Hello from Malawi!

Favorite country so far! The people are very friendly, the food is delicious, things are cheap, and it is so beautiful! We’ve spent a majority of our time on Lake Malawi – the third biggest lake in Africa – but all of Malawi has been kind of magical…

Bribing and Not Bribing: It was a rough start for some, but not for me :) Several people on the truck have two passports. Most of these people sent their second passports away to get their Ethiopian visas processed (keeping on hand the one with the Zimbabwe visa). At some point, all of these people were going to have to switch out their passports. Our tour leader decided that Malawi was the place to do it, with the hopes that the customs official would not look for the last country’s exit stamp. The customs official did, however, and not seeing the Mozambique exit stamp, initially refused to grant entry for all the people who had switched their passports. Our driver bribed the official with a coke and the switches were made! Moments later, the truck was stopped by a police officer for speeding – 64km in supposedly a 50km zone. The next thing I see is our driver walking out with a stack of Malawi Kwacha. I thought it was a bribe, but apparently there was a photo of the truck speeding and the driver ended up paying the fine of 5000 MKs (~$27).

Lilongwe: I don’t have much to report on Malawi’s capital city as we only spent one night there and really only had about 2.5 hours to enjoy the city. Random 1: SIM cards are sold in packs of two, with all but one number the same – perhaps this is so that two people in one family can both have numbers similar enough to make it easy to remember? Random 2: I gave a vendor a 500 MK note for 200 MK worth of credit. I walked away, not thinking about my change. He called me back to make sure I got it. :) Random 3: The local Malawi beer is Kuche Kuche. It tastes awful but it’s a great label to have for my collection! Carlsberg is the other popular beer on offer.

Kande Beach: We spent three sleeps at Kande Beach on Lake Malawi. It’s a small paradise and I really, really like it here. We were camped pretty much on the beach and most people had a few days to relax and enjoy the sand and sun. My personal down time was minimal because I was busy getting my Advanced SCUBA Certification – success! I had a lot of new diving experiences as I had dove neither in fresh water nor at altitude before diving at Lake Malawi. Dive #1 was a 33 minute dive at a depth of about 80 feet. Nothing really notable about the dive itself, but when I surfaced, my vision was blurry for 10-15 minutes. A little bit scary actually, but I think it had something to do with wearing gas-permeable hard contact lenses and all that pressure…. Dive #2 was a navigation dive: My skills navigating underwater are pretty much as horrible as my skills navigating when driving. Dive #3 was a night dive! Night dives are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced! It’s definitely not an experience for the claustrophobic because except for a pretty weak torch, you cannot see anything but black water around you. We took the boat out during an amazing sunset and by the time we were geared up and in the water, it was dark. It was surreal to look up and see the moon shining down on me and scary to think about what creepy creatures I might discover as I shined my light around. Luckily, the most malicious creature in the lake is a crab, and only if you poke at it with your finger. Dive #4 was a fish identification dive, moderately useful because Lake Malawi is home to approximately 1000 species of cichlids. Though I wrote down descriptions for a number of fish, I never did manage to look them up. So it goes. It is also really hard to write on a slate underwater when the current is mercilessly bouncing you around! Dive #5: DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle) Dive, James Bond Style. Each equipped with a Seadoo DPV, four of us powered around Kande Reef. You don’t go quite as fast as they do in the movies, but my motor powered me a bit faster than one of the other divers who weighed twice as much as me :) Five dives later, I’m certified Advanced and exhausted! I still managed to get through a round of Power Hour (for the first time ever!) and close down the bar that night with truck mates. :)

Livingstonia: While camping at Chitimba beach, I went on a 16+ mile “guided” hike to Livingstonia. The town is not known for much other than being a successful community with good schools, and all because of the missionary established there in 1910. Notable sights include a church and a museum. The museum housed some pretty quirky exhibits like a plate with a cup stacked on top and an accompanying description about the Zambian president eating in Livingstonia once. A lot of the children were really lovely, waving and smiling at us as we passed. Some of them simply demanded goods: “Give me money!” “Give me a pen!” “Give me your water bottle!” All in all, the hike was actually pretty miserable. Although I got some good exercise, I started at 6am and arrived back in town 9.5 hours later exhausted, blistered, and dispirited. I was following someone else’s pretty grueling pace the whole time and our guide basically had zero information to share with us. I think I just felt gipped and grumpy and tonight’s vegetable curry dinner won’t make it any better. *sigh*

But things are, on the whole, great! Though I’m trying to keep the whining down to a minimum, it seems to have given me the most desired result possible: Theo has bought a flight to Egypt and will be joining the truck in Aswan! So incredibly excited!!! And, next on the agenda is Tanzania! We cross the border tomorrow (June 15) and after two nights camping, we’ll be in Dar Es Salaam to catch the ferry to Zanzibar!! Hope everyone is enjoying summer at home, miss you all!