No bigger than England, bordered by Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, Malawi stretches as a landscape of tobacco crops, dusty tracks and sunflower fields and rises to mountainous tropical forests ending at the 3,000-metre peak of Mulanje Massif.
In the countryside outside the main towns, African tradition meets western fashion. Villagers live in mud huts with grass roofs and balance their wares on their head, but dress in second-hand western clothes bought in local markets – it is not unusual to see people dressed in Manchester United T-shirts.
Wherever Iwent, people acknowledged me with ear-to-ear smiles, and with a constant cheerfulness that disarms you.
Most visitors fly into Lilongwe, founded on the banks of the Lilongwe River in 1906 and declared Malawi’s capital in 1975. It has a modest collection of shops, hotels and businesses, but as a city cannot compare to bustling Blantyre, further south.
Blantyre is the oldest European settlement in the country, and well worth a visit for its colourful markets selling cheap wood carvings and its bars serving locally brewed beer.
The biggest draw for travellers though is Lake Malawi, at 365 miles long and 50 miles wide, the third largest lake in Africa, spreading along the Great Rift Valley before it drains into the Shire River.
It was up the Shire River in the 1860s that Scottish missionary David Livingstone attempted to sail his Zambezi Expedition with the aim of opening up Africa to Christianity, commerce and colonialism.
I took a swim in the lake, and observed just a fraction of the 600-plus species of freshwater tropical fish, which provide dinner for kingfisher, cormorant, green-backed heron and the fish eagles that swoop from a shoreline where monkeys swing through the towering borasus palms and hippo wallow in the shallows.
Along the shore is resort accommodation such as upmarket Chintheche Inn, Nkopola Lodge and the sporty complex of Club Makokola.
By contrast, Malawi offers several game parks which, although not to the scale of those in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, possess a certain atmosphere.
Liwonde National Park – with its parched mopane woodland, marshes and savannah – is sliced by the Shire River.
It has 1,000-year-old baobab trees, more than 370 species of bird, plus hippo, impala, waterbuck, crocodile and Ansell’s antelope – seen on foot, by four-wheel drive or boat safari.
Further north is Kasungu National Park, which has the largest herd of elephants in Malawi roaming a landscape that rolls to the border with Zambia, and Vwaza Marsh Game Reserve with guided walks to see elephant, buffalo, antelope, waterbuck, lion and leopard.
The best way to track elephants at Nyika National Park and get close to zebra, leopard, antelope and bushbuck is to sign up for a horse safari. Nyika’s height – it is poised on a plateau 2,600 metres up – means chilly nights spent round a cosy log fire at Chelinda Lodge, but it gives you a welcome break from the mosquitoes and the heat of Africa.
Further south is Ku Chawe Inn, an Alpine-style lodge perched in the old pine forest reserve of Zomba Plateau.
Resembling the Scottish Highlands, the plateau is dotted with horse-riding routes and walking trails to the likes of Queen’s View, to see the Mozambique mountains. Resting here, a snack of freshly picked strawberries proved the perfect complement to the view.