Lilongwe and Harare

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Hi everyone,

Sorry about the delay in updating the travel blog, but internet facilities have been few and far between.

After Kande Beach, we arrived in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Only spent a short amount of time there, but it was interesting walking the streets, exploring the craft markets and seeing the beautiful mosques that can be seen in the city. They look lovely and sit high up in the sky above the rest of the city.

We then had a long truck journey the following day where we crossed the border into Mozambique. As we were only passing through Mozambique and not spending any time there, my only experience was bush camping in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road. needless to say, we had no running water and no toilets, so the spades had to come out for some people. Luckily I wasn't one of them! It was our turn to cook though, and it was pretty successful. We made egg fried rice and lemon chicken stir fry, followed by toasting marshmallows on the campfire under the starlit sky. Had a relatively early night as nothing to do, but before snuggling down for the night, we saw an army of hundreds if not thousands of massive ants. Luckily they were distracted and avoided our tent!

Our next port of call was Zimbabwe. When we crossed the border, we had to hide all our wooden carvings as we are not allowed to take then into the country and the truck and our bags had to be searched before we were allowed into Zimbabwe.

The scenery in Zimbabwe was quite different to the previous African countries that we had been staying in. Very lush and green and quite modern. We stayed a couple of nights in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. It was quite a shock to see how much the political instability of the country has impacted on life there for the local people. Although it looks lovely and much like an old English colonial town, once you look under the surface it is quite different. In the supermarkets the shelves are pretty much bare making food shopping very difficult! It was quite an emotional experience. There are young and old begging on the streets, but you just have to ignore them and walk on by, but it really makes you reassess and think just how lucky we are! We were advised not to mention Robert Mugabe's name or exchange money on the street as the result could have been a stay in prison!

We had to obtain our Zimbabwe dollars off the black market because inflation rates have made changing money at the border pretty much useless as the rate is so bad! For example, we all changed $20 at the border to obtain an official receipt, but only got 300,000 zim dollars. In comparison, I changed $50 on the black market and got back 7 million 250,000 zim dollars! As you can see, quite an astonishing difference, and the wad of cash looked quite impressive! So while staying in Zimbabwe, I became a temporary millionaire, lol. On the plus side, we did get to go to the cinema whilst staying in Harare and it only cost the equivilent to about 10p - now that's what I call a bargain.

Our first night in Harare at The Rocks was our fancy dress party. Previously we had stopped at a clothes market and we each had to purchase an outfit for another person on the truck. The costumes that were revealed at the beginning of the night were fantastic - very random, bright colours and clothes that you would never be seen dead in at home but that all added to the fun of the night. There was dancing on the bar and lots of drinking, a good night all in all. We also had two more girls join our trip that night, Una (Icelandic) and Lisa (British).

Unfortunatelt whilst we were staying there, Elissa and Laura both had stuff stolen from their tents - US dollars, a phone and an iPod. Definately reinforced the need to be on the lookout and to keep our wits about us. Everyone is now using locks on their tents as a deterant.

Next up is Antelope Park, so will tell you all about it soon x

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Comments

[mum]

zimbabwe
Being a millionnaire was obviously wishful thinking and short lived!! and I am very pleased you managed to avoid prison! lots of love mum xx