Blogs from Chitimba Beach, Lake Malawi, Malawi, Africa

Week 2 - Malawi Our first night camping Chitimba on Lake Malawi was....well....an experience. I was just getting settled into the tent, ground mat laid out, sleeping bag ready for its first night camping in Africa too, and pillow ready for head to hit......when all of a sudden Meg and I saw a flash of light...followed by an extremely loud thunder clap (Lindsey, Catherine and Meredith, as thunder storm specialists, you can envisage what was going through my mind.) It was coming to the end of rainy season in Malawi, so this was to be expected. But it rained and rained and rained for at least a couple of hours, with the odd sprinkling of more thunder and lightening. On one hand, it felt nice to be out in the open, listening to the rain, next ... read more

Day 14 - 18 Three days of long, hot drives (high 30s) through Zambia and into Malawi...real Africa with the small towns, markets etc. Lukasa Zambia is a surprisingly modern city with lots of inte-national money ....and always KFC! Crossed border to Malawi, no issues just lots of paperwork and line ups...so Zambia check. Then 2 days at Kande Beach on Lake Malawi...90 miles of white sand beach...picture Long Beach at Tofino with similar waves and sand but water around 22c...so...spent most of th past two days body surfing . Absolutely gorgeous place! Visited the local village, homes, school and clinic.... many villagse in Malawi now has a well courtesy of Canada....makes us proud. Schools are 100 kids per teacher but again, lots of Canada flags on books, furniture etc. The medical clinic was a good ... read more

Thursday September 6 All day we chased the sun. Leaving at 06:30 we chased it high into the sky and then all afternoon until it set around 18:00. It's funny how much quicker it seems to rise at dawn and fall as it sets and if you're not ready with the camera, it's a whole 24 hours until your next chance... ---------- Monday September 10 We spent three nights at Kande Beach on the shores of Lake Malawi, followed by two more nights further north at Chitimba. While four worked their butts off in an effort to complete the PADI certification (they stayed at Kande one extra day so as not to spend their stay in Zanzibar doing it there), the rest of us perfected the art of relaxing. Okay so four went out to the ... read more

Today was another driving day as we headed towards the border of Malawi. We got up early and were ready to depart for 6am. Due to unpredictable border entries we packed our lunch in the morning and set off for another long day. The drives really are part of the overlanding experience, they can be very long but really to be able to see so many countries in such a short space of time it really is the best option. Again,everybody slept for a while on the truck, played some card games, read a little, for some reason my travel sickness hasn’t bothered me too much on the truck which is a positive as it would be a very long journey if I wasn’t able to do anything other than sit looking out the window. When ... read more

Getting from Mbeya to the Malawian border was comparatively painless, even if we did stop less than hour away to wait for the minibus to fill back up. I even saw and got to speak to the first white people I had seen in days. After getting over the border, I took a shared taxi to Karonga and from there, a bus to Chitimba. The journey was a measly 6 hours. Chitimba is one of the first towns going south on Lake Malawi. Nearby there are a couple of campsites, where I checked into the Chitimba Campsite and immediately went for a swim in the lake. Chitimba is an idyllic spot, with a big sandy beach. It is overlooked by a couple of mountains and I spent the rest of the afternoon there by the water. ... read more