Livingstonia was founded in 1894 by Robert Laws, after two earlier attempts at the mission had been abandoned to malaria — the first at Cape Maclear. He moved the whole thing up onto the escarpment where the air was cooler and the mosquitoes fewer, and built a town: a church, a school, a hospital, a printing press, and stone houses that look as though they have been lifted out of Scotland and set down above Lake Malawi.
Much of it is still standing and still in use. The Stone House, Laws's own home, is now a museum. The church has a stained-glass window showing Livingstone at the lake with his sextant. It is an odd and rather moving place — a piece of Victorian Scotland with an African view.
And the view is the other half of it. The plateau sits about nine hundred metres above the water, looking east across the lake to the Tanzanian shore. Manchewe Falls, a short walk away, drops a hundred and twenty-five metres into a gorge, with a cave behind the water that was used as a hiding place during the slaving years.
Best time to visit Livingstonia
May to October
The dry months give the clearest views down over the lake, which is the main reason to be up there, and the escarpment road is at its most manageable. In the rains the same road turns treacherous and the view is often lost in cloud, though the waterfall is at its most impressive.
Getting there
From Chitimba on the lakeshore, the Gorode road climbs the escarpment in about fifteen kilometres and twenty hairpin bends. It is a proper mountain road and needs a capable vehicle and a driver who knows it — which is the main argument for doing this leg with us rather than alone.
