Malawi, I presume

TEN MILES OUT OF Blantyre, on the road that coils over the Thyolo Escarpment into the steamy Shire Valley (which should tell you we're not in Lanarkshire) is a ramshackle sign: "Historic Tree."

It takes a little finding, but Mike coaxes the Land Rover up a furrowed track to the village of Mbame, where said historic tree is corralled inside a broken wall with another sign: "It was under this tree where Dr David Livingstone is said to have rested while travelling."

Fair enough. In 1859 our iconic Scot did some hefty hiking through hills he named the Shire Highlands, between boat trips up the Shire River and his first view of "the gleaming waters of Lake Nyasa stretching out like a sea into the far distance". Livingstone – always one for the literary soundbite – called it "the lake of stars". In due course this stupendous freshwater basin and its hinterland became Nyasaland, a British colony until 1964. Today it is Malawi; and the threads that link a long line of Scots to its history have been re-knotted.

Malawi is defined by its lake, which floods a segment of the Great Rift Valley 365 miles long and up to 52 miles wide (its nickname is "the calendar lake") and is the centrepiece of a youthful tourist industry. You might say Malawi is to sub-Saharan Africa what Arran is to Scotland – a taster menu with a little bit of everything: mountains, lowlands, forests, beaches, game parks and a mighty inland sea that sustains the country's subsistence farmers and provides a playground for visitors.

I first flew into the capital, Lilongwe, over a year ago, and was swiftly beguiled; not just by Malawi's gorgeous diversity of scenery but by the charm of its people. It may be one of the poorest countries in Africa, but it is also one of the most welcoming. Its rural children never tire of smiling at visitors, and salesmen at its low-key tourist honeypots don't know the meaning of hustle.

Twelve months later and I'm back, this time flying into Blantyre. There to meet me is Mike Muyafula of Wilderness Safaris, who is to conduct me on a do-it-yourself "Livingstone Trail". No big brown signs, heritage trusts or visitor centres, but a good map, some local lore and an insider's biography of the missionary-explorer. By happy coincidence Livingstone's footsteps just happen to lead me to some of Malawi's most appealing attractions.

It makes sense to start in the city named for his Lanarkshire birthplace, although its only connection with Livingstone is posthumous. He died in 1874 in what is now Zambia, without knowing that his vision for the Shire Highlands was soon to become a reality. Today Blantyre, the country's earliest European settlement, is its commercial centre – a pleasant, hilly, flower-filled city, vibrant in spring with the luminous blue of jacaranda and overlooked by three distinctive mountains, all over 5,500ft.

How does it owe its existence to Livingstone, who had been dead for over a year before the first brick of Blantyre Mission was laid by the Church of Scotland? The explorer's greatest failure was his second Zambezi expedition, which indirectly cost the lives of a dozen people, including his wife. But its disasters produced one result. When he finally accepted he could not show that "God's highway" was navigable from the Indian Ocean to the Victoria Falls – the expedition's aim – he turned his attention to a Zambezi tributary, the Shire.

Its fertile banks and healthy uplands became the new focus of his ambition. In the Shire Highlands, he believed, were the conditions to nurture a British colony that would bring "Christianity and commerce" to a region blighted by the slave trade, and thus eliminate it. This conviction, underpinned by a reputation rehabilitated by Henry Morton Stanley and the eulogies of his funeral in Westminster Abbey, inspired successions of evangelists to follow him up the Shire River.

First to arrive was Dr Robert Laws of the Free Church of Scotland, who established a mission at Cape Maclear, at the southern end of the lake, and called it Livingstonia. I have a date with a boat near its former site, now just a scatter of melancholy graves. (The mission was twice driven from lakeside sites by malaria, but flourishes today on the Rift Valley Escarpment.) I'm on my way to Mumbo Island; more Livingstone links but also an earthly paradise. I would trade two weeks of five-star glitz in the Maldives for two nights on modest Mumbo.

It's a question of taste, perhaps, but Mumbo Island Camp, balanced on a jumble of giant granite boulders 40 minutes' sail from the mainland, is my idea of castaway nirvana. Big, comfortable tents perch on decks above the lake, filled with refracted light from the water. Fish eagles cry from the rocks, pied kingfishers plummet from the trees and Lake Malawi's famous cichlids – it has over 2,000 varieties of these colourful, algae-feeding fish – cruise the shallows. You can walk across the island in 20 minutes and climb its only hill in 30; and apart from your fellow guests and a few passing fishermen you'll find no-one else there.

From its waste disposal system to its dry composter loos, the camp has been built to immaculate green standards by Kayak Africa. If its infrastructure were dismantled, the island would return in a season to the pristine place charted by Livingstone when he moored in Lugundzi Cove, "a snug little boat harbour on the north side". Adding a first to my limited range of outdoor skills, I kayak round the island to inspect this anchorage and – escorted by Duncan, the canoe guide – paddle into the "crocodile cave" en route.

