malawi

Malawi

Friday 20th June 2008:

We drove through from Zambia to the Malawian Immigration and Customs office at the Mwani Border Post and parked outside. After getting our passports stamped with a 30day entry visa we proceeded to the Customs desk alongside. Thankfully they agreed to use the messed up carnet page from the Kazungula/Zambian crossing instead of just starting a new page, so we filled in Duzi2's details in the entry book. We were asked to show our carnet and our insurance before exiting the gate, and proceeded into Malawi at no cost at all. Luckily we had already bought our COMESA 3rd party insurance (the yellow-card) in Lusaka, which will cover us until Mozambique, so had nothing to pay at all. The whole process was trouble-free and easy, taking very little time at all, and we found out that there is no time difference between Zambia and Malawi.

We headed on a very good tar road to Lilongwe, with the daylight fading horribly quickly, but being restricted to 80km/h on national roads. We planned to get to Senga Bay to camp for the night so we could wake up on Lake Malawi in the morning. Driving in the dark wasn't fun as just about every Malawian has a bicycle, which is loaded at least twice its width with everything possible, and they don't have reflectors. To make matters worse most of the people dressed in dark coloured clothing. We stopped at Pizza-Inn, as we came into the outskirts of Lilongwe, for a lovely dinner and a good break. The shopping centre was really lovely and was buzzing with lots of people and young families. We bought some fresh bread at Foodzone and set back on the road to Salima and Senga Bay.

Stopping to remove the spotlight covers from the front, Ross heard a rattling noise coming from the back near the exhaust. It turned out that the lower mounting on one of the two back left shocks had split, and sheared off completely, and was now just dangling down rubbing against the inside of the tyre. This must have been as a result of the hours of driving on the horribly corrugated and potholed road from hell, from South Luangwa to Chipata. We removed the shock absorber completely and placed it inside the vehicle, continuing along the road to the Lake.

Thankfully the road was a lot quieter after our dinner stop, with no more bicycle or pedestrian traffic along the roadside and the tar was very good, so we arrived at Salima in good time. The speed limit in Malawi on the main roads is 80km/h and 50km/h in the towns, which are normally well marked. Following the road to Senga Bay further on, we got to the end of that road and then followed the signs along a track marked CAMPSITE until the road ended at a gate. The black gate was opened for us and we had the pick of the place to choose where to camp, as we were the only campers there. The spot was stunning with a perfect open beach, small lapping waves from the lake and lovely tranquillity. We thought this must be the Steps Campsite, as this is adjacent to the very posh, white, Livingstonia Beach Hotel, but it had no name visible anywhere.

We popped up the tent and climbed inside, so glad to be back on the lakeshore again and very keen to see our view tomorrow morning.

Saturday 21st June 2008: Livingstonia Beach Hotel and Camping, Senga Bay, Malawi

GPS Info: S13° 42' 58.7" E34° 37' 42.4"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 26 381

In the very early hours of the morning we were woken by gale force winds howling and blowing. We unclipped the tent arms and fastened down the outer flysheet, catching a few more hours of much needed sleep. As the sun rose, the wind seemed to pick up even more and it got cold. Quite late in the morning, once the wind had died down, we caught our first real glimpse of the paradise we had parked on. The clean white sand had been swept flat, meeting the turquoise lake water, which was still quite wavy. The clouds had been blown away and the little thatched beach shelter in front of us, looked straight on to a rocky island a short distance off shore.

Getting changed into our cozzies we hoped it would warm up soon. Then we had a lazy breakfast enjoying the stunning view in front of us. A few hours later cars started to drive in and the beach filled up with day visitors coming for a picnic for the day. One VW combi even arrived with 2 surf-skis and they had great fun playing in the waves. The wind eventually died down a bit, but it was still cool all day so tanning didn't really happen. We relaxed and tried to do diary updates, but had lots of people chatting to us, very inquisitive about our trip and our route. We met Gunter and Ria, a German couple who live in SA and are travelling around southern and east Africa. They came over to chat and find out more about our trip. Gunter has a Toyota, which he has kitted out very nicely, and they have travelled a bit around some of the countries we are still going to. After chatting for a while they headed off and we wished them well in their future travels. Deciding to walk along the beach, which isn't very long, we strolled through the fancy hotel grounds where Gunter and Ria were staying for the night. We bumped into them and he then proudly showed us his cleverly designed and kitted Toyota in the parking lot and then, amazingly, they invited us to join them later for dinner at the hotel's restaurant at 7pm. What a treat to be guests eating at such a beautiful spot.

We took some sunset shots of the beautiful colours, as the sky displayed various shades of red, gold, pink, purple and blue. We both spent a while playing around with our cameras and tripods, trying to capture the beautiful colours in the sky. All squeaky clean after a shower, and dressed in clean clothes, we walked across to the Livingstonia Beach Hotel and joined Gunter and Ria for a delicious meal overlooking the lake. During dinner, the full orange moon rose directly in front of us from the horizon and reflected beautifully in the calm water. We had a lovely evening together and hope to maybe see them if we stop in Jo'burg on our way down.

The water was still and the spot was perfect to walk back to a tent for the night. Lake Malawi is truly beautiful and a gem most people never get to experience.

Sunday 22nd June 2008: Livingstonia Beach Hotel and Camping, Senga Bay, Malawi

GPS Info: S13° 42' 58.7" E34° 37' 42.4"

Miles Today: 130 Total Miles: 26 511

We were up fairly early as the day was perfect and the wind was very slight. We had breakfast and enjoyed having time to catch up on reading, typing updates and filling in sudukos. The beach got busy with picnickers again today, but there was a more mellow bunch, so less blaring music. We found out that this campsite is the old Steps Campsite, which has been taken over by the Livingstonia Beach Hotel (k1 000p/p/night camping). We decided to pack up and rather head down to Cape Maclear to hopefully enjoy a more peaceful and private beach there.

Leaving Senga Bay, we passed many clever curio sellers selling all sorts of beautifully carved wooden souvenirs along the roadside in thatched stalls. We drove through Salima again and luckily spotted a Standard Bank ATM, so drew some money out to tide us over while we are out of civilization down south, not knowing that this amount would only pay for a tank of fuel. We are trying to draw out money from ATMs when we can, so as not to use up our supply of foreign cash, which we are still carrying since the beginning of the trip. We then went to every petrol station in town trying to find some diesel, but all of them (BP, Total, Caltex, etc.) were out of diesel, except for a no-name brand ex-Mobil station, down a little side street near the railway line, tucked behind a white building, which we did eventually find. It's hard to ignore the number of aid-type institutions visible everywhere, which have been set up to deal with orphans - orphan training centres, orphanages, child homes etc. After filling up we drew more money out and headed down to Cape Maclear on what we thought would be a perfectly tarred road. Murray and Roberts were busy building a brand new tar road from the main M5 road to Monkey Bay, when we were in Malawi 4 years ago on honeymoon, but something seems to have gone wrong as it is still in it's very early stages with most of it still being diversions and only a very short section being tar.

The drive towards Monkey Bay and Cape Maclear was quite scenic and a lot of it we both remembered from when we were here on honeymoon, especially the big baobab tree which Henry, our transfer driver on honeymoon, had pointed out to us along the main road. We decided to go to Monkey Bay to see what was there, although there wasn't much at all. We stopped in at the port and spoke to a very helpful man, enquiring about the Ilala ferry and whether it takes vehicles. We wrote down prices and are now thinking this would be a lovely way to come back down from Tanzania through to Mozambique. We could re-enter Malawi in the north just going as far as Chilumba, from where we could travel down Lake Malawi for 3 days on the Ilala to Monkey Bay and then cross into Mozambique on the Mangochi road at Mandimba. With the fuel costs being as high as they are, it might even be cheaper to take the ferry, although at this stage we are not sure what the ferry costs are for the car. We do know that the cost of taking a vehicle across the Rovuma ferry between Tanzania and Mozambique is apparently $100.00.

After the port, we stopped off at a place in Monkey Bay advertising fresh muffins and ice-cream, which made a change and good to have the time to just stop and relax. The drive through to Cape Maclear climbs up some beautiful hills before arriving on the shores of the huge beautiful Lake Malawi. We drove along the narrow sandy streets lined with very simple thatch homes and lots of children playing in the streets, stopping in at Kayak-Africa. Ross had secretly organised the second week of our honeymoon through Kayak Africa, when we had kayaked out to their two paradise islands - Domwe and Mumbo, and stayed our 6 heavenly honeymoon nights on them, with all their snorkelling equipment to fully enjoy the fresh water lake. This time we met the other owners of Kayak Africa, who had lived in Cape Town when we were here before, and hoped they might have a sticker for us to put on Duzi2. Tanya seemed fully optimistic they would have one somewhere and would try to find one to give us when we came back in a few days to possibly hire a kayak. She told us that Domwe Island has now been changed to a self-catering island where you can take your own tent, bedding, food etc. for $15p/p/night camping or you can stay in their tents for $45p/pnight. $5 of your fee is to cover National Park fees, as the islands are part of Cape Maclear / Lake Malawi National Park which is the first fresh water national park in the world. Wilderness Safaris have however got involved with Mumbo Island, and it is now very exclusive, starting at $250p/p/night inclusive of all meals. We were so lucky to have been to both idyllic islands when we did, before they got so fancy and out of normal price range.

We then stopped in at the beautifully built Gaia House to enquire about camping (k500p/p/night camping), but they can't accommodate rooftop tents. We drove on to Fat Monkeys (k500p/p/night camping) and eventually chose our spot in their camping area. We met our new neighbours - Sam, a Capetonian travelling up the east coast and back to Cape Town over 6 months, Peter, a Dutch guy travelling slowly and intermittently from Cape Town to Cairo, only reaching Cape Maclear after 4 years, Rex and Harry, two brothers travelling from Pretoria to Kenya and back and some other familiar campers from Wildlife Camp. Both Sam and Peter have arranged to go up the lake on the Ilala so it would be really great to hear from them what it's like. We have a recent magazine article about a woman's travels on the Ilala which sound charming.

