Trip to Likoma Island

Likoma Island is the largest inhabited of two islands in Lake Malawi, which although very close to the Mozambique coastline, belong to Malawi!  Likoma is only 18 square kilometres and has a population of about 10,000 people!  I have always wanted to visit the island, so a friend invited me to go with him and spent a day there!  We travelled to Nkhata Bay to get our transport!

Transport to the island is limited and we decided to go on the MV Ilala which is an old vessel and takes a long time to reach the island, first stopping at Chizumulu island to drop and pick up both people and supplies!

As we waited for the Ilala to start the journey, we watched maize, wooden planks, drums of petrol (for the generators on the island - there is no mains electricity there), bananas....you name it, it came on board!  We started off around 8.30pm, hoping to reach Likoma in the early morning!

We had booked cabins but I didn't have much sleep due to the noise of both people and the ship's engines!