Days 57-59: Malawi

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Malawi! What we saw of this country we really liked! We'd consistently been told that Malawi was one of the poorest countries in Africa, but the scenery is spectacular, the people are very friendly and most of the homes we passed were made of brick rather than mud and straw of previous countries!

Our first stop was for snacks (and bug spray!) in Lilongwe while our truck had it's alternator fixed. Truck was really late back to us and so we ended up getting to our first camp in Malawi - Chinthehe - really late and after dark. It was the only time we ended up driving after dark on the whole tour, and we ended up putting cheesy as songs on the ipods and singing them at full bore as we drove the last hour or so in the dark dodging the many pedestrians aimlessly strolling the road!

Martin continues...
When we woke up in the morning, we realised our camp, and even our tents themselves, were about 20m from the beach!~ Wicked! Gorgeous spot, right on the beach 😊

Although we couldn't swim in the lake because of really nasty bug that settles in on ur liver or something equally yucky and only shows itself several months later when you get sick as a dog... uuurrrgghg!
Great bar - although strangely enough the national beer here seems to be Carlsberg!?

We stayed at this camp for 2 nights so during the full day we had off the truck, Kristi and I did a huge amount of... absolutely nothing!! We did made Banana Pancakes for the whole group for breakfast, which were extremely popular - but may have been a bad move becasuse very subsequent day began with..."Why don't you guys make Pancakes again?" !! Spent rest of the day in the pool (no noxious bugs!) doing washing and generally recharging the batteries. Mwangi (our guide) made a fantastic charcoal BBQ dinner (because we ran out gas!) of chicken, sauages (boerwoers) potatoes and mini squash - was divine - best meal of the trip so far! went to beddy early as we had yet another early start!!

Early start for a nice short drive the following day to another great camp on the beach, called 'Chitimba'. A stunning drive down to the lake out of the hills, fantastic panoramic views of the lake 😊 Chitimba has a great feel to it, very chilled out and cool, reminded us a lot of places on the beach in Thailand! (complete with dreadlocked bartender!) There was a mountain range overlooking the camp which looked exactly like Table Mountain in Capetown - de ja vu!
We spent some time hanging out with some locals and Martin tried some unbelievably terrible beer - it comes in a milk carton and you have to furiously shake it before drinking, because you want to dislodge all the sludge on the bottom (It's called 'Chibuku Shake-shake'). What you are left with is something with the consisitancy of runny porrigde and the taste of A LOT of yeast mixed with.. well... runny porridge. Erk. Was vile beyond belief, but needless to say I drank it all - beer is beer! (Matt, the other kiwi guy, gagged and gave his away after a sip!).
Kristi was mobbed by little kiddies wanting to walkwith her and hold her hand - very cute 😊
We bought some nice bracelets in a town called Mzuzu, and other than that just chilled out all evevning 😊

Early start the next day (par for the course I guess!!) as we wanted to get to the Tanzanian border at a decent hour, before the queues built up.

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Comments

[Beth]

Just so cool!!
Love reading this - and the way you write it - feels like we are there.