Blogs from Kandi Beach, Lake Malawi, Malawi, Africa

Our big event for today was a visit to the Kande Beach village next to our camp. This included a tour of the village manual water pump, the hospital and school all supported by funds from the Canadian Government. Our guide for this tour showed us into his home where he lives with two younger brothers and a sister - brick walls and thatch roof and cement floor and two windows with glass with three rooms in a total floor space of 20 x 15 feet. He built this home himself. We walked to the main village area and Kayla bought a cold soda from one vendor. Outside on the street, all the day's produce and all manner of other goods were laid out and displayed for sale. Kayla went over to one woman selling maize ... read more

This is to be our last day in beautiful Malawi, and after a relatively short road trip through many more interesting villages and street markets, and a stop in one village for water and snacks in the local Superette, we arrive at the most beautiful beach we've seen so far. Two people events to remember: 1. the butchery was chopping sides of meat on a wood stump in front of his shop while other sides hung overhead in the sun, 2. A mother was waiting for transport with two small children, three suitcases and a large blanket when a bike "taxi" stopped and after some negotiations the three suitcases were tied to the back of the bike and all walked off along the busy roadway. We have mentioned before about the street scenes, but it's worth ... read more

Up a bit later this morning, breakfast of pancakes and sausages at 7:30, departure at 8:00. We didn't have far to go, just a few hundred kilometers. Surprisingly, Malawi has a lot of hills and high rocky mountains that start right from the lakeshore.  Lake Malawi is the third deepest lake in Africa, and is 75 km across and about 750 km long, part of the Rift Valley system. From our campsite, we can't see across it. We drive through the hills, covered with all kinds of crops, from rice in the low marshy lands, to bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, potatoes, red onions and tea plantations. This is quite a rich farming area compared to the southern highlands of Tanzania, and is much greener, even though this is the dry season. On the last few days, ... read more

The following weekend three of decided to go to Kende Beach, an incredible sandy beach with pretty big waves and nice resort. This time we decided to skip the buses and hire a taxi cab. Luckily this cab driver didn’t know much about the location of Kende B each , so he under charged us for the trip as prices are negotiated before the journey. About half way there, we got pulled over at a police check point. Our driver’ s taxi was not licensed to serve outside of Mzuzu, therefore he was fined by the police 3000k,aprox 20$ (the same as our our taxi fee) . As soon as we arrive we booked a 2hour horseback riding tour. The resort owner drove us to a big horse ranch which was operated by people from England. ... read more

May 19th I woke up from my first night of sleep in Malawi awake and ready to start the day. Of course there was the obligatory tea and toast routine to ensure the day starts off as best as possible. Rumor in our camp was that there were some vendors outside the campsite in the market area looking for batteries for barter. Malawians are actually renowned for their bartering ways, they will trade just about anything for anything. So I headed out of the campsite and to the market area and met a couple of the local guys. I was able to buy some souvenirs in return for some AAA batteries I didn’t need any longer. I also scoped out a green mambo tree snake hanging around the top of the market structure, preying on a ... read more

En route to Lake Malawi, we set up camp next to Ruaha River, which is pleasant scene (albeit we have to be careful with scorpions which are rife in the area). We have a couple of beers at a nearby bar where I chat with a former Zimbabwean Farmer; he was one of the first to be forced out by Mugabe's henchmen (i.e. by shooting his neighbours and then giving him the option to leave without any form of compensation). Some of the stories are quite frightening and disheartening of how Zimbabwe has now become. There are some positive signs ahead though; Zambia went through a similar uprising a number of years ago where the predominantly white farmers were removed and those that then occupied the land didn't have the skills to farm. Zambia then became ... read more

HELLOOO everyone! I'm only 9 days into this trip and already so much has happened. I've had most of the bad typical travelers experiences... flight delay, lost luggage, upset stomach, a MASSIVE beetle landing in my wine, the truck breaking down, sunburn... this list could go on. But the amount of amazing things that have happened totalllyyy makes up for everything. I'm the youngest on my trip by 2 years but most people are 28+. there is about 25 of us on the trip. The range of age is 18 to about 60 but believe it or not old people can be fun!!! hahaha Everyone on the trip is very interesting, we have everyone from a Geologist to Robotics Engineer/semi-pro motorcycle racer. They are from Canada, the U.S., England, Wales, Australia and Finland. For those of ... read more