Sometimes when you travel you come across a place that is just too perfect. After staying ten times longer than planned, you drag yourself away, back into the real world and convince yourself it was just fantasy. 

No, the people couldn’t be that friendly. No, it wasn’t really surrounded by lush African jungle. Your hut didn’t really overlook a pristine lake with views towards Mozambique. The food just couldn’t have been that fresh and plentiful. It couldn’t have been that cheap. And, no, that couldn’t have been your host dancing on the bar every night.

Hang on. It was. Not even you could conjure up a character like Gary, nor a reality like Mayoka Village; a dream-like place to stay with traditional huts, campsite and restaurant/bar in Nkhata Bay, Malawi.

According to English co-owners Gary and Katherine, it was, however, a hard fought dream.

“Gary and I had been living in Nkhata Bay for a year and wanted to continue our lives there. We’d established many friends and neighbours from the village that we wanted to help, so collectively set about acting on the idea to build a lodge of sorts for travellers,” says Katherine.

After finding a site a little way down Lake Malawi’s shoreline from the village centre, the pair approached the local village elder to seek permission to use the land, a sloping acre or so with its own small beach.

“Gary and I had practically no money, but after explaining to the Chief Elder that we wanted to use the enterprise to help the local community, he agreed to lease the land at a peppercorn rent.

Four months later and with the help of a team of locals, Gary and Katherine had built a bar and restaurant with kitchen plus nine small huts constructed in the traditional mud and sticks method. 

“We wanted the place to reflect a true Malawian village as you would see along the lakeshore and to have a real community feel.

The community feel lives on today with more than half the original local helpers still working at Mayoka Village today.

“In the last month of building, we couldn’t afford to pay wages but everyone trusted in us and the vision and so worked for free. We were absolutely skint when we first opened and had to wait for my sixteen year old sister to visit from England to pay for the first crate of beer and mattresses for the beds,” says Katherine.

“Fortunately the African spirits smiled on us and we received customers right away: a South African couple on their honeymoon who insisted on moving in even before we had electricity and an Israeli couple who brought ten friends with them the next day. Two weeks later we had paid everybody for the last month of building and had 25 customers, it was a dream come true.”

Now, four years later, Mayoka Village is a dream that all travellers exploring the vast offerings of Africa can share in. 

The original bar, restaurant and lounge area, featuring an open-air front overlooking Mayoka’s private beach area, has been extended to include a large verandah/patio. There are now 15 rondavels or huts which have been improved from the original mud and stick to mud brick. For those on a ridiculously tight budget, there’s still ample space for camping amidst the flowering gardens.

On the beach, dugout canoes await those wanting to get back to Nkhata Bay village the traditional way (the local fisherman will be impressed) and there’s snorkel gear available at the bar to explore the rock-laden shallows awash with a myriad of colourful fish indigenous to Lake Malawi.

One of the highlights of the Mayoka Village hospitality is the array and quality of food available. Menus are extensive and all offerings are as fresh as can be using local produce. Tuesday is African Buffet day. One price all you can eat dishes prepared in the traditional Malawian way giving a true taste of Malawi and a truly well-fed stomach. Every Friday, Mayoka cooks up its locally renowned Braai (BBQ) with a huge variety of locally caught fish, meat and vegetarian alternatives (vegetarians are well catered for at Mayoka). It’s usually after this feast that, all going to schedule, Gary musters up his famous party demeanour and is very soon dancing on the bar. Then, there’s nothing to stop the night developing into a full-blown party as the African stars smile and wink overhead.

In the morning, or afternoon if you lasted as long as Gary the previous night, you can snatch one of the most rousing breakfasts: choose from traditional English, Continental or more exotic alternatives including juices fresh from the tree. Once a week a breakfast buffet is on offer; all you can eat for only US$3.

For the active, there’s plenty to entertain. Gary and Katherine regularly organise trips to secluded beaches in their wooden dinghy (including a spectacular feeding from the boat of an African Eagle), rock jumping, football games with local teams or, for the handy of hand, carving lessons with an in-house master, one of the best wood-carvers in an area renowned world-wide for them.

In Nkhata Bay itself, Aqua Africa offers excellent scuba dive packages and courses for beginner through to divemaster. The more adventurous can try their luck with the local fisherman who can often be persuaded to drop you off on deserted islands on the Mozambique side of the lake.

“That is if you can drag yourself from the hammock,” says Katherine with a knowing grin.

Importantly, staying at Mayoka means you are not only experiencing the local environment but helping the community.

Says Katherine,”The driving force behind Mayoka was to provide secure jobs for locals and help their families afford school fees for their children. We try to use our position and influence to drive forward community projects.”

At present, Katherine is helping raise money for the district hospital and collecting mosquito nets from travellers to put in the wards. 

“Also, we currently have a group of travellers who while taking a break and staying at Mayoka are setting up a fish sanctuary, nature reserve and environmental education centre for the Bay,” she says.

“But it’s not all hard work. There’s not a day passes when a guest doesn’t say ‘y’know, you’re so lucky, you live a dream.’ And I guess, in a way, their dream is my reality and I smile every day because of that.”

And if you manage to get to Nkhata Bay, you’ll be smiling too as your three day stay extends indefinitely into another meditative Mayokan sunset.