Malawi

Nestled between Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, the “warm heart of Africa” is a small enclave with 20% of its territory occupied by the waters of Lake Malawi, a real inland freshwater sea, full of surprises and lake wonders.

Small and unknown to most people, Malawi is a bewitching concentration of extraordinarily interesting landscapes and cultural diversity, which definitely deserves attention. The ingredients for a voyage of discovery into authentic Africa are all there: the golden beaches and clear blue waters of Lake Malawi, dotted with islets and atolls, ideal for sailing trips, seaside stays in comfortable lodges, water sports and snorkeling; prodigious flora and fauna, which populate the country’s parks and reserves, with the added value of being little frequented by international tourism; a colourful culture with rich traditions and the exemplary welcome of a kind and smiling people; a morphology that rises to an altitude of 3,050 metres in the Mulanje Massif, passing through valleys of endemic cedars, wooded forests, highland grasslands, tea, coffee and tobacco plantations and expanses of orchids, but also the savannahs of the south, where most of the wildlife and the ‘Big Five’ are concentrated, between the Majete and Liwonde National Parks, which have also seen the reintroduction of cheetahs. Nyasaland is a unique place, as the name suggests: an ancient land inhabited by the dinosaur “Malawisaurus”, a treasure trove of millenary Chongoni rock paintings, protected by Unesco, and a setting for the multicoloured Lake Malawi seabed with its high concentration of endemic cichlid fish. Finally, there is a mosaic of mainly rural people with fascinating ancestral traditions: the Chewa with their lively initiation dances of the wamkulu gule masks, the Lomwe with their tchopa propitiatory ceremonies, the Ngoni with their warlike ingoma movements, the Tumbuka with their exorcistic and therapeutic vimbuza ritual, and even the Islamic Yao people who follow their own youthful initiations dating back to their ancestral culture.

Would you ever have thought that the unknown Malawi could be such a treasure trove of cultural and natural surprises?