Blogs from Lake Malawi, Malawi, Africa
March 10th 2012
It's been awhile since our last entry as we were without a camera for a good few months. Unfortunately we were unable to get pictures of our amazing time swimming with whale sharks in Mozambique as well as many other wonderful experiences. We spent 5 months living and working in Cape Town where we had a great time making friends and breaking hearts. With only a month left in Africa we dediced to spend it in Malawi with our African family.... read more
March 1st 2012
I don't usually write about the days where we spend hours on the road. The scenery is always beautiful, and the towns we pass through are full of things to look at, but a lot of our time on the truck is spent sleeping, reading, listening to music or waiting for our next toilet stop, so there's never enough going on to justify me writing anything. Each driving day is much the same as the last. That all changed today. I don't know what time it was when the brakes slammed on and bags, bottles of water and people all flew forward in the back of the truck. I pulled my headphones out, and a child's high pitched cries replaced my music. It wasn't a continuous, steady sort of crying, but lots of cries released in ... read more
March 1st 2012
It was another long day of driving yesterday to Chitimba, where we finally got our first glimpse of Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa. It's the eighth largest lake in the world, and home to countless species of fish. I'd love to see the biggest lake in the world, because this one was really impressive, to the point that at first I automatically thought that we were driving by the sea before I realised that, miles away, I could make out the faint outline of the far shore. Lake Malawi is a source of income for the locals, with many of them catching and selling fish from the lake or else catering to the tourism trade and offering snorkelling excursions to see the diverse underwater life that thrives there. The water is clean and warm, ... read more
Malawi - The definition of Banana Republic
Published: January 29th 2012Africa » Malawi » Lake Malawi » Chitimba Beach
January 29th 2012
Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and that the dreaded month of January has not proved too difficult. Sorry it has been so long since my last post, Malawian internet is both rare and pretty expensive so doing blogs and such like can take a long time. In fact everything in Malawi takes time, I spent a whole day on buses just get to a working ATM machine. I am also sorry if I have not replied to any of your messages. I have read them now and will reply soon. You know I appreciate them so. My New Year got off to a bit of a disastrous start, I managed to pick up some sort of food poisoning so my New Years Celebrations were spent, alone, in bed, with a bucket of vomit ... read more
July 3rd 2011
The non-stop African fun continues. Well the fun did take a couple stops with a few bouts of Malaria. We spent 3 months managing lodges on Lake Malawi. Brooke in Cape Maclear and Stacy in Monkey Bay. It was a wonderful time, with great people, but definitely different from working back home. We are back on the road again. Thanks to Steph, Mom, and Dad for coming to visit us and bringing so many treats from home.... read more
March 7th 2011
LAST DAYS IN MALAWI: Well, this is it folks..... our last blog from Malawi although we may continue to write on here from time to time as the journey continues. I left you suddenly on the last entry... sorry about that. I was describing meetings. Our experience of the SUPOCHO meeting, where Derek and I were really excited by the ownership of this community project as the attendance was good and people engaged with it and showed that Webster and Wilfred have the support they need. The other meeting was in a village near to Chintheche where women from a few neighbouring villages are asking for support to help vulnerable people and orphaned children. It was a very different meeting but important as the local politics are getting sorted out to enable the group to function ... read more
February 17th 2011
NKHATA BAY: TEMPORARY RESIDENTS! It's been a long time since I have written. Forgive us folks! We have been very busy and now that our time for leaving beautiful Malawi is in sight we are very keen to get as much done as possible to help SUPOCHO and have all the information we need to bring back to the UK and get on with the task of fund raising. What can I say in a short period of time? The Internet has been playing up for days but today is good! Our house share is going well although the moving in process was hard. The day after we actually moved was the first day of BIG rains for Nkhata Bay and we had a flood in the house! Derek and I returned from a trip into ... read more
February 14th 2011
"Let sleeping Mzungu's lie" We woke up at 5:15am to catch the early morning (5:45am) pickup truck back to Monkey Bay (MK250). It was a bumpy, very uncomfortable hour drive back, but we chatted to some of the locals and each other, so time passed quickly enough. I reckon I am a little bit bruised from the trip. In Monkey Bay, surprisingly the 7am AXA bus was on time and we hopped on for the trip to Salima (MK780). Most of the guys just slept for the trip (about 3hours). When the ticket man came around again to check our tickets he woke up all of them - they weren't impressed and Jenny said later (as a joke) that they need to "let sleeping Mzungu's lie" - I think that is my favourite quote of the ... read more
February 5th 2011
ok..so on day 28 of my 40 day tour...and am going to try for a 2nd entry!! i left you on day 4 (o dear!! this may take a while!!) so..left the canyon and headed for the Namib desert! lots of sunshine! its been really wonderful! the scenery has been sandy, dusty, dry! i got to sleep on top of our truck one night..aroung 12 of us up there..involved a bit of clambouring and being hoiked up by the guys!! but well worth it! sleeping under the stars (but without the scorpians and snakes) really is an amazing experience!! about 4 shooting stars that i saw, and so many stars..i cant even describe!! hiked up dune 45 (famous dune) to watch the sunrise! wow is sand hard to walk up!! AND GREAT PLACE FOR A DODGY ... read more
January 18th 2011
Settling in Nkhata Bay: The last time I wrote, we had just gone back to Nkhata Bay to put some more time into supporting SUPOCHO and the computer school. We were there for a week and it was an important time. We made a decision not to go all the way down to Mulanje to see the beautiful sights of the mountain and tea plantations. Basically, the constant travelling gets very wearing after a while and we both want to put as much effort as we can into helping SUPOCHO set up as possible. So we are presently travelling slowly down to Blantyre so we can visit the IT Schools Africa project worker there. We are hoping the lap tops will have arrived from Mozambique, but at the last communication 2 days ago, they still hadn't ... read more