We set up with a perfect view overlooking the lake. All the campers were very friendly and cheerful. Unfortunately the hustlers started trying to get our attention to go on their boat, buy their stuff etc. and were a real pain. There are guards at Fat Monkey's to stop them entering into the property from the beach, but this means they just hang around the low fence, generally being a nuisance and watching every move you make. We were told that we are not allowed to talk to them or trade with them on Fat Monkey's property which is great, but when you go to stand in the water right in front of the campsite, you are immediately swamped and hassled whether you talk to them or not. This is a horrible side of Cape Maclear, which has got worse in the last few years. There are SO many young children here, and a lot of them seem orphaned.

We watched the sunset, but it was so cloudy that you could hardly see the sun. We cooked pasta with a bacon, bean and onion sauce for dinner. It got really cold with quite a few mozzies, so we were glad to get into the tent after dinner.

Shaun, a young Irish guy from Dublin arrived by public transport. He is travelling for a few weeks around Malawi and Mozambique, before getting back to Dublin very briefly and then hoping to paddle the Shannon River in Ireland over a 2 week period, just because. He is a fantastic guy and very easy to get on with.

Happy birthday Arlene. We hope Shaun spoils you today and treats you to a day of lovely things.

Congratulations Kate, Zeke and Jessica on the birth of Callum. We are praying for his total healing and that you'll be able to return home as a complete family soon.

Monday 23rd June 2008: Fat Monkeys, Cape Maclear, Malawi

GPS Info: S14° 01' 25.9" E34° 50' 29.4"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 26 511

Some campers were running their car and packing up their tents from 4.30am this morning, only eventually leaving at 5.55am, after disturbing the silence for everyone else camping. Amazing how inconsiderate some people can be. We were both still feeling sleepy after a very bad night's sleep, thanks to a few mozzies who had incredibly found their way into the tent. They had eaten Heidz alive, and were subsequently destroyed once they became visible in the daylight. When we eventually got up we said hello to all our friendly neighbours and got chatting about everyone's routes, plans, packing arrangements etc. We had a late breakfast and hoped the clouds would clear to be able to swim and tan. The hustlers, or "beach boys" as they are known, were back annoying everyone, but you learn to ignore them.

Heidz tried to do some typing of updates as we're so far behind. Sam very kindly offered us the use of his hired kayak, as he was sore after his long hard paddling yesterday. Ross paddled for a long time out through the gap between the mainland and Domwe Island, coming back feeling rather tired. Heidz then paddled out around Thumbi Island, which ended up being a whole lot bigger than she expected and after a very long paddle was glad to be back on shore. The fish eagles were calling all around and even diving catching fish from the lake. The shallower water around the islands shimmers with electric blue and neon blue tropical fresh water Cichlid fish, only found in Lake Malawi. It was SO lovely to be back on the water and amazing to see how close you can get to the fish eagles before they fly off.

Both feeling really good about finally doing some exercise we chatted more and watched another rather disappointing sunset over the lake. Tonight the stars were out with the moon reflecting over the lake and it seemed warmer, with not much wind and not many mozzies. The young Stellenbosch Varsity group, camping here as well, had got some locals to cook them some fresh fish, eat-as-much-as-you-like with chips and salad for a cheap price, which they braaied on the beach next to us followed by the young local teenage bands with their live entertainment. Sam went over to taste-test and was very impressed. The band's music was incredible with great rhythm, beat and percussion. Their singing was very simple though and had us all chuckling. Some of the lyrics were: 'Hello. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? I'm fine.' repeated over and over again, or "Hakuna Matata. Don't worry be happy. Hakuna Matata. Don't worry be happy" also repeated over and over. The best was as the guys put something into their thank-you hat they sang: 'Ons se baie baie dankie. Ons se baie baie dankie. Ons se baie baie dankie. ' (meaning 'We say thank you very much, thank you very much. We say thank you very much, thank you very much. in Afrikaans) also repeated over and over. The children’s' giggling and laughter coming from across the wall was so lovely. Even in all the poverty around us, the people are so happy and cheerful.

Neither of us really had much of an appetite, so we had soup for dinner. We chatted to Rex and Harry, both incredibly bright men who have been involved in some incredible top-secret nuclear work during their careers. Rex went to bed and Harry carried on sharing some very interesting research he's done on a whole variety of topics, some of which Ross has been chewing on during our trip. We dived very quickly into bed making sure no mozzies followed us into the tent tonight.

Tuesday 24th June 2008: Fat Monkey's, Cape Maclear, Malawi

GPS Info: S14° 01' 25.9" E34° 50' 29.4"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 26 511

Woke to the lovely noise of sweeping as the locals swept the ground in the campsite before 6am, creating a huge dust cloud for the ground-campers and a sound which made it impossible for those still trying to sleep in. The sweeping was followed by shouting, which sounded like it was right under the tent and then washing up in the metal wash basin behind us, all happening way before 6.30am! Makes you wonder sometimes...

We both slept much better last night with no mozzies thankfully. Heidz got busy typing early to try and get as much done as possible to be able to relax and hopefully tan if it got clear and sunny. We had planned to hire a double kayak from Kayak Africa, a bit further up the beach, for the day ($20 per double or single kayak per day or $10 per double or single kayak per 1/2 day). Sam had decided he was going to sleep on Domwe Island for the night so left in the mid morning and we hoped to paddle across to meet him there later this afternoon.

After much chatter with the brothers and Shaun, and lots of catching up of updates, we walked along the beach up to Kayak Africa. The water was warm and the day was absolutely perfect, with the sun shining and the water taking on its turquoise colour. Tanya wasn't at Kayak Africa, but her husband was. Sadly he wasn't as enthusiastic as she is and couldn't really be bothered to got out of his way to do anything other than take our money and try to sell us more stuff. We decided to hire an open sit-on-top double kayak ($10 for 1/2 day), more like an old surf-ski shape, which we hoped wouldn't rub on Ross's back. We didn't hire snorkelling equipment for a further $10p/p/day as we thought this was a bit steep and we've done it before deeper in the lake. We were both very excited to be back on the water again, but both felt a few aches from yesterday's paddle. Our boat was a reddy pink colour, which contrasted so beautifully against the turquoise clear water. The water is so clear that you can see right down to the floor in some places.

We paddled out up the beach, past Danforth Yachting, where we had stayed on our first night of honeymoon in Malawi, before transferring onto Domwe and Mumbo. It looked a lot smaller than we both remembered, but still very lovely with it's bright green lawn and clean white "Mufasa" catamaran moored just offshore. The farther along the beach we paddled, the more beautiful the spots became, as the water looked cleaner and we were further away from the village. We met Peter along the beach, walking back from his morning's snorkelling in the National Park. He suggested we paddle up and around Otter Point, as this is where he had been snorkelling. It was quite windy and the waves were quite choppy in the open exposed water. We paddled further to Thumbi Island and marvelled at the beautiful bright blue fish below us with a number of fish eagles sitting on the trees above us. Lake Malawi is so beautiful and definitely worth making the effort to see. From Thumbi we paddled over to visit Sam on Domwe, but we were a bit hesitant to go on shore, as we hadn't paid our $5 each park fees. We enquired with one of the island staff about Sam, but he got horribly confused. The tents seemed still with their occupants sleeping or resting. We went close past the tent we had stayed in on honeymoon and past Domwe's beach. It is still so beautiful.

The wind picked up and it got quite cold, so we decided to stop off on a rock and warm up in the sun. There was a leguan foraging on ants etc. on the little beach we pulled up in. It quickly disappeared with our presence, but reappeared once we were on the rock. It was fascinating watching it hunt, using its tongue to sense movement in the sand and in a split second it was chomping on a lizard, or moth etc. with its head up and back. The sun was lovely and Heidz loved being a lizard in the sunshine. The little black flying insects began to fly around our nose, eyes and mouths and all around our heads. We remembered these from honeymoon especially in the late afternoons.

Before being driven crazy by these little pests, we got back into the boat and paddled on, passing lots of fish eagles, cormorants, egrets, other birds and leguans to the gap between Domwe and the mainland. The "Maties" varsity guys were all swimming and snorkelling there, after walking for miles to get there. The lake is huge and it’s easy to forget you're not in the sea, as you can't see the other side in a lot of places. Lake Malawi is known as the calendar lake as, at it's extremes, it is 365miles long and 52mile wide. We turned around and started paddling back as we had a long way to go still and Heidz was starting to get really cold. We passed a family of rock dassies (hyrax) in the rocks above us and then, amongst the fishing boats offshore from the one village, we stopped and watched an otter having a feast, crunching loudly on something. We watched it for a while as it popped up all over the show, often with us hearing it crunching before we could see it. We also saw a fishing boat whose name, "Madala Pete", reminded us of a very close friend in Pietermaritzburg.

We stopped off at Fat Monkey's to get shoes and a change of dry clothing and arrived back at Kayak Africa, returning the kayak just after 5pm, to be met by no-one!

Changed, warm and dry we watched the most incredible sunset. While we were on the boat the sky was golden, but once we'd changed and were on our way back the colours changed to red and pink. We stopped in at Gaia to find out about dinner, but they only serve over the weekends due to it being too quiet during the week. We walked on through the village streets, greeting the little children who greeted us and ignoring those that were begging.

The sky was SO beautiful and we were very glad to have a warm shower and get warm and dry, before deciding to treat ourselves to a pizza at Fat Monkey's (around k950 each). We had really good pizzas and a farewell drink with Shaun who's leaving tomorrow morning. We had a really good day today and even heard the fish eagle mobile ringtone. Ross has been longing to get this on his phone for many years.

It got quite chilly and the wind picked up quite strongly. We watched a really good, inspirational family movie, Astronaut Farmer, up in the tent.

Wednesday 25th June 2008: Fat Monkey's, Cape Maclear, Malawi

GPS Info: S14° 01' 25.9" E34° 50' 29.4"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 26 511

Woken very early by the sweeping again...We said good-bye to Shaun as he and his parents are off to climb Mount Mulanje and then he'll cross into Mozambique. The wind picked up so we decided to put up the awning, so we'll have some shelter and will use less gas while cooking. This was the third time we've used our awning this trip. Rex, Harry and Peter came over to inspect the awning and were very impressed. We looked at Peter's layout in his Landcruiser, as he sleeps inside, although he does have a ground tent too. It's so interesting to see how many different ways there are of kitting out an overland vehicle.

