylight in or not. We leave the door open and gusts of salty sea air sigh into our room. The housekeeper leaves a lone, yellow flower in a sky-blue vase. It catches the last fragments of day and shines as bright as a sun.
Ant makes me a coffee from the instant sludge and I recline on the king-size bed, treasuring each sip. I can stretch my weary body across the white sheets and sleep. I close my eyes and try to imagine what life would be like if we stay here. How brown we’d be! How relaxed. Would we become sailors? Or fisherwomen? Or would we set up a transient tourist stall offering massages? Yes, that did seem much more like us. Would we get bored? Would we be lured in time, back to the mainland?
Ant unpacks and retires to the bathroom to prepare, as she calls it. She leaves the door open and I, stiff from salt and sea spray walk in without knocking, to wash my face. She is somewhat awkwardly mounted on the side of the bath tweezing her bikini line. I am astonished to discover she plucks each hair individually.
‘Do you have some abnormal tolerance to pain?’ Long gone is the covering up of our parts. Her sitting near the toilet plucking at her nether region doesn’t faze either of us.
She shrugs. ‘I just know it has to be done.’
When she has finished, we take turns to shower and slip into floaty summer dresses. Dinner is forgotten. Instead the Americans, Scott and Steve, mix flat, warm cola with cheap vodka and cheaper bourbon.
Down the beach, a club is playing old music from the eighties. We dance outside on the cool sand, the wind flapping our dresses and skirts, our arms waving to the full moon under a clear sky. Travellers and tourists, hipsters and hippies, Africans and westerners, tonight it doesn’t matter who you are, we all dance together. Hugging like friends who’ve loved each other for years.
Cheap African bourbon can have that effect.
SARAH WARNS us the ferry journey between the Tanzanian mainland and Zanzibar can be rough. The way she says it I think we should be preparing for imminent death. Before we leave she opens a small black bag, revealing an apothecary of pills. She points to each capsule – nausea, sea sickness, stomach cramps, headaches, migraines. There are patches, herbal drops and mints. Five packets of breath mints. ‘You’ll need them,’ she nods.
So I am pleasantly relieved when our trip to Zanzibar is as smooth as gliding across glass. We sit at the bow of the boat, our legs tucked under the metal rungs. Skimming small waves with ease, we watch as the sunlight dashes across the surface of the water beside us. Sea birds and gulls crow close to the ship’s starboard side and easily ride the streams of wind wake.
Whizzing across the sea, the land disappears and then, without an anchor point, we have no indication of how fast we are really going. I get a sense we are nowhere, and instead of frightening me, it thrills me. I love lying back on the white deck and watching a sailor’s blue sky, feeling the sun soak into every joint. Heat makes us drowsy and there are moments when I catch myself in that limbo state between being awake and nodding off. The ferry has rocked us all into contentment. Going back, we assume, would be the same.
Going back, Sarah leaves a day before us to organise campsites and groceries back in Dar Es Salaam.
‘I need someone to lead the group while I’m away,’ she tells us. ‘They’ll just look after the passports, get everyone on the ferry, and off safely at the other side.’
But Sarah had either been indulging in cheap bourbon or had a moment of sheer delusion, because she picked me.
In the morning we fill up on our last delights of Zanzibar – tiny pastries that come in boxes and are tied with string. Are we really backpackers? Fresh orange juice from chilled terracotta carafes poured by gracious waitresses as we sit in the open garden of our hotel. Someone’s curtain has been sucked out their ground floor window and it billows and flutters in the breeze. I could easily be in Morocco, the intricate mosaic tiles, deep colours of ruby, emerald and sapphire delicately twisted upon white glazed tiles – we could be many places.
We stop, just one last time, at the cafe we found without looking on our first day. The one just by that pebbled bridge, near where the harbour water stains the pavement at high tide, past the man on a bicycle selling fish from tubs stacked with ice. Here we have ice coffee, again, with a frosted shot glass of toffee ice cream.
