first upload!

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After two straight days of flying and travelling, I finally arrived at my destination In Lilongwe, Malawi. To get here, I flew to Toronto-London, London-Nairobi , Nairobi -Harare, and then Lilongwe. In Nairobi we were accompanied by the Zimbabwe national soccer team for our flight to Harare. While disembarking our Kenya Airways plane in Malawi, which offered a surprisingly quality and comfortable flight I was glad to finally have the African sun to shine on my face. In line at the airport customs we waited beside the Malawian national soccer team players. At the luggage pick-up, I was not impressed that some Asian food had leaked on my Arc’ Teryx backpack during the flight. We made our way out of the airport with a four vehicle caravan and headed to our accommodations at the Garden court lodge. On the way there I had a chat with Dereka , a government worker who greeted us at the airport. Having my first look outside the window, I was amazed by the landscape, the trees and vegetation. The view was all too surreal , more then I could’ve imagined. The narrow road passed through a very rural section before entering Lilongwe. From my vehicle I noticed the small handmade brick and mud houses, or as I would describe them like ‘huts’. Both sides of the road were very active with many villagers walking, cycling, or carrying supplies over their heads. I was pretty scared for all the cyclists we passed in our SUV as there was no shoulder to ride, and the vehicles passing within an arm’s reach of the cyclist. I can finally admit that I was happy to not bring my bicycle over, as I much intended to. After arriving at our lodge, I settled myself in my room, and took a much needed shower. We then headed out for a walk downtown to get some Malawian currency. For the first time I had my taste of culture shock, the thousands of Malawians roaming everywhere, all of them staring at us, trying to sell us things or offering rides in the mini bus. We located the National bank, a huge building were we got kwacha. We then located a supermarket, where inside the foods and products where all mostly the same as the ones we have back in Canada. We had to head back to the lodge before it got dark, which here means before 6 pm!! At the lodge, we ordered our first meal in Africa. The menu offered some familiar north american foods but I decided to try something new: some nsima and massamba, a maize flour dumpling and a cabbage and vegetable relish. We waited an all too long 2hrs to receive our meals however it was pretty good when I downed it. Following the meal we got ready for bed, and found a huge spider in our bathroom.

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