The Lake of Stars & Court Cases
October 4-8
Once a year the English-run – thus stratospherically high priced in terms of local affordability – Lake of Stars festival descends upon the Chinteche Inn. This lakeside lodge, set along the idyllic shores of the country’s most impressive natural feature, lies just south of Nkhata Bay in the north. A full three day program of music from Africa, Europe and the U.S. along with debaucherous dancing, drinking and lazing by the water's edge tests even the staunchest of party goers. We therefore thought we had better have a little look at this phenomenon, and with the Mother’s Day public holiday on the Monday tacked onto two days off the previous week we made a real trip of it – our first true holiday from work, albeit only five days. It was also the first chance for our little sports car, the Silver Stallion, to get a decent run on the open road.
Everything began disastrously. Sarah, a New Zealand friend of ours who we had planned to take up in our car, called us the morning we were meant to leave to tell us she had hit a pedestrian the previous night in her own car and would be going to court, thus not able to make it to the lake. We had also planned to stay at Sarah’s folks’ house in Lilongwe that night, so this really threw a spanner in the works.
As it turned out, the previous night Sarah had been driving down Glynn Jones Road, the main road through town, when a drunk local dressed entirely in black decided to suddenly run out into the middle of the road, straight in front of her car. The issue was he that he managed to run out on a pedestrian crossing, making Sarah legally liable regardless of the circumstances. What’s more, Malawian law apparently states that if you mow down a pedestrian on a designated crossing, you are jailed for reckless driving until your hearing can be arranged. Without knowing this, Sarah took the pissed local kid to hospital despite only having run over his foot (he actually jumped up straight away, then the locals with him had said he was fine and that she could just give them money and go – meanwhile some Indians nearby were yelling at Sarah simply to leave because all the Malawians are thieves… a lovely scenario as you can imagine). Using the weight of another friend’s boss, a renowned character in Blantyre circles, Sarah was able to avoid the jail time (the police chief himself was called to smooth things over), and the process of an out of court settlement then began. All a bit of a shakeup for Sarah, and although she wasn’t able to make it with us that day, everything seemed to have worked out alright. Interesting how even though this guy was completely hammered, it was the driver who would be paying the penalty.
Having decided against staying at Sarah’s place in Lilongwe we then lumped ourselves on another friend, Amy, who was also planning to come along to the lake after a night in the capital. Cue the next disaster. Half way to Lilongwe, all going smoothly along the M1, we came across a broken down car… Amy. Why is it that every single person’s car in this country seems to be a moving disaster zone – must be the age of most vehicles I presume. Anyway, she had overheated and was now stranded, and although we offered to help out, another friend was arriving soon to apparently to give her a hand. Although I’m not sure what she was thinking when she simply told Amy to leave her car on the roadside and jump in with her – I could see her car being stripped in seconds leaving out on the middle of the highway here. By the time we arrived in the capital, having stopped off for a few beers at a cute little bottle shop along the way to help us through the day, Amy was still stranded on the side of the road just north of Balaka, almost 200 kilometres away. She finally got a tow-truck to bring her back to Blantyre, picking her up at 6pm after having stood on the side of the road for the last 3 hours (not sure where the hell her other friend went?). So now she was on her way back to Blantyre and we were in Lilongwe without any accommodation, having travelled several hours out of our way to come here!
After swinging by Sarah’s house to grab a tent for her, we found Amy’s house (no thanks to her directions) and rolled up at her gate. Ten minutes later, without even being told we were coming, her guard had handed over the house keys to some complete strangers and we were safely inside, for all he knew trashing the place. When Peter and his car full turned up we made seven in total, a little surprise for Amy’s housemate when she turned up later that night! Either way, with a nice meal in an Italian restaurant and then a few beers listening to Asif practice his set for the following night (he was DJing at the Lake of Stars), all was forgotten. Certainly an interesting start to proceedings.
The following day was a little better, making good time up to Chinteche, with a quick stop in a beautiful little local restaurant in Nkotakota complete with personal curtained pagoda and delicious cheap food.
Then the fun began! Three days of solid partying with the stunning backdrop of the lake to complement the whole picture. There were two stages: a main one mostly for live bands and late night DJs, then Harry’s bar, a smaller venue with a non-stop string of more house-oriented tunes. We spent our nights flitting between the two, dancing the night away between long waits through insipid service at the single bar for our large mugs of beer. Daytime was mostly spent recovering while we lapped up the sun… and then convincing ourselves to do it all again the following evening. We slept gingerly under the shade of trees, lounged on the beach between dips in the beautiful fresh lake water and dined on very non-Malawian greasy burgers and pizzas (not much choice I’m afraid). A weekend of complete hedonism – great fun, but I think we’re both very happy that this thing only runs once a year.