The rest of the town has woken while we have idled away time sipping lattes. The sun has tipped herself in-between buildings, warming the stone. Stepping out of the cafe, the town buzzes with life. Ant and I take the time, just a few minutes, to go back to the jewellery man who has a shopfront decorated in silks. There are cerulean scarves, and ruby walls. The sun catches coloured glass Moroccan lanterns, casting a mystical kaleidoscope on the farthest yellow wall. There are wonderful bronzed elephant heads (wall pieces), and small flecked gold fish that are not only beautifully designed, but hold your keys together too.
‘Morning,’ the owner greets us from behind a small makeshift desk, sitting in an upholstered red chair, sipping his morning coffee.
We step into the perfectly cool and shaded shop and inside it smells like rose tea and incense – a stick of it is burning on the floor, the carpet catching the ashings. Ant picks out a hematite ring, a slender band that hugs her right ring finger. She wants to stay and feel the silk scarves.
‘There could be something in here I desperately need,’ she tells me. ‘Do we have time for ice cream?’
‘No, we don’t,’ I say as the temporary tour guide, I must think sensibly.
We turn away from the town where life whizzes past. I lead Ant to the prearranged meeting point and from there, herd the group to the pier. I gather their passports in a large stack. We’re stamped out of Zanzibar (even though we’re still in Tanzania), at their immigration office – a small un-air conditioned wooden shack riddled with flies.
Onboard the ferry, Zanzibar’s elegant coastline looks as if it has been dreamt – dotted tropical palms, magnificent bell towers and curved stone buildings radiant in the midday sun. Conditions in the harbour are idyllic, with the sun high in the sky.
We sit at the bow, each of us, Ailie, Tiff, Ant and myself, tucking our legs underneath the bottom metal rung, our chins resting on the top one. Sea salt cools our arms and stings our lips, forming a crust that has to be licked every few minutes. Chugging slowly away from the port, we leave a diesel streak hanging in the air. The boat sings its last horn, a deep whale sound, as we find open seas.
THE OCEAN current rushes in. Ripples. A small swell. Waves hit the hull of the boat like tiny high-fives. Another set emerges several minutes later, growing in size; the height of a small desk, no thicker than a pane of glass. Lavender – thin enough light can pass through.
The captain changes course, pointing the bow to the left. We lean away from the waves; the boat creaks portside. Rolls slightly. Rights herself. As she does, the water pulls back, sucks away; we can almost see the rocks below, the lengths to the bottom of the ocean. It’s a cavern. A rounded vacuum. The ferry is suddenly rocked nose-first into it. We tilt forward. Thump once. Skid upward on the crest of the next wave. My heart quickens a beat as another wave rushes towards us, thumping into the hull, propelling us into the air. We land heavily. Ouch. We grimace and grab our bottoms.
Ten minutes later, the large waves become tidal ones. Sea giants. Large looming walls of navy water. Tinged with green, and that makes them seem mad. They thump us from every angle. We are tossed into the air, hovering for seconds, long seconds, airborne before crashing to the bow edge. Up again. We smack our legs into
each other. Tiff lands on my lap, we start to laugh, but no sooner do we realise than we are tossed again.
In the trough of the waves, the ferry rocks dangerously low to the right side. Ant, her hair wet and plastered to her face, looks giddy with joy. Ailie yells crazily into the wind like she’s Lieutenant Dan from Forest Gump.
My stomach knots. I feel the foul burn of caffeine up my oesophagus wanting to exit the way it came in. A massive wave cracks so loud over the bow the boat may split in half.
‘I don’t like this,’ I say.
The seascape is frothing and tormented. For several minutes we are battered by waves. Up ahead, a monstrous wave looms. The closer it comes, the more weight, the more water it gathers. So thick and inky navy, it begins to blot out the sun. It has to be at least a storey tall, large enough to tip the ferry, large enough to roll us all into the sea.
‘Hold on!’ someone yells.
I reach for the railing, but my saturated hands lose grip. When the wave starts curling on top of us I say, ‘Oh God,’ and wonder if it is the start of a prayer or a eulogy.