Heidz spent most of the day finishing off the typing up of our diary updates to upload using the Skyband Hotspot here. We can buy Skyband Hotspot Internet cards giving us time online wirelessly. The wind died down and the day turned out to be another lovely day. Being so close to the lake is so wonderful. The hustlers seem to have left all of us 'old campers' alone as they have obviously eventually realised we are not interested in their scams, which makes life so much easier. Sam arrived back from Domwe, which he LOVED and could fully understand why we were there for honeymoon.

We are so low in fresh food supplies and are totally out of meat. The fridge has never been so empty. Sam inspired us to walk to the Gecko Lodge shop to buy some meat to all braai together tonight. We bought some rump steak and firewood and the five boys had great fun lighting the fire and comparing knife sizes and other braai toys. Sam won the knife/saw contest hands down, producing this incredibly sharp knife/saw, which he used to chop up the firewood. A braai all together was a really good idea. We had great fun, around the orange glow of the warm flames, chatting and getting to know each other more.

After a lovely evening, we all settled into our tents sheltering from the strong, cold wind that had begun to blow.

Congratulations on your anniversary, Mark and Liz. We hope you are able to do something very special together to celebrate this special day. We miss you guys so much and precious Abby, who must be growing up so fast!

Thursday 26th June 2008: Fat Monkey's, Cape Maclear, Malawi

GPS Info: S14° 01' 25.9" E34° 50' 29.4"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 26 511

The wind howled all night so we eventually closed the back flap to keep warm. We were woken a little later on by the two screaming children, camping in the family tent in front of Peter, who started to pack up at around 6am, eventually leaving around 9am. None of us knew anything about them, as they hadn't spoken to any of us six "old" campers in the two days they camped at Fat Monkeys. The wind seemed to pick up even more strongly as the day wore on, so we were thankful to have the awning up to shelter in. The wind must have blown all the clouds away, as we were left with a perfect day when it stopped blasting in the mid-morning.

The lake was flat like a mirror and the sun shone warmly for most of the day with the exception of the odd onshore windblast. The high pitched shrill calls of the fish eagles could be heard all day, just reminding us that we were on a lake shore and not at the sea. Ross spent the whole day reading through and editing the updates, while Heidz loved having the day to tan and relax. We ordered a 5 hour Skyband Hotspot card (k2 000) valid for 14days, for us to upload and check emails. An English guy called Peter, who we bought the Hotspot card from, is opening up his own place a little higher up the beach in 2 weeks time. Malambe Camping and Water Sports, is what it will be called, and offers a good alternative to Fat Monkey's for roof-top tent camping, as well as cheaper rooms, if Fat Monkey's is too full or too loud.

We haven't bought a Celtel sim card in Malawi yet, because the locally bought ones only cover Malawi. Apparently the sim cards bought in the Celtel offices in the towns are more expensive, but are valid for all east African countries, which means we'll keep the same number and maintain our top-up credit right throughout. This will be much easier and more cost effective for us too. We've been told Mangochi is the place to go for this, so we'll sort this out soon.

Our travel plans from here are to go from Cape Maclear on down to Mangochi, then take the small road on the right hand (Mozambiquan) side of Lake Malawi, following the lake up to Makanjila. We want to see what this area is like after looking at it closely through Google Earth, with the possibility of somewhere to settle down. This is not the usual tourist route, so we're not too sure how far we'll get or what it will be like, but we're going to try. From Makanjila we'll travel back through Mangochi and either go inland to Lilongwe, to stock up on food supplies and then travel up on the main road to the Nyika Plateau and Nyika National Park, or from Lilongwe cut back towards the lake and follow the lake up to Nyika, the second being the more probable route.

We've made very good friends with the other four people in the campsite, Peter from Holland, Sam from Cape Town and the two brothers Rex and Harry from Pretoria. Peter and Sam are catching the Ilala ferry from Monkey Bay tomorrow, while Rex and Harry are continuing up north by road, through Malawi heading into Tanzania. It will be sad to say goodbye to our current camping family, but hopefully we can meet up again further along the roads in Africa somewhere.

Friday 27th June 2008: Fat Monkey's, Cape Maclear, Malawi

GPS Info: S14° 01' 25.9" E34° 50' 29.4"

Miles Today: 121 Total Miles: 26 632

Today was an early start, saying good-bye to Peter and Sam who are boarding the Ilala for a few days. We said good-bye to Harry and Rex who are heading up north and then moved Duz to go curio shopping in the stalls in the village. We were looking for a wooden Noah's ark, a bicycle we'd seen being sold along the beach yesterday afternoon, and anything else that took our fancy without breaking the bank. We saw lots of Noah's arks with all sorts of carved animal pairs, but some needing quite a lot of imagination to identify what they were. The locals are SO incredibly talented and gifted with what they produce, with their limited tools and basic workshops. They sell everything made from either mahogany or ebony wood and then they polish it to protect and seal the wood. There are chairs, tables, masks, salt and pepper sets, jewellery boxes, ashtrays, bowls, hanging mobiles and so much more, but our space is limited and sadly so is our budget.

After lots of looking we eventually chose our mahogany Noah's ark at Hamilton's shop, the last shop in the street. Noah and his wife weren't quite finished so we walked on through the village to Danforth Yachting, where we had spent a night on honeymoon. A friendly young guy met us and welcomed us, this was his first day on the job, being the new dive instructor for Danforth. Lucky him! Danforth has beautiful green lawn and they have added a lot onto the place from when we were here 4 years ago. We met the owners, Howard and Michelle again, and chatted to them enjoying their very friendly dogs. They told us they are generally full and have more building plans starting soon, but these are the last. It is expensive for us on our current budget, but is a lovely place for those who can afford it and it's far from the hassling beach boys!

Hamilton had sanded and polished Noah and his missus and after a bit of bargaining we now own a beautifully carved Noah's ark, with all it's animals and we were given a little makoro for free. Walking back with our ark we were treated very differently to when we had walked through empty handed. All the curio sellers were very pleased we had bought something from someone and didn't try to get us to buy more from them. It was almost that they respected that we had made our decision and they were happy with that, even though they might have lost out in a sale. We then went in search of the bicycle man, who we were told was in a house near Cape Mac Lodge, but we couldn't find him and the gateman there knew nothing about him. Apparently there is only one man who makes wooden mini-bicycles in Chembe village, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find him...

It was hot and sunny and turning out to be a really beautiful day. We got back to Fat Monkey's and decided to have a Coke before setting off to Mangochi and beyond. We got chatting to Alistair, or "bushman" one of the owners, who gave us the contact details of a couple who are apparently building a lodge on the lake shore towards Makanjila, to phone and possibly camp at tonight. Heidz bought a lovely wooden WELCOME sign from the curio shop at Fat Monkey's, having bargained down to a really good price and we then set off to find the bicycle man for the last time. Being a Friday and around midday, most of the curio shops were closed for mosque and for lunch, but we found the bicycle shop, in the row of shops behind Cape Mac Lodge, and we bought our cleverly made bicycle, with a chain made out of a thin strand of car tyre.

We slowly climbed out of the hills dividing Cape Maclear from the main road and joined the numerous diversions on the 'new' road towards Mangochi. Not very long after joining the road, we passed a "Toy's R Us" yellow sign and were drawn to buy one of their fantastic wooden LandRover Defenders. These wooden toys were near perfect replicas of the real cars, 4x4s and earth moving equipment used to build and grade the new road. Ross struggled to choose from the Defender selection, eventually deciding on one with a very similar packing configuration to what we have - even with sand ladders mounted like ours on the right and a roll out awning on the left!

With lots of curios and both feeling very happy with our day's purchases, we drove on south, following Lake Malawi to where it narrows to drain into Lake Malombe, south of Mangochi. There was a lot of healthy farming on the south side of the lake and the green crops varied from mielies to bananas to tomatoes and other crops, which we hadn't noticed before. It is incredible how big and blue Lake Malawi is and is often easy to think it is a sea rather than a big fresh water lake. In Mangochi, we stopped off at a little Indian trading store to buy a dozen eggs, then at the Metro Cash and Carry to try and get a few supplies, only finding 2 packets of biscuits, and then at a bakery to buy some lovely fresh bread. We also bought ourselves a new Celtel sim card from the Mangochi Celtel office, which is valid in numerous African countries, including Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, so hopefully this will work as they say. We also tried to exchange our Zambian kwacha for Malawian kwacha, only to be told no-one accepts them, not even the banks. Great! We were told to go back to a Zambian border or to try and exchange on the black market in the streets, but these guys are sharks. We'll have to go via Lilongwe on our way north, to buy more food and now to try and change our Zambian kwacha there.

We crossed the bridge over the broad Shire River and got to the first police check to be asked where we were heading. On telling them Makanjila, they asked rather confused, "Why? There's nothing there." After passing through this gate we felt as though we were back in West Africa, with everyone staring at us and waving very enthusiastically. The road is good tar with solid bridges, even if it is mostly only single track. We were waving and smiling and amazed at how much active farming is happening on the eastern shores of Lake Malawi. There was lots of long, wild green grass and most of the rectangular homes were constructed from bricks with solid tin or thatch roofs. This part of Malawi reminded us of how Malawi could've looked in the past before tourism hit. The policemen told us we were the first tourists they had had around here, so maybe we were lucky to catch this glimpse before this side changes slowly too. We were the only car, but the locals mostly travel by bicycle or bicycle taxi where the passenger sits on a padded seat on the back.

We passed many mosques and it was easy to see the mosque architectural designs even on some of the more fancy homes. The men mostly wore Arabic robes with their caps on their heads. We could see scattered electricity or telephone poles lying in pairs near holes. Obviously these would make a HUGE difference to this area if they bring electricity to these communities. The tar ran out after 30km and turned into good gravel with wooden bridges.

