The travels of Tim and Megan: Africa Safari: Malawi

Day 27: Travel to Chitimba Beach, Malawi

Thursday was another big driving day. We were up at 4.30am and departed the Old Farmhouse camping ground at Iringa at 6am. Unfortunately Tim got an injury doing his "dogs bodies" duties. The "dogs bodies" team was tasked with loading and unloading the truck every day - plenty of heavy lifting and other such jobs. As we were loading all of the luggage on to the truck, Andrew accidentally jammed Tim's thumb in the luggage-hold doors of the truck. It pretty much split the side of Tim's thumb open - there was much blood.

It was a long and boring day on the truck - lots of time for reading, listening to ipods, chatting to the others and sleeping! It was a seven-hour drive to the border. We stopped a couple of times, once for an ATM and to buy some snacks and water, and then later for lunch just before we crossed the border. At lunch, we met one of Mwangi's mates, "Freddy the Money Changer" - who, unsurprisingly, changed our Tanzanian shillings for Malawi kuchas. He gave us a really good rate, despite us not really having anywhere else to exchange it.

Our border crossing took over an hour and a half - a painful process in the intense heat of the middle of the day. Once into Malawi, it was another two and a half hours to our camp at Chitimba Beach on Lake Malawi.

Malawi is a landlocked country in south-east Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the north-east, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Malawi is over 118,000 sq km, with an estimated population of nearly 14 million. Its capital is Lilongwe, the largest city is Blantyre and the second largest city is Mzuzu. The country is nicknamed, "The Warm Heart of Africa".

Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa and the eighth largest in the world, is located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. The lake's tropical waters are reportedly the habitat of more species of fish than those of any other body of freshwater on Earth, including more than 1000 species of cichlids. Lake Malawi is between 560-580 km long, about 75 km wide at its widest point and has a maximum depth of 706 metres. The total surface area of the lake is about 29,600 sq km, which accounts for 25% of the country's total area.

We entered Malawi from the north and drove south along the western shore of the massive lake. Malawi looked a lot more green than Tanzania - because we were driving along the lake and close to water, there were plenty of trees and crops growing.

We arrived at Chitimba Beach at about 6pm and we pitched our tents at a lovely camping ground right on the lakefront. The lake had actual waves, like the sea, and it had sand rather than gravel. Malawi is very bad for mosquitoes, so we were extra vigilant with our mosquito repellent. Luckily for us, it was quite windy, which kept the temperature down a bit and kept the mosquitoes away! We had a drink in the bar, followed by dinner, and then went to bed - we were all pretty tired. Early starts and intense heat took its toll on us.

Day 28: Chitimba Beach, Lake Malawi

Friday was a very lazy day by the lake. We did not have a great sleep, as it was super hot and quite noisy, but we did get to sleep in until almost 8am. We had eggs and baked beans on toast for breakfast - brilliant. We spent the morning doing a few chores - hand washing, charging our electrical gadgets and catching up on the last few days' diary entries. We then hung out in the bar with some of the others and chilled out. It was very hot outside, so the shelter in the bar was ideal.

Lake Malawi is home to snails that act as an intermediate host for the nasty Schistosoma parasite, which causes bilharzia. On contact with humans, the parasite burrows under the skin, matures to another stage and then migrates to the lungs and liver. While there are drugs that can be taken post-exposure to kill the parasite, we were unsure of the availability of said drugs and were therefore a bit reluctant to go in the water at Lake Malawi. We did, however, go for a walk along the beach and took some photos - see below. There were lots of local men fishing and swimming in the lake.

In the afternoon, we checked out the craft shops on the street in front of our camping ground. There were lots of stalls in a row, all selling hand crafted wooden products, from small souvenirs to large coffee tables, board games, African masks and the famous Malawi chairs. We bought a Malawi magnet, an elephant ornament and a smaller lion ornament - all very good value.

The rest of the afternoon was very cruisy. Tim kicked a football around with a few of the other guys in the tour, then we went to the bar, where we learned how to play the Malawian board game "bao". After dinner we had a drink in the bar and then went to bed. There were lots of ants in our tent (and a few of the other tents). So we had to spray the little shits with fly spray and sweep them all out. Not ideal! Unfortunately, the wind of the night before had deserted us, so it was a very hot and muggy night.

Day 29: Travel to Kande Beach, Lake Malawi

We woke at 5.15am, showered, packed up, had brekkie and hit the road at 7am. We had a half-day drive south along the western shore of Lake Malawi. The first part of the drive was over a mountain range, which gave us superb views of the lake.

We stopped at Mzuzu, Malawi's third largest city, to buy some bad taste outfits for a dress-up evening (unfortunately there are photos below). We drew names out of a hat as to who we would buy an outfit for - Megs got Damian and Tim got Roselin. Megs bought a lovely white, lacy number for Damian, while Tim bought Roselin a leopard print skirt with a fluffy tail attached and a black top.

There were some great little shops in Mzuzu, some of which had names similar to those we had seen in Ghana in February. We saw one called "God Can Do" Investment. Another shop had a sign that read "We sell chicken parts and grocerys" [their spelling mistake]. After picking up our costumes, we stopped in at a supermarket to get some more supplies (including more vodka).

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa and the world. Recent estimates put Malawi's GDP per capita at around $US800, which is half that of Kenya and Tanzania. Malawi are currently suffering from international trade sanctions and internal restrictions, which mean that there is a severe shortage of consumer goods available in Malawi. Fuel is in short supply and is extremely expensive, which adds to the shortage of goods. At one stage, we went into a shop where most of the shelves were completely empty and the few products that were available were very expensive.