I close my eyes. It hits us quickly and with such force, I go flying across the deck. Rather, I imagine how it feels to be knocked in the head by a block of concrete. My cheeks are stung red-raw. The boat lurches wildly. Not anchored by anything, I slide sharply back towards the bow. With full force my back smacks into a steel pole – the only thing keeping me from falling off.
Before I can stand up, a crescendo of waves hit the hull. I’m smacked against the steel rung twice. Both of the waves recede together, forming a trough at the same time. A lull. A breather.
I seize the opportunity. Standing up, turning my back to the waves. Facing the open, wet, slippery puddle of the bow. There is safety at each end – the rung where I stand now at the point, and the door at least five metres away. But in the middle, is no-mans land, a place you mustn’t find yourself when the wave hits. If the ferry lurches to the side, there is nothing to grab. Anyone could slide, so easily, right off the edge.
Go. Go. I walk fast but carefully, like a child on ice, quick little flurry steps – careful not to slip. With my back to the bow, I don’t see the wave coming. It must be huge. Someone shouts. When it crashes, the furl of its fury foam reaches my head. The boat sinks into the trough of the wave’s wake so violently it knocks me to my knees. I hit hard against the deck’s steel surface.
‘Help!’ I scream, spotting a man gripping onto the metal door. ‘Get me inside!’
He reaches as far as he can stretch. I take an actual leap of faith – I can slide off the end so easily if the boat rocks even slightly. He heaves open the heavy casing, stumbles through, and pulls me with him just before another wave cracks like a whip against the bow. The door slams behind us.
Inside, people are screaming and crying and retching. The entire galley stinks of vomit. The boat rocks violently to the right, and on such an angle, trails of vomit run down the aisle, between the seats, on the seats, down the back of seats. Carrot dinner. This morning’s eggy breakfast. Regurgitated. Chunky.
Women are moaning, and children are passed out in the aisle, crumpled bodies. Bile snakes under the seats towards limp fainted faces as the boat lurches again.
People look miserable, grey and ill. An old woman hunches over and throws up into a bag. The smell and sound of fresh gagged spew is too much. Her husband reaches for a bag and just makes it before the vomit explodes from his mouth.
I run down the aisle, leaping like a wild woman over trails and puddles as best as I can. Why am I so ill-planned for this trip and wearing open-toed flip flops? I try not to show how horrified I am as I reach the door marked exit, only for it not to open. It’s locked. It won’t budge.
‘Open it. Open please,’ I mouth to the man outside. He looks at me and turns away.
The boat is now rocking so violently that I am having trouble standing. It dips low to the left, so low the side windows are submerged in water. A door on the farthest port side unhinges and flings open.
I consider breaking through the small window no larger than my head at the top of the door and pulling myself out. On the other side of the boat is a similar exit door. When the boat levels for a split second, I leap over a woman clutching her stomach in the middle of the centre aisle, and a boy dribbling milky vomit trails into a bin. I grab onto the door handle, yank it wide open and step outside. Sea air.
Outside too, the decks are crowded with women and men and children, all heaving. The telltale acid burps pre-vomitus, start with one man, then echo across the crowd, like they are catching. Soon everyone is making gagging sounds.
Slinking between seasick figures, I am careful not to step on toes and hands, whispering ‘sorry’ when I do, and then realising these people don’t even notice. Everyone’s passed out.
There is an empty spot at the very back left corner of the boat. I gratefully step into the space and lean against the back of the boat. My legs wobble, give way. I slide into a crouch.
A wave hits the starboard side and the gate I am holding onto nearly unhinges and unlocks. The metal makes a whining sound and I envision the gate opening, and me being flung into the sea without anyone noticing.
A woman vomits into a bag and lets it go into the breeze. It whips a metre into the wind, hovers there for a second before the strong undercurrents whip the bag back towards the boat. It lands slightly open – she hasn’t tied it – on my face. A stranger’s vomit runs down my cheek. Part of it trickles down my lip and almost into my mouth. A wave slaps overboard, rinsing the rest into my clothes and hair. I taste engine diesel. It burns my mouth.