In the rainy season there must be a lot of water on this side as we crossed over lots of high wooden bridges. The villages didn't seem to end, but rather all ran into each other with no break between them. There seemed to be little chance of bush camping out here, as there were people everywhere and all the land seems to be used for farming of some sort or another - cattle or crop. Bright bougainvilleas accentuated the blue of the Lake water. The sun set and everything turned dark quite quickly. We tried to phone the couple Alistair had given us the number of, to find out about bush camping on their land, but they couldn't have been more rude and negative if they'd tried, even putting the phone down on us twice!!! Good luck to them if they plan on hosting guests with their intolerance and lack of manners!

We drove on through more farmlands and even through a large area of tall vegetable ivory palm trees, with pelicans flying in to roost in them for the night. With no chance of bush camping we decided to push on to Makanjila, as this would be our best chance of finding a safe place. We kept our eyes open for wildlife, as we were driving through the Namizimu Forest Reserve, where forest elephants, etc. are supposed to be found. Not seeing any evidence of the forests, or a change in village behaviour, or signs of conservation due to it being a reserve, we realised that seeing wild animals here would be more of a miracle than a normal sighting. We followed very vague directions, and with the limited English spoken by the locals we ended up in a school football field. Driving in the dark in a 'town' where English is not spoken, trying to find a place to stay, is far from ideal. We found the police station up on the road out to Fort Maguire and the Mozambique border. We were met by Alfred, a very friendly, well spoken policeman on duty, who proudly told us his job was to look after our well being and ensure we had all our needs met while we were in his district and under his care. He called another policeman, Israel, to accompany us to Diamond "Guesthouse" to find out if we could camp there, as they were a bit concerned about us camping at the police station.

Diamond seemed unable to help us as the owner was away and they hadn't dealt with camping or tourism before. Israel explained to us that him and Alfred were afraid about our safety, with hyaenas around the police station, but thought it would be a better option for us to stay there if we were above the ground and above the hyaenas.

Arriving back at the Makanjila police station, we opened up the roof top tent, to the amazement of Alfred and Israel. They were now both happy we would be safe and left us to have dinner before coming back to introduce us to the policeman who would be on duty during the night, if we needed him. It was so refreshing to meet such respectful men who were so proud of their job and who all went far beyond their duty to make us feel welcome. They were so chuffed to have the first tourists staying with them.

Having a quick soup dinner with the hyaena howls in the distance, we were very grateful to climb into bed and sleep after a long day. The stars were amazing and the whole sky sparkled in the crisp air. The night sky also felt like a bush camp, as there were no lights to detract from the mass of stars displayed. No electricity meant all was quiet, and everyone was huddled around the outside of their homes cooking on fires, or fast asleep already.

Saturday 28th June 2008: Makanjila Police Station, Makanjila, Malawi

GPS Info: S13° 41' 54.2" E35° 02' 37.2"

Miles Today: 163 Total Miles: 26 795

Both up early and ready to explore this remote, non-tourist side of Malawi. To see in real life the area of Malawi we've been looking at from Google Earth for so long was quite exciting. We had an early morning hot drink with our policemen friends and they wished us well on our exploration up to Fort Maguire, asking us to pop in on our return to tell us we were safe. We drove through a wide, fairly shallow river with a metal frame structure in the riverbed so it was possible to cross. The road became more of a remote track and got dramatically worse as it is mostly used as a bicycle track. The farmlands continued and the people got more enthusiastic, with waves and shouts and even chants of 'Mazungu' (whiteman in Chechewe) as we drove passed. We passed skilled seemstresses making clothing and sewing other items on their old hand-driven sewing machines, these mostly being old Muslim men wearing long robes and head caps. The villages were very basic and had lots of little children running around. Most of these people survive off the few small fish they catch and some of the crops they farm, some being irrigated and healthy, but others not. The Lake was clean, blue and beautiful. We passed many beautiful rocky beaches as we drove higher up the coastline, following the road as far as we could until we got to low trees, where it was no longer possible to drive through. Here we met a very well spoken man, working in the community for WorldVision, who took us to Fort Maguire and told us a bit of it's history.

This now only has the remains of the early fort's walls and a huge, well-used football field in the middle. We were met by a group of young boys who tried to communicate with smiles and claps and a very limited English vocab.

We returned through the waving villages and narrow bumpy dirt track to Makanjila police station, saying warm goodbyes to our caring police friends and then headed on down the road south to Mangochi. This was a very scenic drive, but again made us wonder about the presence of the Namizimu Forest Reserve, which was not even heard of by our three police friends.

Both of us played detectives today writing down seventeen registrations numbers of suspicious vehicles travelling passed us on our return drive from Makanjila to Mangochi, a very remote and never travelled part of Malawi. These included ND (Durban), NPN (Pinetown) or NP (Pietermaritzburg) as well as GP (Gauteng) and CA (Cape Town) number plates. We didn't pass many cars along this route, but most of them had these registration plates with blue numbers on a white background on plastic plates.

Malawian number plates are metal and yellow with black numbers, or the Malawian taxis have white metal plates with red numbers.

Seeing so many very familiar plates from Pmb, Pinetown, Durban, Cape Town and Gauteng made us both very suspicious. Also 12 out of the 17 were white bakkies of various vehicle makes, all without canopies on and full of people, being used as taxis.

The number plates we wrote down were as follows...

• • NP white bakkies : NP90 981, NP129 343, NP158 124 , and a green Mazda bakkie: NP47 894

  • ND white bakkies : ND422 076, ND623 724, a white GWM bakkie: ND574 899, ND 105 ???, a red Toyota: ND635 385, a silver bakkie: ND367 756 and a blue Ford car: ND197 673 , NPN white bakkie : NPN60 156

Other South African plated vehicles clearly not being used in SA were:

• • a white bakkie: CA787 387 , a blue bakkie: XCS615GP , a white Ford bakkie: RJJ125GP , a white KIA Motors light van: DMC598MP , a white Toyota bakkie: DBV503EC

Hmmm makes you think doesn't it??? If you recognise one of the above plates, you car is now living in an incredibly remote part of Malawi.

We arrived in Mangochi and decided to head down towards Liwonde, and then to drive through the scenic escarpment road between Malawi and Mozambique tomorrow, on our way back to Lilongwe. We were now driving alongside Lake Malombe, which is also big, and life along this lake seemed little different to life alongside Lake Malawi, with fishing dominating, then crop farming and cattle. We had found out that cassava is the most commonly grown crop in this region and this is the white stuff sold along the side of the road, either in chunks or in crushed powder form. The potholes along this tar road are pretty bad and often catch you unawares. We passed many SA vehicles on their way up to the lake for the school holidays.

Arriving in Liwonde, we crossed the Shire River and spotted a few lazy hippos in the water upstream. We drove around everywhere trying to find somewhere to camp for the night. First we drove into Warthogs Wallow, a rundown rather dumpy looking place that needs a lot of care and improvement, and then we tried the fancy white-painted place next door, where he stupidly asked for US$15p/p/night to camp! We then tried Shire Lodge, which we took one look at from the car and drove straight out of, as there are no facilities to camp, and then on to the super posh Hippo View Lodge, only to know straight away this was not for camping, although they were very friendly and helpful. After seeing all of these we decided to drive on to Liwonde National Park, to camp at Chinguni Hills Lodge. Luckily we got to the park gate before they closed so paid our park entry fee (Mk700p/p/24 hrs or US$5 and Mk280p/vehicle/24hrs or US$2) and then drove into Chinguni Hills (Mk700p/p/night camping or US$5) in the dark. We were shown the campsite far away from the ablutions, so decided to shower first and then set-up and cook dinner. There was NO electricity and the showers were FREEZING and the shower and loo were in the same tiny cubicle so not giving much room and not keeping much dry!!! We had a quick dinner and marvelled at the stars, but very disappointed that we heard no wildlife noises at all, except for the hippo in the water below.

Happy birthday Se. Hope Col and your little babe treat you to a very special day of lovely things. Can't wait to find out more about your baby, who must be growing up and changing so quickly.

Sunday 29th June 2008: Chinguni Hills Lodge, Liwonde, Malawi

GPS Info: S15° 00' 48.5" E35° 15' 43.4"

Miles Today: 180 Total Miles: 26 975

We awoke to silence, totally unlike any other National park we've stayed in, where you normally hear Fish Eagle or some form of wildlife. A big troop of baboons ambled down the hillside behind us and then vanished into the bush below us. We tried the showers again this morning, hoping they would be better and at least a tad warmer, but they were still freezing. We had breakfast and enjoyed warming up in the sunshine, as it was quite chilly. Ross tried to get the last of the sugared honey out of the honey container and slipped with his pen knife slicing straight into his left big toe, cutting deep straight through the nail. Blood gushed out and poured all over. The sight of so much blood was really scary and knowing we were so remote from any form of civilization was no comfort. Out came the medical kit and all our knowledge of dealing with shock, cuts etc. Ross went white and started feeling sweaty like he was going to be ill. We managed to clean the cut and bandage his toe and hoped to be able to sort it out in Lilongwe. Luckily the bleeding stopped and Ross regained his normal strength. Chinguni Hills is not a place we would recommend at all and definitely not worth it's US$5!

Ross felt okay so we decided to do a short drive around the park, to see if we could see any game and to make the most of our paid park fees. There were lots of waterbuck in the park, almost as prolific as impala in normal game reserves. We saw three ellies in the water, hippo, lots of waterbuck, some impala and that was it. The road in the park is very bumpy, so sadly we didn't get to Mvuu Camp to find out their camping prices, as they are supposedly so much more expensive than Chinguni Hills, but no one seems to know what they really are...

From Liwonde we drove up the spectacular Rift-valley mountains. These are very rocky and very high, in stark contrast to what we've seen so far of Malawi. The road was excellent and the views were quite clear. We could clearly look down into Mozambique from one high point, but couldn't unfortunately see Lake Malawi from Lake View. The mountains stick up as big rocky mounds similar in shape to Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio. As we climbed higher, the temperature dropped and the land was dotted with very different vegetation, even with pine trees!

