By the beautiful lake

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We got to the lake on Tuesday, staying at a lovely peaceful lodge near Chinteche.... after 8 hours on a bus (about half of it standing room only!) and then a 3 km walk with packs on our backs and 35 degrees! The best Fanta drink ever at the end of that! The lake is warm and clear with beautiful gold cichlids swimming everywhere. The food is wonderful, chambo (lake fish) and rice followed by mangos which are ripening on the huge trees in the lodge grounds.
The swallows left for Africa, from Wales, before we did and it's wonderful to see them here as they speed fly through the air feeding on lake flies. The lake flies were rising like smoke, in their huge columns on the horizon of the lake..... then blown inland in swarms. We tasted the fly cake they make with these flies and it was surprisingly good...... like a gritty salmon pate.
We stayed at Sambani Lodge until Friday and have now moved on to Nhakata Bay .... still by the lake but the ground rises up steeply about 300ft from the lake over rocks..... We are now staying at a lodge where you need to have the skill of a mountain goat to negotiate your way from room to wash room to dining area.... and we are walking everywhere! So keeping fit.
We ate pizzas (!) and listened to some good music last night..... You can check out Michael Mountain on Youtube, singing about Malawi lake and there is visual footage of the lake as well on that clip! Title " How Big is the Lake?"
After one week we have re connected with a lot of people and met many more. It is an intense experience! And very enjoyable! Being trully British, we have to mention the weather...... very hot and we often drip with sweat but we had some let up yesterday with the first rain..... and a great show of lightning across the lake, the rain lasted about an hour! The air born insects, like dragonflies, then flocks of egrets and other birds we don,t yet know the names of,,, started blowing in toward the shore just before rain.... all quite dramatic!
OK folks... all for now! emailing very slow at the moment and don't want to overload systems!

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