The Scottish boat that helps feed Malawi

My journey began in the aptly named town of Monkey Bay, where a troop of baboons strutted about the ticket hall, eyeing up the baskets of plump tomatoes carried by

some of my fellow passengers. This was the southernmost point of my voyage all the way up Africa's third largest lake. Our destination was some 300 miles (480km) to the north, near Malawi's border with Tanzania, which I hoped to reach two-and-a-half days later. I had been warned that it could take longer as the MV Ilala didn't adhere to her timetable all that strictly. She was the star of Lake Malawi - and an ageing, temperamental one at that - carrying cargo and passengers back and forth every week.

Built on the Clyde in 1949, the Ilala was shipped in sections to Mozambique and brought inland by rail to landlocked Malawi. Stepping aboard invoked a distant, glamorous era of steamship travel. There was a mahogany-panelled saloon bar on the middle deck, and a dozen cabins, some for passengers, some for senior members of the crew whose job titles - Second Engineer, Chief Officer - were stencilled on the doors in an old-fashioned font. The Glaswegian craftsmen who built her would still recognise much of their handiwork, though the 65 years she'd spent on the lake had not been kind. She was rusting, battered and tired.