We arrived in Lilongwe and headed for Kiboko Camp or now called Mabuya Camp, which we suspected were the same place due to their close proximity on the GPS. Thank goodness for the GPS because there are no signs to direct you. Due to a power cut, the place was in darkness when we arrived, with scattered candles and head torches moving as people were going to and from their tents etc. We enquired about hospitals to visit for Ross's toe and miraculously Fiona and Jamie, two final year medical students, ushered Ross off to one of the dorm rooms. They looked at the cut and both agreed no stitches were needed, telling us stitching needs to happen within 6 hours anyway. They steri-stripped it, pulling the ends of the toe together and we wrapped it up in new gauze bandages and now had peace of mind. While Fiona was busy, the electricity came back on, so they could do a thorough check.

Lilongwe isn't very big at all, even though it is Malawi's capital city, so we decided to drive to where we had stopped for dinner on our way to Salima, on our first night in Malawi. We both had yummy Steers burgers and Heidz had a delicious chocolate milkshake. As a thank you we got Fiona and Jamie a choc dipped ice cream each, a far cheaper bill to a minimum US$50 to US$60 starting consultation fee. Back at Mabuya Camp we popped up the tent, chatted to our neighbour, an overland truck driver, and went to bed. It was so cold so we were very grateful for our sleeping bag and duvet in the tent.

Monday 30th June 2008: Mabuya Camp (old Kiboko Camp), Lilongwe, Malawi

GPS Info: S13° 59' 57.1" E33° 45' 33.2"

Miles Today: 4 Total Miles: 26 979

We showered, had breakfast and met John, who recognised the name Duzi enquiring if we'd done Comrades. We also walked over to the two other vehicles with roof top tents and introduced ourselves. One was an Irish guy who's driven down the East coast of Africa and he had some very interesting up to date info, which was helpful, including that the Serengeti is currently all black and burnt with very little wildlife and not worth it's supposedly US$500 plus park entry fee. He and his friend had also just climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, so gave us recommendations for this too. Next to them, in the other vehicle, were Patrick and Ine ( www.bushbush.nl), a Dutch couple who've travelled up from Cape Town and are exploring Malawi with eyes open for lodge opportunities.

We had four things to do in town today:

• 1. Exchange our Zambian kwacha to Malawian kwacha

  2. Do a big shop at Shoprite to hopefully last us until we are nearly at the end of our trip

  3. Figure out why our Celtel sim wasn't receiving calls from SA

1. Fill up with diesel

With this list, this could take us all day. We managed to miraculously exchange our money at the Foreign Money Bureaux next to the People's Superette. Next we went to Shoprite and got all stocked up, only to have to spend a lot of our recently received money here, as they do not take cards at all, only cash or cheques. We stood in the queue for hours at Celtel, only to be told our phone now receives calls and shouldn't have any further issues. With three of the list done the diesel seemed an easy one. We drove to every fuel station in Lilongwe and only managed to fill up at the last one, a Total, at the one full bowzer of their two. Our preference would have been BP, but they were all empty. Luckily in Malawi all the stations are the same set price, but fuel seems to be a real issue here.

On getting back to the campsite, we parked in a lovely spot next to Patrick and Ine, where the Irish had parked last night. It was much more private and suited to roof top tents. Mabuya had a power cut again tonight, so it's not only in SA! Ine kindly offered for us to join them for dinner and we had a typically Dutch meal - steak, mash potato and red cabbage. Mom tried to call us, but our phone was still not receiving calls. Ine and Patrick got out their phones and all of us tried to test the phones and sim, testing whether there was a handset - sim incompatibility issue. We swapped our sim into their phone and managed to chat to Mom and Paps, which was really lovely. We had a lovely evening with Ine and Patrick and wish them well in their lodge dream. They are such a lovely couple and would be wonderful hosts. It got FREEZING cold and we were all huddled around with our jackets on until it got too cold and bed called loudly.

Congratulations Mom and Dad on your anniversary. We hope you are able to do something very special together to celebrate this special day. Hope you're settling back into Pmb life after your wonderful overland holiday.

Tuesday 1st July 2008: Mabuya Camp (old Kiboko Camp), Lilongwe, Malawi

GPS Info: S13° 59' 57.1" E33° 45' 33.2"

Miles Today: 171 Total Miles: 27 150

After a freezing night's sleep, or little sleep due to being too cold to sleep, the sun rose and it warmed up. We chatted to Patrick and Ine before they set off towards Chinteche and met Janie, the owner of Mabuya. Her and her hubby had driven down the West coast of Africa 3 years ago in a big yellow Unimog (www.bigyellowmog.com we think). They loved their trip and we spent ages chatting about our experiences and where we had stayed etc. She had amazing stories to tell of their Angolan visa issues, which are funny to hear now, but must have been really scary at the time. They travelled with their one dog Alfie, who is still at Mabuya. They are still living in their big yellow mog, together with Alfie, but are expecting a baby in about 6 months time, so are building a real house. Janie is a laugh and such fun. She showed us their Mog and it was so lovely to relive our past few months with her.

We chatted to John who had just signed a 12 month lease on a big multi-bedroomed house, to open up an alternative therapy guesthouse. He has been camping in a teepee for a few months, which he showed us. The teepee was so big and airy inside and John had his living space, furniture and his cooking all done inside, as the teepee has a smoke exit hole. It was amazing to be inside a teepee and apparently made by the same people who made the teepees for the movie ‘Dances with wolves'. We wished him well with his new venture and after swapping details we were finally on the road. We stopped off at the Celtel office again to buy a new phone this time. There was a special on a new Chinese Celtel phone for only Mk2 499.00 instead of Mk3 999.00, so hopefully we can now at least receive calls. Ross played with the phone choosing our new ring tone etc, and just after putting it down, it rang. Mom was on the phone and it was so lovely to chat to her, finding out about the rest of their trip after leaving us in Botswana. Unfortunately Celtel's reception seemed to drop every now and again and the road to Salima is rather hill,y as we crossed down the Rift Valley Mountains again, that the call came to a sudden end.

We have been very impressed with Malawian roads, which are generally very good tar or gravel. It has been a real pleasure driving around Malawi, especially compared to it's neighbour Zambia, where the roads are mostly bad to very bad. On our way we passed many very heavily laden bicycles, with big sacks of all sorts of things, bicycle-taxi passengers riding side-saddle on the comfy padded seats on the back of the bicycle and even a furniture removal bike carrying a full lounge suite including a double seater couch. We went through very polite police checks, that mostly just smile and wave us through or if they stopped us, merely asked us where we were headed. We were driving on the road alongside the lake, but couldn't catch any glimpses of it due to the hills, forests and farmlands.

The road between Benga and Dwangwa got narrow and the side of the tar was jagged and sharp, as well as being lined with pedestrians on foot and on bikes. We crossed many beautiful rivers, which were full and flowing fast. The people traffic on bicycles had many learner cyclists who, on hearing us coming, headed off the road out of control straight into the bushes - passengers and all. The heavily laden sugar trucks and buses fly along this road leaving very little room for other vehicles. Apparently the sugar trucks have to pay to repair their own punctures so they make sure they're far from the sharp tar.

The sun set and we luckily stumbled across a place on Tracks 4 Africa, marked as Heidi's Hideout, now sign posted Ngala Beach Lodge (Mk550p/p/night). We drove into the very beautiful and fancy looking reception, hoping it wouldn't be too expensive. We were met by very friendly staff who directed us to the campsite below, which was right on the beach. There were lots of tents dotted around and a man in the most eloquent English came over to warn us there was a school group camping there, so to rather move further over. After moving to another spot we met our camping neighbours, two very friendly young guys, Shaun from Hilton, and Tom originally from Eston. We cooked a quick dinner, as it was quite chilly and popped into bed.

Wednesday 2nd July 2008: Ngala Beach Lodge (old Heidi's Hideout), between Nkhotakota and Chintheche, Malawi

GPS Info: S12° 21' 27.2" E34° 03' 57.5"

Miles Today: 171 Total Miles: 27 321

There were two groups of school children staying at Ngala. One lot were in dorm rooms and were out for a month from England, volunteering as part of their community service GCSE time. This lot were loud, a lot of them were smoking and their language was terrible. The other lot were from an independent Malawian school, doing a 4 day challenging walk along the coast, as part of their final year of school. This lot were all camping and it was so interesting to watch and see the different types of personalities, those that just went about their tasks quietly and those that shouted loudly, getting everyone to notice them, but not actually doing anything.

We were up early and enjoyed a hot drink with rusks, thanks to our big shop at Shoprite in Lilongwe, and a beautiful view of the lake. Later we met Tom and Shaun as they crawled out of their luxurious tent next to us. We chatted a bit before they packed up their mattresses into the back of the bakkie, having camped in style! Tom's dad is involved with Illovo Sugar's Dwangwa Sugar Mill, so Tom comes out to Malawi during the long Cape Town university holidays. He was educated in Blantyre so is lucky enough to have his A and O Levels. Shaun works with aerial photography and lives in Hilton in Kwazulu Natal, and met Tom on the plane over from SA. He's been working and staying at the mill, taking photos for research and analysis. On their way out of the campsite, they asked us if we'd like them to pick us up later this afternoon, to show us around the sugar estate. This was so kind of them and we now had something totally different planned for the afternoon.

After doing our mountain of washing we enjoyed a lovely fresh ham, cheese and lettuce sandwich for lunch, thanks to Shoprite. Tom and Shaun arrived and we jumped into their double cab for our tour. First we went through all the sugar cane fields of really healthy cane and such a clever natural furrow irrigation system. Then we went to the estate's private beach, where the managers of the sugar estate can own beach cottages on a beautiful stretch of the lake. We stopped at the residential area of the estate where Tom's family stay. There is a big green golf course, swimming pool, squash court and club house/bar where we had a cold Coke, this is also where Shaun was staying. There is no wastage at the mill, with everything being used or burnt, to create electricity for the running of the mill.

We arrived back at Ngala just as the sun was setting. Tonight, Wednesday night, is Pizza Night at Ngala and a lot of the people from the sugar estate come to enjoy their pizzas. We watched the sunset from our own private beach, as there were no other campers tonight. We explored the main lodge building, meeting Adele, the manageress. Ngala has recently been taken over by new owners and Adele is the long-term manageress of the lodge, and loves it out here. She is such fun and so lovely. She was glad we'd stayed on for Pizza Night. The English school kids arrived and we decided to move back down to the tent and get warmer clothing on, as it was getting chilly again.