We arrived at Kande Beach at about 1.30pm, had some lunch and got settled in. We battled the extremely slow internet at the camping ground, lazed in hammocks on the beach and hung out in the bar, watching some English football. Arsenal carried on their good form with a 3-0 win over West Bromich-Albion. Megan and Neena made a crazy concoction of sprite, mango juice and Konyagi, which they called "Witch Doctor". It had the desired effect. In fact, most of our tour group was in fine form on Saturday night.

It was another hot and sweaty night. Sara and Troy found a small scorpion in their tent as they were about to go sleep. It was crawling up Sara's leg. She flicked it off and then Troy killed it in the face with his jandal. Scary stuff.

Day 30: Kande Beach, Lake Malawi

The general theme of our time in Malawi was chilling out. There were a few optional activities, but most of us used the time to relax in the sun and have a good time. Sunday was no different, as we enjoyed another sleep-in. After breakfast, we all exchanged our costumes. Neena had drawn Tim's name out of the hat and she was rather mean. She had chosen Tim a ridiculously small girly top, a mini skirt and...the worst part of all...Manchester United sweat bands. The top and skirt Tim could handle, but the Man United sweat bands were just plain wrong. Megan's outfit was actually not too bad - a beautiful leopard print top and a short skirt.

We spent the day chilling out in the hammocks, playing a bit of pool, walking on the beach, watching some football in the bar and doing a bit of internet, which was again painfully slow. In the afternoon Troy saw a black and green striped snake slithering its way across the path that led to the bar. Best to keep shoes on around the bar area then!

Later in the afternoon, there was a big game of volleyball down on the beach. This included small amounts of skill, plenty of verbal banter and much hilarity. Back at the campsite, two pigs had been spit-roasted since breakfast (photo below). It was a very special night coming up: spit roast for dinner, a special potent punch made by Mwangi and Mwai, and our bad taste dress up party.

In the evening, we showered and got into our sexy outfits, gathered around the camp fire and got stuck into the punch. It was hilarious seeing everyone in their bad taste gears. Troy and Sara were decked out in matching leopard print outfits - with Troy's bushy beard, they looked like Tarzan and Jane. A couple of the guys had to wear long dresses, which looked quite ridiculous.

The punch did its job and after dinner we all went over to the bar, where we had to model our outfits in front of everyone. One of the old German guys, Dieter, won the best dressed competition, which was fair enough. He managed to pull off his girly outfit scarily well. There was much crazy dancing and drunkenness, including Jacintha dancing on the bar and Damian revealing a little too much.

Day 31: Travel to Senga Bay, Lake Malawi

We were pretty slow moving on Monday morning after a big night. We departed the camping ground at 8.30am and continued driving south along the western shore of Lake Malawi towards Senga Bay. There was a big thunder storm and heavy rain during the drive. Everyone was very tired and hungover, so there was lots of sleeping on the truck. We arrived at Senga Bay at about 1pm. It was much cooler and there was a bit of drizzle around.

We pitched our tents, unpacked our gear and had some lunch. We then sat under cover in the bar and watched a bit of the New York marathon on TV. Unsurprisingly, the Kenyan runners were dominating and our Kenyan crew was very happy. Later in the afternoon, a group of us played football on the beach. It was really tiring running on sand and we had all got pretty unfit from sitting on the truck for the last month. We also got some nasty grazes on our legs from diving on the coarse sand.

Megan, Neena and some of the other girls visited the craft stalls near our camping ground and bought a few wooden treasures. Jacintha and Susan bought a massive wooden giraffe that must have been over 4 feet tall. It was beautiful. Megan bought a lovely sculpture with metal African characters in the centre of a wooden frame. After a shower to get all the sand off, it was dinner time and then we hung out in the bar for a little while before heading to bed.

Day 32: Travel to Chipata, Zambia

We found it a bit hard getting going again on Tuesday. We departed the camping ground pretty early once again and we drove south / south-west across Malawi to the capital city, Lilongwe. We arrived in the capital in mid-morning and stopped at a large shopping centre to stock up on supplies. Well, we tried to.

It was like entering a Communist-era shop - the shelves were empty. More alarmingly, the entire fridge area was empty - there were no soft drinks to be found in the entire supermarket. The things that were for sale were mainly strange items that we did not need and they were over-priced. We wandered through the whole shopping centre, trying to find a Coke at several cafes and shops. None of them had any soft drinks at all. Apparently there was some ongoing dispute between the government and the soft drink distributors in Malawi, which had exacerbated the shortage.

The internet cafe was not working and many of the other shops had little to no stock, so it was looking like being a fairly unsuccessful pit-stop. However, we eventually found a fried chicken shop that had three bottles of Coke left in the fridge. It was like heaven. Tim asked if he could have one bottle of Coke and the man behind the counter said "No"! He then continued that we could only buy a Coke if we also bought some food, because they were in such short supply. This sounded fair enough to us, so we bought a large fries and a bottle of Coke. Delicious!!!

We stocked up on a few snacks and some water and then carried on our merry way, bound for the border with Zambia. As we drove through the countryside, we saw lots of locals carrying crazy things on their heads and, in one case, we saw a guy pushing a bike along the road with a stack of sticks about three metres high tied to the back of it (photos below). We also saw some more amusing shop names as we passed through little villages. Below is a list of some of our favourite shop names from our time in Malawi.

Let God be God Shop
Blessings Investments
God Will Provide Tuck Shop
Mr Nice Trading
Drinkers Nest (a pub)
No-one But You Tavern and Bar
Last Hope Auto Shop
Confidence Grocery