Malawi and SCUBA Diving!

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Well it's been a while since the last post. We've been busy and the internet cafes have become hard to come by. After Vic Falls, we crossed into Zambia and paid a hefty $135 visa fee for Americans. Zimbabwe was nice but the situation there is pretty awful. It is illegal for foreigners to use the local money so we got ripped off for everything ($10 for a small dinner). Our first stop in Zambia was Livingstone where we met our tourmates for the second half of the tour. All that was left from the first half was me, Erika from Vancouver, Nicole from LA, Steve from San Diego, Nichola from England, Nadine from Mexico, and Hubert from the Netherlands.

We didn't really see much of Zambia. We spent two consecutive very long days of driving, pretty much to get through the country. We did make a stop in Lusaka, the capital. It was a rather large city for standards around here. Oh and the roads in Zambia are horrendous. People literally have bounced out of their seats high enough to hit their heads on the ceiling in the truck.

Today we entered Malawi and we're staying at Kande Beach on Lake Malawi. It is by far the best campsite yet. We've still not decided if we're staying here two or three nights. Unexpectedly, I started my PADI open water course for SCUBA diving. I'm doing it with Linon, my tourmate from Maryland. We're either going to finish here or in a few days in Zanzibar. After I finish, I'll be certified to dive up to 18 meters. We started learning the basics in a pool and then we did a short dive out in the lake near Kande Island. We saw a small shipwreck and a few fish and I'm already really comfortable with breathing and the eqiupment. I can't wait to go diving in Zanzibar, the Red Sea, Thailand, and Australia. It's definitely going to be my new thing to do.

Everything else is good. The food has been really good lately. It's going to change into more of an Arab and Indian style as we head north so I'm really excited for that. The tour is great and my tourmates are great. We're having a blast. I probably won't be able to update next until Zanzibar, which is about a week away I think.

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