At last with both of us hungry for a good pizza, we went up and met Tom and Shaun and Tom's dad, Eddie, as well as a whole lot of sugar estate people. There were only men, no wives or partners. They were very interested to hear about our travels and shared some of their travels too. The sugar people knew of Uwe, at the sugar estate in Tanzania, who we'll hopefully be able to stay with when we get there. Every type of Nali sauce, Malawi's special hot sauce, from Nali Hot to barbeque, garlic, curry masala etc. were also available on the tables. The sauces were good, so we'll have to try and buy a pack before we leave Malawi. The pizzas were amazing and really big. Adele joined us for dinner and added lots of fun.

What a lovely and very unexpected day and night. We snuggled into bed very satisfied with delicious pizza in our tummies.

Thursday 3rd July 2008: Ngala Beach Lodge (old Heidi's Hideout), between Nkhotakota and Chintheche, Malawi

GPS Info: S12° 21' 27.2" E34° 03' 57.5

Miles Today: 41 Total Miles: 27 362

We didn't have too far to travel today and we were very pleased we were still going to be staying along the stunning lakeshore for a bit longer. Last night Adele had recommended a local Chintheche artist, Samba, to try to get to paint our car when we get there. We drove a short way up the coast and arrived at Kande Beach (Mk600p/p/night camping) and saw 2 overland trucks parked in the campgrounds. Kande Beach has the most idyllic setting with a long, wide, flat beach, turquoise water with sandbanks, and an alluring rocky island about 1km off shore. The reception area has been cleverly built like a ship pointing out to sea. We signed in for the night and walked around to find our spot to camp. Dave, the owner of Kande Beach, has specifically built Kande for overland trucks, as he used to be an overland truck driver himself for many many years. There is a lovely bar area overlooking the beach and lake and a few newly built rooms with the beach a footstep from their doors. The Soft Sands restaurant is in the Kande Beach grounds, but is run by different owners. Inside the restaurant is a Landy library with bookshelves made inside the back end of a Landrover, with the back door being the door to the library. This is such a novel idea. There is also a dive school, AquaNuts Dive School, in the Kande Beach grounds, which offers all sorts of diving courses. The dive school is also separately owned and is apparently currently for sale.

A third independant company uses Kande Beach's grounds and is called Kande Horse. Kande Horse offers horse rides to various levels of riders and their 2 hour forest and beach ride ends on Kande Beach with you unsaddling and swimming with the horses in the lake. The shallow sand banks are helpful for swimming with the horses, as the horses and riders can go as deep or shallow as they feel comfortable.

We chose a fairly quiet spot, as quiet as you can get in an overland truck campground and popped up the tent. We had more yummy cheese, ham and lettuce sandwiches for lunch and then went onto the perfect beach to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Some guys came down and played beach volleyball in the court on the beach and Ross found it fascinating to watch the people dynamics amongst three of the four of them, one clearly being Mr Sporty and totally dominating the other three wanna be's. Unfortunately the sun sank quite low in the sky behind us and we were soon lying in shadow, so getting a tan wasn't happening. We quickly browsed through the curio shop, had a shower and decided to start supper, have an early night and maybe even watch a movie in bed.

We cooked chicken stir-fry for dinner and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate, before we introduced ourselves to our camping neighbours who seem to be locals to the campsite. Fabinne and Hans are a Dutch couple who have bought 6 pieces of land along the lakeshore and are currently building on the first one just down the beach from Kande. They have lived in SA for a number of years and are hoping to move to Malawi permanently when their home is finished. They have been living in Kande Beach's campsite for the past 3 months and were both so lovely, enthusiastic and full of life. We ended up chatting to Fabinne and Hans for ages, so decided to rather warm up and climb straight into bed, giving the movie a skip tonight. There was a lot of dew around and on the tent, more than we've experienced anywhere else so far, not too sure why.

Friday 4th July 2008: Kande Beach, Kande just before Chintheche, Malawi

GPS Info: S11° 57' 04.6" E34° 07' 18.9"

Miles Today: 20 Total Miles: 27 382

The Acacia overland truck next to us started packing up at 4am, starting their engine to warm up just after 5am and eventually left at 6.30am!!! We couldn't understand how people could be SO inconsiderate to other campers. With no chance of sleeping in, with Acacia's noise, we got up to a perfect day. The sky was clear and the lake a brilliant blue and turquoise. We had a hot cuppa with rusks, looking onto the lake, still finding it so hard to believe we're on the beach of a HUGE fresh water lake rather than the sea. What's also surprising is that there were hardly any people around on the beach. Lake Malawi is so beautiful and Kande Beach, with its stunning postcard views onto Kande Island, is like something you'd expect to find in the Caribbean. We had a relaxed start hoping the dew would dry up and that we'd see the horses return from a morning ride and go for a swim in the lake. We looked around Kande Beach and discovered a huge table in the shape of Africa with all the country names carved in their places. We could easily see our route we've covered so far and our planned route ahead. The table is actually used for a drinking game, which would go down well with some overland passengers.

We watched the three dogs having a ball digging up the sand trying to catch skinks/lizards. They dug so deep that it looked like they were going to dig right under the one makoro resting on the sand bank. We saw three horses ride in and the two riders dismount and get dressed in their cozzies, while the guide took their saddles off their horses. Riding bareback into the water they all had a ball. The horses loved being in the water and didn't make any fuss about going in, even deeper than their withers and the guide's pony was swimming. Everyone took photos and enjoyed seeing such an unusual sight.

When the horses came out they were tied to a railing and we went over to pat them. Heidz loved being with the horses. While we were fussing over the them, we met Maisie, the person currently running Kande Horse while the owners are away for a few weeks. The guide's pony looked so much like Indu, Heidz's sister Nat’s old horse, even with a droopy bottom lip. Maisie is from the New Forest in the UK and came out to Kenya with friends on a holiday, met Danny there and then drove down in a Landy with him from Kenya through Tanzania, Malawi and on to Zambia. While in Malawi they had stopped off in Kande Beach and went for a ride. She was then offered her job to help run Kande Horse. Danny is a commercial pilot still flying in Zambia, but they do manage to see each other every few weeks. They weren’t even planning on going through Malawi in their drive down, but lucky for Maisie they did, because she loves her job and it was totally unexpected. We chatted to Maisie for ages. She is so lovely and very easy to get on with. It would've been wonderful to go on a ride with her, but sadly we need to save our pennies for up north. She invited us to pop past the stables to meet the other horses at Kande. They have 28 horses, and have recently bought some from Nyika Horse Safari's too, as they have recently closed down. Due to the roads being so bad from Nyika they had ridden the horses down off the plateau over 2 or 3 days, to where they could box them. It was a really good way to screen their temperaments.

We chatted again to Fabinne and Hans and were given another name of someone they recommend we try to get to do a painting on Duzi2. They also told us about Flame Tree Lodge, which is another lodge for sale on the shores of Malawi, close to Chintheche, with amazing beach frontage and they strongly suggested we stop in and look at it. They know the owner Tony, and were quite puzzled as to why it was closed and for sale, when they had spoken to him only a month or two before and things seemed all fine.

We eventually left for Chintheche Inn, which is where all the painters apparently are. Just before the entrance to Chintheche Inn, on the left hand side of the road, is a row of about 10 curio shops all with various wooden curios, not as nice as further south, and some stunning paintings. We looked through each shop trying to decide what to have painted, whose painting style we most liked and who we would choose to paint on Duz. One guy had a very different style to the others, but seems to have a problem with his eyes now, so it takes him longer to paint than the others. We asked around to find out who the best artist is and got a unanimous answer of Samba, which is the same name Adele from Ngala had suggested. Samba wasn't there at the time so we called him on the phone and waited. He has trained and taught the other painters, and his style is obvious through their work, but his paintings are a class above the others with variations and colour usage. Heidz also really liked one of the other painter’s style, so hopefully we'll be able to buy one of his incredibly detailed paintings before we leave. We decided on our price with Hellings, Samba's business partner, to have a big painting on Duzi2's rear side panel, with the word "Malawi" made up from little people painted below it and three warriors painted on the front side fender. Hellings is the son of the local chief and told us he'd studied a business diploma, which was obvious by his fabulous English and his professional business manner.

Samba eventually arrived from teaching his painting class to the local child students and took instructions of what type of scenes we wanted painted.We wanted a happy scene combining village life, with dancing and music. With the panel and other areas all cleaned and ready, Samba began drawing our long awaited painting on the back panel in pencil. He measured the heights to balance it equally in the space, while we looked on intently and a bit nervously, hoping he was as good as everyone said. Finishing his drawing he took his pallet of acrylic paints on a piece of washing powder box and began mixing vibrant colours on the panel as he painted random parts of the picture. His colour choice was fantastic, but we still couldn't see what he had drawn yet. He has such an incredibly steady hand and an artist's eye for detail and colour.

While Samba was busy painting on our car, lots of the local village men and children came out to watch and learn, as well as some of the other curio shop owners. Some little school boys came to watch, pulling their handmade trucks. These were made out of cut and folded Chibuku milk cartons, with bottle top wheels joined together by a stick axle and a long line of string to pull them along the ground with.

Hellings helped Samba paint our back panel and once this was done, Samba painted the warriors without drawing them first. From the warriors, Samba drew and painted the word Malawi, with little people in various positions to make up the pictorial word. After about 2 1/2 hours, Duzi2 looked amazing with her/his new, genuine Malawian artwork. Being the end of the day now, we loaded about 8 curio sellers on our roof and drove into Chintheche to drop them off. They were singing cheerfully the whole way, whistling and cheering as we drove off back to Kande Beach. We couldn't wait to show off our amazing painting to Fabinne and Hans, who were just as impressed as we were. Maisie was also there and came bounding over to see what we had had done.

There was another Acacia overland truck parked next to us, so we decided to move far away, so we wouldn't have a repeat 4am wake up call from them tomorrow morning. We moved to a spot overlooking the beach. It was still pretty dewy tonight.