There is no sign of its resident, a lonely young reptile who arrived by accident on the island some months ago, "probably on a raft of drifting vegetation", and is growing fast on the local cichlids. Mumbo Island Camp, like many of the lake resorts, offers kayaking, scuba diving, swimming and snorkelling. Yes, the lake has crocodiles and hippos, but they don't go into deep water and they hang around the reeds at river mouths, so they're easy to avoid. Mumbo's marooned crocodile is an exceptional presence. "We hope he'll find another raft to take him back to the shore," says Duncan. "Otherwise when he gets bigger we'll have to ask Parks to relocate him."

The Cape Maclear Peninsula, a towering promontory thick with forest, is a protected area – Lake Malawi National Park. When Livingstone arrived here in 1861 he named it after Sir Thomas Maclear, who taught him the rudiments of map-making. On his various journeys through the Shire Valley, the explorer would also have become familiar with the floodplains and forests of what is now Malawi's premier game park: Liwonde, three hours' drive south of Cape Maclear.

Hardcore safari regulars are unfairly dismissive of Liwonde National Park (it has no giraffe or big cat populations, although lions and leopards wander through) but Mvuu Wilderness Lodge on the Shire River is one of my favourite places in Africa – Tarzan territory. The wide river is heavy with hippo, choked with industrial-size crocodiles; the banks are lined with baobabs, fever trees and palms, the bird life is phenomenal and elephants are everywhere.

Waking at night in my vast tent – one of only five overlooking a lagoon – I sense a massive shape outside the canvas and catch the gleam of moonlight on ivory. The behemoth shuffles off, leaving me to fall asleep to the gunshot snaps of crocodile fishing in the lagoon and the unearthly rasp of a white-backed night heron.

With its larger neighbour, Mvuu Camp, the lodge is owned by Wilderness Safaris and expertly run by Malawians. Managers, guides and all other staff are locals whose experience and insights into Malawian life represent added value for guests. And although there may be little chance of feline excitement on Liwonde's game drives, among the usual suspects there are some uncommon splendours: magnificent sable and roan antelope, elusive eland and breeding pairs of black rhino.

On the road back to Blantyre, Mike and I break our journey at Zomba, which was Malawi's capital until 1975 and seat of parliament until 1994. A leafy, laid-back place, it has the faded dignity of its former incarnation, as well as the substance of a university town. In 1859 Livingstone and John Kirk, one of the Zambezi expeditionaries, tramped throughout the Zomba area, among the most beautiful in the country. They climbed Zomba Mountain, which rises steeply above the town and is more plateau than peak. Its forest reserve – Malawi's oldest – is now a popular hillwalking destination.

Unlike Livingstone and Kirk, I don't make it to the summit, but have an afternoon stroll with Obelisk, a large, hairy and insatiably sociable dog. Obelisk, whose master is away, is one of my hosts at Zomba Forest Lodge, a former colonial bungalow which is now a comfortable four-bedroom guest house halfway up the mountain. My other hosts are Solomon Sikwizi and his sons Lyson and Felix, who couldn't be more solicitous of their only guest.

Solomon has been a chef for 45 years, worked in Blantyre's top hotels and in the 1960s cooked at Zomba's State House for Hastings Banda, Malawi's first president. He is a boon to Zomba Forest Lodge, as his village is only two miles down the hill. "But I'm old," he says when I compliment him on dinner, "and getting too tired to work. So I'm teaching my sons to cook."

The next morning I'm up at dawn to get a glimpse of Mulanje Mountain on the southern horizon. At over 9,000ft, the freestanding massif is the highest in central Africa, and I watch the sun touch its granite buttresses before drowning them in heat haze.

Mulanje was also climbed by Livingstone. Today it's a centre of adventure tourism and the country's finest rock climbing and hillwalking challenge. In my last few hours in Malawi, however, I won't be following any more of the inexhaustible explorer's footsteps.

Factfile Malawi

PACKAGE

South African Airways flies from London Heathrow to Blantyre via Johannesburg, departures on Tuesdays and Fridays. Wildlife Worldwide (tel: [phone], www.wildlifeworldwide.com) offers a 12-night tailor-made itinerary to Blantyre, Mumbo Island Camp, Mvuu Wilderness Lodge at Liwonde National Park and Zomba Forest Lodge for £2,895 per person. This includes flights, transfers, full board accommodation (half-board at Zomba, B&B at Ryalls Hotel, Blantyre), game viewing, park fees and airport taxes.

AND THERE'S MORE

Read David Livingstone: Mission and Empire by Andrew Ross of the University of Edinburgh, a recent assessment of Livingstone's life and career (Hambledon and London, 2002).

Malawi Tourism Information Office (tel: [phone], www.malawitourism.com).