Advertisement
A new week and time to tackle more of East Africa. Our exit from Zambia took us to Malawi where we made our way to Lake Malawi, the 3rd largest lake in Africa. At the border crossing we saw three abandoned Irish Registered cars which we are sure arrived there legitimately!
Our first stop by the lake was at Kande Beach and it didn't take long before we were tempted into its warm clear waters. It was our first taste of chilling out by the water and after some long distances we enjoyed the downtime. In case we had forgotten where we were, we ensured to get some local interaction. Our group were invited to the local village for dinner and entertainment. We were encouraged to sing for the locals also and despite the embarrassment and dodgy singing voices we duly obliged!
The Kande Beach village tour also provided a reminder of how tough life is in East Africa with a visit to the local hospital and primary school. The hospital, with one doctor and nurse, serves a population of 20,000 but doing so without many basic items. The primary school was a experience and a half! With a
class size of 150 to each teacher it was hard to imagine how any sort of control could be exercised! We couldn't help but laugh when we saw the excitement of the kids when they saw us. Donal had to give piggybacks around the school! Mau met her name sake - a little girl called Maureen. A popular name worldwide obviously!
Our next adventure along Lake Malawi took us to Chitimba in the north. Hiking up to Livingstonia provided good exercise (c. 25km, it took 11 hours from start to finish and buckets of sweat)! Nestled in the mountains, it hosts a population of 3,000 people and provided spectacular views of the lake below and a nearby mountain AKA Malawi's answer to Table Mountain!
Our week continued across the border to Tanzania where after two extremely long driving days and ropey stomachs, we eventually arrived at the commercial capital of Dar Es Salaam. As well as being a big fishing city, it is also a crazy place and our gateway to the islands of Zanzibar. Located 6 degrees south of the equator, our first day in Zanzibar was spent relaxing on Nungwi beach. However, our plan to get
rid of the farmer's tan was short lived as the following morning we woke to torrential rain. Regardless, we strolled the beach and came across a herd of cattle relaxing on the beach who weren't put out by the rain!
Famous for its spices, we enjoyed a really interesting spice tour in Zanzibar - emersing ourselves in the beautiful aromas of cinnamon, lemongrass, turneric, cloves, etc. After working up a thirst, a local man climbed a tall coconut tree and we drank and ate some coconuts.
One of our favourite sayings of the trip is that in the western world they have watches but here in Africa they have the time. This holds particularly true in restaurants where it is not uncommon to wait up to two hours for food to arrive and better yet for food to arrive at different times e.g. an hour or two between some people getting their meals. But as one of our other favourite sayings goes TIA (This is Africa!) so one must expect the unexpected and just keep smiling.
On a walking tour of Stone Town we explored the former slave chambers and learned about the slave driven economy that
thrived in the 18th century. Zanzibar was the primary slave trading point for the Middle East and India, whilst West Africa catered for the USA and Europe. Aside from the slave chambers we exposed ourselves to the crazy markets where the strong smells of the spices and meat filled the air. However, there was no way we were going to chance going through the fish area for fear our noses wouldn't be strong enough!
Stone Town is famous for it's night market so we decided to brave it on our last night and went there for dinner. We opted for tomato and cheese pizzas which turned out to be tomato and mayonnaise crepes but they were edible and the service was quick so we were happy out. However, we got a little concerned with the amount of cats that were hanging around but sometimes what you don't know won't hurt you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0326s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