Saturday 5th July 2008: Kande Beach, Kande just before Chintheche, Malawi

GPS Info: S11° 57' 04.6" E34° 07' 18.9"

Miles Today: 72 Total Miles: 27 454

Woke to the most stunning view from our tent, once we opened up the front flap, as it was too cold and damp to sleep with it open last night. The lake was so calm and flat, with clear sunny skies and no-one around. We showered and had breakfast looking onto Kande Island and the perfectly still lake. We needed to make space on the laptop for our photos, by copying stuff to the external hard drive which took a bit of time. We watched the horses return from their ride again and have a swim. There were only two this morning - a guide and a lady. The lake was so calm that it was perfect for the horses.

After packing up and buying a stunning green, turquoise and yellow kikoy from Kande Beach's curio shop, we set off saying goodbye and wishing Fabinne and Hans all the best. We stopped off at Kande Horse to meet all their horses and to swop our details with Maisie. We drove up the paddock lined driveway to find all of the horses in their open stables eating lunch. The main farmhouse looked just like a home from the New Forest, so lovely. Maisie took us on a tour of each of the horses, introducing us to them and telling us a bit about them. Some of their horses are thoroughbreds, some ex-polo ponies, some Basutu ponies, some mixtures, but all lovely. Some of them are ancient and are in retirement in the most beautiful setting. After the horse tour, she showed us the rooms where they're hoping to start multi-day horse trails from Kande Horse, with people staying in gorgeous rooms. We said goodbye and really do hope to meet Maisie again someday. She is so lovely and a fantastic asset to Kande Horse at the moment.

We drove through Chintheche and on to Flame Tree Lodge, which is closed and for sale. We had planned to pop in to see what it was like and find out what sort of price they were asking, to get a feel for land in Malawi. We were met at the gate and drove in. There are a few round, joined rondavel-type chalets, a main central building which is currently a workshop, a main home and a bar area. The grounds are all lawn and are huge, with a huge camping area, but very limited ablution facilities. The beach sand is bright white and very fine, almost like Clifton beach. Flame Tree Lodge has a 270 degree beach and lake frontage as it's on a headland. There is so much potential with this land, but it's going to cost a lot and we were wondering if there's a market for this scale of investment out here...We left, waving goodbye to the many workers still 'working' and living on the property.

Driving on from Chintheche, we passed the Nkhata Bay turn off and headed straight to Mzuzu, hoping to find a place to came there on our way up to the Nyika Plateau tomorrow. We passed many fancy diplomatic-plated cars on this scenic drive, which made us wonder what was happening. We drove into Mzuzu through flag lined streets with bunting and new road lines painted on the tar. Followed the GPS to Mzoozoozoo where Dutch Courage had previously stayed. It looked rather neglected and basic from the road, but with not much else to choose from we went in to enquire about camping. We met Ray, the current manager, who told us Malawi's president is in town for the Independence Day celebrations happening tomorrow. Malawi will have been independent for 44 years tomorrow. Big celebrations and speeches will take place in the stadium tomorrow, followed by a football match with Malawi playing Kenya. He suggested we fill up with fuel, get money and anything else we might need today, rather than tomorrow. He told us we could camp at Mzoozoozoo (Mk 500p/p/night camping) and this included hot showers. He showed us where we could camp and then we drove out to the town centre to sort ourselves out. We drove past CCAP Guest house to see if this might be a better camping option, but looked even more basic, if that is possible. There were people everywhere!

We arrived back at Mzoozoozoo, parked up and showered in their rather disgusting shower. We cooked omelettes for dinner and tried to make the most of a horrible situation. We decided to query the huge price increase from what is printed in the Lonely Planet Africa. US$1p/p/night camping as opposed to the actual cost of US$3.50 for the dump it was, with less than desirable shower and loo ablutions. Ray was not interested in budging with price, but we certainly wouldn't recommend staying here. The radio was blaring in the back garden/campsite, until eventually it was ordered to be turned off really late. We paid up with Ray and chatted to him a bit around the warmth of the fire.

It was freezing tonight. Tomorrow we hope to set off really early to get out of Mzuzu before the crowds hit.

Happy birthday Trace. We hope you are very spoilt by Shaun, Jenna and Matthew on your special day and are able to do something very special to celebrate your birthday.

Sunday 6th July 2008: Mzoozoozoo, Mzuzu, Malawi

GPS Info: S11° 27'27.4" E34° 01' 42.5"

Miles Today: 114 Total Miles: 27 568

The church bells rang around 6:00am and then we became aware of the buzz of people in town already. One of Mzoozoozoo's workers had come passed the stadium on the way to work and told us the stadium was already full of people. People had been filtering in since 1:00am, and it was really freezing last night. The speeches and celebrations were only meant to start at 9:00am. We heard a number of sirens at one stage, as some dignitaries must have been on their way to the stadium. We left Mzuzu really early and drove passed many policemen and women and army soldiers lining the main street, which the president would be driving down shortly. The town itself seemed deserted, but there were bus and truck loads of people on their way into Mzuzu. Many of the women were dressed in their blue and white wrap skirts bearing the president's face.

The road from Mzuzu to Rumphi is good tar, but then you join the gravel, which starts off being good and then quickly disintegrates into fine red dust that looks like talcum powder, with the 'road' not being obvious in most places. It rather resembled a washed away riverbed more than a road. It was a pretty boring, long drive over not such good road, but we did climb very high in altitude very quickly. We entered Nyika National Park, paying our day's park fees (US$5p/p/24hrs or Mk700p/p/24hrs and US$2/vehicle/24hrs or Mk280/vehicle/24hrs) to camp one night (Mk1 000p/p/night camping), which we needed to pay at the camp.

We entered Nyika hoping to see game, but after more rough powdery roads we ended up seeing a chameleon, 2 zebra and 4 reedbuck. A lot of Nyika National Park had been burnt, so it looked black and rather bleak, but when it's green it must be really beautiful. It reminded both of us of being in the berg or in the Scottish Highlands in some parts, with long rolling hills sloping in all sorts of gentle angles. We got to Chilinda Camp reception to find it closed for lunch. Chilinda Camp is set overlooking a beautiful small dam, but the rooms look very run down and neglected. We waited for 45minutes with other guests, also waiting to check into their rooms. They began having lunch, so we decided to rather pay on exiting. We drove back to the campsite, also looking like its seen far better days, and chose a fairly level spot to camp for the night. There were four other tents, but no one around. The view from the campsite across the plateau was lovely and made us feel like we were on top of the Drakensberg. We met Elias, the hardest working man we've met so far, who was constantly chopping wood for each camper’s campfire and for the donkey, for us to have HOT showers. It was very chilly as we were 2339m high. We had lunch and met our camp neighbours, an American family contracting in Mzuzu for 2 years.

It got colder as the wind picked up. We decided to braai tonight seeing as we had a fire. We started the fire early to have an early dinner, so we could get into bed early before it got really cold. The wood Elias brought was amazing so we got a great fire going. We both had HOT showers and got warm in our jackets and then braaied boerewors and butternut over the fire. This shower was one of the best hot, fully pressurised showers we've had in a long time. Even though the ablutions are basic at the campsite they are clean, having soap and toilet paper, which is more than most places! Bushbuck came into the camp to graze on the grass, and we were waiting for the jackal to come too. Apparently 8 jackals had come through the camp just before sunset yesterday afternoon, but they didn't appear tonight.

It was freezing so we slept with all the flaps down and Heidz loved having her bed socks to keep her extra warm.

Monday 7th July 2008: Camp Ground Chilinda, Nyika Plateau, Nyika National Park, Malawi

GPS Info: S10° 35' 05.4" E33° 47' 56.8"

Miles Today: 141 Total Miles: 27 709

Ross had got up in the night and had a fantastic encounter just watching the bushbuck eating in camp right next to him. They completely ignored him until he walked onto the grass. The view from our tent over the plateau was wonderful. We managed to make out bushbuck and reedbuck on the hill opposite us. We both enjoyed our hot cuppa and got the fire going to make toast for breakfast. Both of us had another lovely hot shower, to warm up before breakfast. We then packed up and set off, to try and find a beach to stop at, to catch up on diary updates. We were hoping to go via a back road, which we had been told, was very scenic.

Before leaving the area we needed to settle our dues. Reception was open when we went to pay for our night's camping (Mk1 000p/p/night camping) and on our drive out of Nyika National Park we spotted a roan antelope and an eland. Just after Rumphi and before crossing the bridge over the river, we took the gravel road to the left, which is the back way to Livingstonia. This drive was very scenic and beautiful and passes through some beautifully farmed land, where the farmers were growing bananas, cassava, tea (we think), tomatoes, potatoes and other crops which we didn't recognise. The landscape was steep and the soil was very fertile, with all of the slopes being farmed no matter how steep they were. Ross had some pretty hectic driving today, with steep tight bends all on loose gravel. We saw a sign to Livingstonia, but thought the road we were on would join up with it again later on. It didn't, so we missed going to Livingstonia and the museum there, where there is a tribute to the Livingstonia Mission and other Malawian mission stations. This part of the world was remote and the people seemed quite surprised to see us passing through.

We followed the signs to Mushroom Farm, where Fabinne and Hans suggested we pop in to have a look. It's a quirky place with a stunning view down onto Lake Malawi from the escarpment. There is no provision for rooftop tents though, so we drove on down the 20 steep, tight, hairpin bends, down to the lakeshore below and back onto the main lakeshore road. This steep track down (the "mini Sani Pass") is narrow, rocky and made us thankful we were in Duzi2. Ray had recommend we try and stay at a place called Viphya set on the beach. We found the sign and met the two rather odd characters who own it. The setting is stunning, but there is NO water, so we wouldn't be able to flush the loo etc. They wanted to charge us Mk500p/p/night. We quickly got back into Duzi2 and drove on to Sangilo Sanctuary to camp there instead.

