Looking Dreadful

Had another night in Dar before heading across Tanzania on several long drive days to get to Malawi. Malawi is like the warm heart of Africa, really friendly people and the scenery really varied – kind of like a combination of everything to date. It is a lot poorer but ironically the roads are some of the best so far.

Our first stop was at Chitimba beach and it really was a beach with sand (pitched our tents on the sand!) and right on the lakefront. The lake is so enormous that you can’t see the other side and really it looks just like the sea with gentle waves lapping at the shore. The water was cool and refreshing and definitely worth the risk of bilharzias!! Relaxed the next day on the beach and went for a walk and shopped at the markets outside the main gate. Some of the more keen in the group walked up the hill – only a mere 25km jaunt to see the Livingstonia mission. Was glad I stayed behind!! Speaking of walking, I also got my Nordic walking poles returned for the second time in Chitimba – they had been off having their own adventure again for about 10 days when Arti (from Kenya) had borrowed them to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.. they only made it to a bus and got nowhere near the mountain but were recovered by another of the overland trucks!!

Malawi is really well known for its wood carvings and so much to choose from and so many amazing intricate carvings made from either ebony or teak. Cracks me right up that they use Kiwi Black shoe polish to polish up the ebony wood!! Must admit I caved in and bought quite a few giraffes, including one that it is dubious as to whether it will fit into my pack… the shopping frenzy was to compensate for the fact that I only succumbed to buying giraffe earrings in Tanzania.

Second beach we went to was Kande Beach (prounounced Candy) and it was even better than the first with really clear turquoise waters. We had a bit of a dress up party on the first night there as an early celebration for Phil’s birthday. The dress up part of it meant a stop at the Mzuzu markets along the way which sell the most amazing array of clothing. Sooo funny, you could buy the most outrageous outfits alongside the more sensible items. We had picked names out of a hat and had to shop for them which had some interesting results. I got to shop for two people while Suzanne went off to get a malaria test - and yep, bad news she has malaria – everyone is now paranoid about putting on insect spray! Anyway, the dress up party was hysterical and we looked awful – awfully funny that is. My dress was relatively tame except it was rather.. erm…lowcut! Rafa and Maria (from Spain) had made their killer sangria again and we were all very nicely by about 6.30pm and had a great night. Again the other Oasis truck looked on disapprovingly and had vetoed to do a dress up… their loss!!

Next day spent the day on the beach chilling out and the only adventure I had was when I took in my washing and got dragged off by three guys named Julius Ceaser, Black William and Brown Sugar to see their shops, get a t-shirt painted, buy a Bao board game, look at the Malawi chairs and be convinced to have my hair dredded… all from going to do my washing. Nothing is simple in Africa!! Anyway, so now I am the queen of Africa with manky looking dreds but they assure me that they will come out easily enough in a few weeks time!! Actually quite like it except for the amount of sand that is still in my hair, so may come out early.

Went diving in the lake, which counts as an altitude dive at 474m above sea level and the viz wasn’t great but still really interesting diving in fresh water around Kande Island and going through the rocks, looking at the moonscape holes left by fish and going past the wreck – a jeep that is sunk out there. Not very many big fish about so it was more like swimming in a giant aquarium. Also went out sailing on a catamaran with Nerine who thankfully knew more about sailing than me, so we whizzed along the lakefront in style. The rest of the time we swam, lazed and drank. Tried some of Malawi’s “special” cake which made for a very funny evening for those of us that partook – the naughty school kid crowd of us that skipped dinner and the village walk. Ended up on the beach, with my tentmate playing the bongo drums on the beach with the locals!!