http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Africa , Malawi , Northern , Nkhata Bay en-us Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:54:31 +0000 Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:54:31 +0000 Hey GuysIn keeping with tradition I'll provide everyone a funny anecdote about the bus journey that got us to the place I'm currently blogging about. So there's this Canadian couple who are supposed to catch an 11am bus that doesn't show up until 2pm and then they are lucky to get standing room at the back of the bus for the 6hour ride. The bus proceeds to stop every 6km which accumulates to a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-431329.html The WLP describes Nkhata Bay as Caribbeanesque then backpedals and damns it with quite picturesque. It's certainly and thankfully not as hot as the former but I'll give it the latter. It has the potential to be overrun by tourism but with Malawi not on the tourist trail and with the nearest airport to Nkhata Bay 6 hours away by road that won't happen any time soon. However it's certain http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-422632.html Below the surface of the ocean a diver's senses are more aware. The only sounds you hear are the hissing of your air regulator and the bubbles gurgling out and up eventually to the surface. Occasionaly another diver gently knocks into you and you feel their fins or your own fins graze a piece of rock or coral. Light loses its colors the deeper you descend so it's easy to see that you're diving http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-402248.html What a pleasant change from Mozambique. We left Liwonde at 9 am and arrived into Zomba by 1030 am. We had checked into our resthouse had breakfast and were starting to wander the town all by 11 am. Not only are the distances so much smaller in compact Malawi but the landscape is completely different. The climate is more humid and the environment is much more green. There is also much more http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-345247.html My tummy bug slowly cleared and i took a lift in the back of a truck that a german family had hired to get to chipoka to meet the ferry on friday. The truck was 2 hours late arriving leaving barely enough time to get to the port. It then ran out of petrol in the middle of lilongwe and we had to push it to a petrol station. Arrived at chipoka just before 4 when the boat was supposed to be leavin http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-332565.html Well we arrived in Malawi safe and sound and have been living in our camp by the lake for over a week now which is absolute paradise. The volunteers staff and locals have made us feel very welcome and I can honestly say Malawians are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. You greet everyone you go past with lsquoHello how are you Irsquom fine. Where are you going OK bye.rsquo http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-317545.html Nkhata Bay is yet another perfect place to do absolutely nothing and has test backpackers with the best food in Africa so far. To have the best food is not that hard as most places specialize in Chicken and very soggy chips. Nkhata bay is as small bay on Lake Malawi with a small sleepy village. It is hard to believe that this was once the most important town in the area. The one thing that made http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-308137.html Yesterday we went for orientation to the primary school to meet the children teachers head villagemen and important councillors of education. They performed a display of traditional African singing dancing and poetry. We were presented with a gift. The gift turned out to be 60 eggs...and a live goat The goat is in fact no longer...we had a BBQ last night Not necessarily a good experience fo http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-285931.html So Friday comes and I have no idea what to do for the weekend. The clinic will be closed so there is no need to get up early for work. As I am talking to one of the Baylor doc's about a patient she stops in the middle of everything and invites me to come with them to Lake Malawi. The lake is one of the major tourist attractions in the country. Needless to say I am excited about the invitation. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-223022.html Bus ride from Chitimba to Mzuzu was good at least as in we didn't hit anyone. Man they sure pack 'em in here on average around 20 23 or more people at a time. Stopped somewhere along the line to buy cassava the main staple food here minibus worker thought it would be amusing to give me a big phallic looking piece to try so for everyone's enjoyment I dug in and ate it tasted like a raw http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-164234.html Access to internet over the past couple of months has been sporadic as you have probably noticed. We got back to Nkhata Bay on Thursday night after travelling down from Arusha the previous Sunday the train from Dar to Mbeya is VERY slowWe leave here on Friday and finally head back to the UK on Saturday where have those 6 months gone I have lots of blogging to do. . . like our train journey fr http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-128656.html Day SixToday I fired Mr Banda the electrician. I've never fired anyone in my life. I once threatened a subcontractor when I was 6 months out of university and he laughed in my face. This time with over 14 years of project experience under my belt I was a little more assertive.On Saturday morning at 11am I had asked one of the KALIYA group to check that Mr Banda had managed to get the keys an http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-115866.html Day FiveThe alarm went off at 6.35 as usual but I had already been woken up by the sound of clattering rain at dawn. It's now 9am and it's been raining hard for a good four hours. The ground is saturated and there's no point going up to the village when the only work we have left to do is making holes in the roof and mounting the last solar panels. Everything else is ready and once the electrician http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-115865.html Day FourThe distant rumbles continued all night until finally at about 7 this morning the storms abandoned Mozambique swung west across the lake and twisted and crashed into Njaya scattering table cloths and pepper pots and flooding the restaurant floor. Given that the my path up the mountain is actually a stream bed and the lakeshore was already starting to turn brown as floodwater tumbled fr http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-115864.html Day ThreePlan for the day get all of the modules attached to their support frames by lunch and start marking out the roof in the afternoon while the electrician pulled cables for me. I hadn't accounted for bendy and very hard hardwood timbers and an electrician who has gone AWOL.I thought the pile of bent and twisted timbers of varying thicknessnes on the building floor were the scrap pile per http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-115863.html Day TwoI woke up early thinking about holes in tin roofs and wondering whether the Fisheries vehicle would ever turn up. 9am at the earliest I thought to myself as I wandered over for a casual breakfast. I could hardly believe it when at 8.05 a pickup pulled into Njaya and a beaming Mr C strolled into the restaurant where I was just finishing my coffee. Let's go he grinned I hadn't seen hi http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-115859.html Day OneAt last After constant pushing and encouraging buying and painfully slow transporting of 3000 bricks plus suggestions of other projects on the lakeshore which could make use of the panels and batteries stored in Pauls house the building was as ready as it would ever be to accept SolarAid's solar power system.The shell from September now had a roof and under that roof a store room has http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-115858.html Internet Free Zone Am safe and am now back in Malawi abd currently running round like a headless chicken trying to get more equipment up from Lilongwe to Nkhata Bay. I'd forgotten just how slow and expensive internet access is really involves a 2 hour round trip to Mzuzu.So just wanted to let everyone know that I'm fine that me and Katherine are settling into Njaya Lodge that things will c http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-103304.html We opted for the Scandanavia bus from Dar to Mbeya near the Malawi border as they had the best reputation so considering it was a long drive we thought we'd do well with these guys. We couldn't have been more wrong The bus was late due to mechanical problems and certainly problems that they didn't fix properly About 6 times the bus died on us and as this caused the bus to run late the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-98382.html BWELERO KALIYA YOUTH GROUP Solar CookingTen orsquoclock we agreed. Timing is everything with solar cooking as the sun doesnrsquot wait for us we all agreed. So at 11am with an hour of good solar cooking time already lost and with only four of the group arrived I decided to press on assured that the others would come soon. Made a note to myself to in future say a time at least one hour b http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Northern/Nkhata-Bay/blog-90635.html