Overland tour - Freddy is stranded, sangria and Italian pasta night.....


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Africa » Malawi » Lake Malawi
August 23rd 2010
Published: August 23rd 2010
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BoggedBoggedBogged

Freddy is bogged and we try to help move him out.
From Zambia we again have another really early start this morning (4.45am) and a 9 hour drive along another bumpy drive to Luwawa Forest - Malawi. We noticed when we crossed the border from Zambia to Malawi the differnce in housing for the locals. It is a poorer country than Zambia and we were told that most people only survive on US$2 / day. We stopped at a local village market where all sorts of items were being sold (blankets / clothing / shoes / fabrics / fresh tomatoes). The clothing items were previously used and we were told these are most probably donations from western countries that are being sold??.

We arrived at camp at sundown (6pm). It was allot cooler as we were up higher into the forrest. We put up our tents, had showers then dinner around a lovely campfire then to bed. We were woken up during the night by the sound of light rain but then it started to get heavier and heavier. We had to get out of our tent as the rain was starting to come inside and luckily enough there was a dorm room where we could spend the next night as we were told it would most probably rain again the next night. Camping in wet weather is not pleasant especially without water resistant tents! As it was pouring with rain there was not much we could do so we all sat inside with hot coffee and reading our books. When the rain eased a group of us decided to go for a hike around the lodge. It was really pretty scenery. Not what you would expect to see in Africa. The next day were were all looking forward to going to warmer weather to a place called Kande beach right on the banks of Lake Malawi.

As it had poured with rain the night before the road out of camp was really muddy. Freddy (our overland truck) did not make a turn and tipped over to the right and sucessfully got bogged in deep mud. We all tried to help push Freddy out but it was no use, he was not moving. We waited all day for a tractor from a neighboring village to come and help move Freddy however it did not arrive and we had to go onto our next destination. Finally late in the afternoon we
Kande Beach - Lake MalawiKande Beach - Lake MalawiKande Beach - Lake Malawi

We had our sangria and pasta night on the beach.
left in a mini bus to Kande Beach. It was not a pleasant journey in a small mini van with 22 people with backpacks, tents, food and various other camping items. We eventually arrived at Kande Beach late (9.30pm) and had a late dinner and retired to our tents.

Spent the next day at the beach just relaxing after our exaughsting / stressful day the night before. Lake Malawi is beautiful with white sandy beaches with allot of leisure activities available. The lake, third largest in Africa and eight largest in the world, is situated between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is also the 2nd deepest lake in Africa. We decided to have a party night on the beach and we had and a Spanish guy in our tour group who offerred to make sangria (his speciality) and then an Italian guy in our tour group cooked a delicious pasta meal just like his mama makes...al dente.....

The next morning we were hoping Freddy would have arrived however we heard that he was still stranded as the tractor had still not arrived from the neighbouring village....TIA as they say...So again we made our way further north up north of Lake Malawi (in our mini bus) to a place called Chitimba. It is a beautiful beach and we again had a day to ourselves on the beach and to do some shopping at a local market. Freddy eventually arrived later that night after 3 days being stuck in the mud. We were very thankful as our next destination was 3 relaxing days in Zanzibar - Tanzania...


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