In the distance, I see land. So far away I can’t make people out on the shore. I can barely distinguish the different shapes and colours – olive and honey – between the distant hills and the cottages perched upon them. Oh, thank you, I think. Let’s go home.
But instead of hugging the coastline, or turning towards it, we stay out in the ocean. If the boat suddenly unshackled herself and started sinking, I couldn’t swim the distance. It’s at least a mile, possibly five. This continues another hour.
When we dock in the late afternoon I am drenched and exhausted. I take five shaky steps down the plank and step onto the dirt. I slide to my hands and knees, dripping, and try to kiss the ground. But I end up collapsing into it, battering myself in dirt, like a fish ready for frying.
I make a loud declaration to the sky, to no-one in particular.
‘Next time I’m flying.’
LAKE MALAWI is extraordinarily big. I say this like I’ve encountered a massive bus, or the world’s largest ocean liner. But both could fit on this lake several times over and there would still be plenty of room. In fact, you could lift up the entire country of Ireland and toss it in the lake and it would be submerged on all sides.
I leave the unpacking (this place doesn’t have hangers), for later. This lake is like a beach. There is sand, yellow and burning hot in the sun. Volleyball nets. Deckchairs face the lake and cricket bats and tennis balls are ready for a beach game. And waves. Pounding, crashing, breaking waves. Further out in the lake are spots to scuba dive, fish that are rare, unseen in other parts of the world. A jumping rock for those that like the adrenaline buzz.
The advice I was given by Australian doctors plainly is this: do not swim in Lake Malawi. It is apparently teeming with the dreaded Bilharzia, a parasitic worm that’s carried in certain types of sea snail. These worms kindly enter by burrowing into your skin before settling down in the blood vessels surrounding the bladder or large intestine. Here they enjoy themselves, producing millions of eggs living happily for up to twenty years causing the host all sorts of ill side effects (fever, fatigue, liver and spleen enlargement, and, in some rare cases, cancer of the bladder).
A friend who travelled to Africa some years ago on a similar route shared this story days before I left for Kenya. A man on her trip experienced a strange bite on his leg that he remembered occurring somewhere along the coastal region of Ma
lawi. Within a few days it had grown substantially, going from the size of a small pimple to a boil. A week later my friend, also a nurse, took a closer look.
Inside the stretched skin, taut and white, she could see the throbbing pulse of larvae. A tsetse fly had laid her eggs, millions of them, in the nook of his upper thigh and he was hosting them for birth. With rum poured in his mouth and the bottle emptied over his leg, she cut his thigh open with a scalpel. He roared with pain. The gash opened was deep and straight, an inch long. Immediately pupae fell out, writhing and scattering, looking for a new place to live. The entire camp, shoes at the ready, stepped and squashed every last one into the ground.
Should stories like this stop me?
They don’t. I dive in.
The strange absence of sea unnerves me. No salt. No sting. It tastes like tap water. As if I’m swimming in an enormous, warm bath.
Ant and I duck underwater, holding our breath. Unlike Zanzibar, we can’t see the bottom. We can hardly see in front of us, the rich royal navy water hiding everything from sight. Sometimes when I open my eyes for a second underwater, before quickly closing them again, it looks like a midnight sky, the tiny dots of sunlight that make it this far down glinting like stars.
Some swim half the lake, to the jumping rock in the middle, propelling themselves off a ten-metre cliff plunging into the inky depths below. Others strap oxygen tanks to their backs, Ailie and Tiff find cichlid fish – the maternal mouth breeder – well known for spitting out and then swallowing back her young.
Later, we paddle far from the shore and watch the people sunbaking become distant dots and blurs. The dazzling, cobalt sky is without a cloud. This lake water has streams and tides, and at times we feel the tug of it, pulling us further away from the shore. Grateful that if we did indeed ride a current, we’d only ride it to the opposite shore.
Ways to Come Home Page 12