Driving down the hectically steep driveway into Sangilo Sanctuary (Mk900p/p/night camping), we were shown the campsites. Styson welcomed us warmly and invited us to join them for dinner at the restaurant for 2 courses (Mk1850.00p/p) or for just a main for Mk1450.00p/p, which needs to be ordered before 5pm. The restaurant and bar are set on a wooden deck on the small private beach in a cove. The setting is really beautiful. The kitchen looked lovely and Happy, the chef, was busy preparing tonight’s dishes. We chose our camp spot with a beautiful view of another small beach, in a cove quite far below us. The campsites are not level and almost seemed like an after-thought, either being in the car park or sloped amongst lemon trees. The ablution block for campers looked lovely and we both read the notice about showering in the late afternoon to have a pleasant shower, due to the heat coming from solar. Sadly we soon realised that water was indeed in short supply here too and a shower would only be a trickle, if you were lucky. The water was also freezing cold rather than pleasant! The solar water heating system in place obviously doesn't work at all. No water meant paying these prices to camp is a HUGE rip off.

We cooked a yummy, hot chilli con-carne using the last of our mince and then enjoyed the stars above us, and the fishermen's lights shimmering on the lake below. We climbed into the tent and watched a movie, before enjoying the warmer temperatures at this altitude and being able to sleep with all the flaps rolled up.

Tuesday 8th July 2008: Sangilo Sanctuary, Chitimba, Malawi

GPS Info: S10° 31' 04.2" E34° 13' 04.0"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 27 709

We were woken by the howling wind that felt like it was going to send our tent poles flying. The waves crashing against the shore were enormous and made the lake look like a very angry sea. From our roof top tent we had a magnificent view over the lake, looking on to the distant highlands of Tanzania on the opposite side of the lake. It was sunny, hot and lovely even if a bit blustery when the wind blasted through. We enjoyed the left-over chilli con-carne on bread for breakfast and headed down to the idyllic beach cove to do some catch-up typing of diary updates and reading on the sun deck.

As the day unfolded, the wind died down and the lake calmed down to more gentle swells. We enjoyed the perfect beach views and managed to do quite a bit of typing, but are still quite far behind. We walked around the rocks from Sangilo's beach, to the small cove we look down onto from our rooftop tent, and watched the local children playing in the sand and trying to paddle out in a makoro missing two long sides. One little boy paddled while the other little guy scooped madly, trying to scoop out all the water filling up the middle of the makoro. Mark, Sangilo Sanctuary's owner, went out in the lake on his rubber duck (inflatable boat) for a bit of a spin.

A British mother and daughter arrived in the late afternoon to camp next to us. We had seen them at the Mushroom Farm yesterday. We got chatting to them, which was really interesting. The mom is a teacher at an International school in Lilongwe and the daughter is out on holiday, after finishing school in Italy before starting Uni in the UK. A man arrived in his "campervan" and then two other overland-kitted cars arrived, a Landrover Discovery and a Toyota Hilux, with NU and NC number plates from Assagay, which is very close to where Heidz grew up! These last two vehicles were Andrew and Julliet, and James and Jodey. We got chatting to them and found out that they are slowly on their way back to SA, after travelling through Mozambique and Tanzania and are now going down through Malawi, Zambia and Botswana. They had tips for us about Tanzania and we swapped tips and places we've stayed at with them, for the countries ahead of them.

The laptop's battery power eventually ran out while we were down on the beach, so typing came to an end and we headed back up to Duzi2 to fill up our water and make a bacon, mushroom and broccoli pasta for dinner. The wind had stopped and the lake looked smooth and flat with tiny waves lapping along the shore below us. It was quite warm and comfy with no mozzies around so we enjoyed eating outside. There were clouds in the sky though so we weren't able to see as many stars as last night. We managed to receive a call from Mom and Paps on our new Chinese mobile. It was so lovely to touch base with them for a bit. We had a very comfy, fairly early, night's sleep to the sound of waves breaking gently below us.

Water at Sangilo Sanctuary seems to be a rarity, even though it is right on the lakeshore. There is so little water, that it's barely possible to flush the toilets, let alone have a 2-trickle freezing cold shower. No one seems to really care though or do anything about it. The sanctuary has been nicely built, with lovely ablutions, but it's such a shame that you need to rather use your own camping shower or the lake, to be able to shower and wash your hair. Any pump system supplying water from the lake would be an improvement. There are a lot of staff who work SO hard all day! Women continuously carry up big plastic bins of water on their heads. There is a huge need for improvement in the camping side, especially when there are as many campers as there were today!

Happy birthday Caro. We hope you have a very special birthday and have lots of fun celebrating your special day.

Congratulations Mary-Ann and Pete on your anniversary. We hope you are able to do something very special together to celebrate this wonderful day.

Congratulations to Justin and Andrea on your anniversary. Can't believe we were at your wedding a year ago! We hope you are able to celebrate this special day together in a very special way.

Wednesday 9th July 2008: Sangilo Sanctuary, Chitimba, Malawi

GPS Info: S10° 31' 04.2" E34° 13' 04.0"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 27 709

We were woken up early by the turkeys gobbling nearby...roast turkey sounds very good for a meal today. Everyone was up and loving the sunshine and perfect day. The lake was flat and calm with the sun shimmering on it, in total contrast to yesterday morning. We got chatting again to our neighbours from Assagay. James and Jodie, a South African and an Australian, had lived in the UK before and have now been in SA for nearly 2years, but have decided to go back to the UK at the end of August. It was great chatting to them and finding out about their time on their travels so far. Andrew and Angela, both South Africans, have loved their trip too and warned us about the long, hard Tanzanian stretches ahead, especially up the west of tthe country. Everything in Tanzania seems ridiculously expensive and the national parks are sounding more like a budget-breaking waste of time than we can afford.

While chatting, James noticed a leak on the inside of our rear right wheel, which looked like it may be diff oil which has come through the wheel bearings somehow. Ross got to work jacking up Duzi2 and removing the wheel. There was oil mixed with the grease around the hub-nuts and the wheel bearings were found to be loose. Andrew used to be a mechanic so his knowledge and judgement were very helpful. Ross opened up the bearings and cleaned as much of the oil off as he could. Andrew looked and said it didn't look too serious, although Ross by now looked like a grease monster, all black with dirt and grease. Ross checked and tightened both rear wheel bearings and changed the one drive flange as the teeth of the half-shaft and the old drive flange were quite worn down. This was such a messy job and trying to fill the new grease gun was a mission and a half too. We'd noticed a slow puncture in the rear right tyre over the past couple of days and so while the wheel was off, we managed to find the cause of the leak - a fat bolt that had gone straight through the knobbly and pierced the tyre. Using the amazing rubber tyre plugs, Ross removed the bolt and plugged the leak. He managed to injure himself again though, knocking his head with the spanner cutting his head above his right eyebrow. Heidz is starting to wonder if Ross comes with a four year guarantee, expiring on the 24th September 2008...if there's anything left of him by then, after his injury prone self recently.

We said our good-byes to James and Jodey wishing them every success for their move back to the UK, and to Andrew and Jules, who very kindly lent us their Tanzania map. We know we'll definitely see them again, to be able to return it to them when we get back to Winston Park/Hillcrest. We also picked their brains about some of the roads through Tanzania, where we are planning to go...'horrible, long and like red talcum powder', was the unanimous consensus and not roads they would travel again. We gave them tips about places and prices of places and things we've seen in Zambia and Botswana, where they're heading next. It was so lovely to meet like-minded couples and to know we will definitely see Andrew and Jules again when we stop. It's such a pity James and Jodey are leaving, as we got on really well with them.

Heidz did some laundry, making the most of the sunshine to dry it, and tried to type up more diary updates until the laptop battery ran out again. With the car up on the jack we couldn't run it to charge the laptop, and Sangilo has no electrical provision for campers! Not too surprising. When there's so little water available to campers, electricity would be far too much to ask for. While Ross was busy with Duz, Heidz read up about Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Mozambique. Wow, we have so much distance to cover and not too much time left...especially when we know the roads get worse from here again.

After a very hard, hot day’s work we had a tuna noodle salad and savoured a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate. We enjoyed hearing the waves in the distance and the comfortable evening temperature.

Thursday 10th July 2008: Sangilo Sanctuary, Chitimba, Malawi

GPS Info: S10° 31' 04.2" E34° 13' 04.0"

Miles Today: 168 Total Miles: 27 877

Woken again at around 5:00am by the gobbling turkeys that didn't stop until about 7.30am. So much for the "sanctuary" part of the place's name. We had a very healthy huge bowl of fresh fruit salad - bananas, oranges, apples and miniolas. The camping area is between Mark's garage/workshop and the 'farm' with ugly ducks, turkeys, rabbits and a huge pig, which are all apparently there for food. Packing up the tent, we paid Mark for our stay here. We drove out, tackling the hectically steep driveway in low range 2nd, with diff lock on. Sangilo is a nice spot, but way over priced for camping and not somewhere we would recommend, especially with their lack of water.

We drove the short distance up the lakeshore to Chilumba port, to find out about the Ilala ferry fares. Speaking to a very helpful Mr Fuliwa we were shocked by the price for the car. There are various forms of accomodation available on the Ilala - 1st class deck (Mk12 740), sleeping on the deck with shared loos, but no showers; 6 standard class cabins (Mk22 330p/p) with shared loos and showers; 1 owner's cabin (Mk31180p/p) with private ensuite loo and shower. This is expensive, but would be a nice treat for a change and a nice way to see Lake Malawi and her islands. The car prices are pretty steep though - worked out by multiplying your cars weight category by the distance you are going to travel, plus 17.5% tax over and above this. From Chilumba to Monkey Bay is 494km and would cost us Mk60 947.25 for Duzi2, a huge amount of money. When we enquired at Monkey Bay they told us we would get a discount, paying for 2 people in a cabin and a car, as most people travel with no car or put their car on but not them...Mr Fuliwa phoned Monkey Bay's Mr Mtambo and then Ross spoke to Mrs Sizulu there to find out about a possible discount. She would have to get back to us, as she didn't know. We left it that we would get back to them when we knew our dates, knowing this was not going to be an option for us financially, especially as we know from James and Jodey and Andrew and Julie that the Rovuma ferry is running and cost them US$70. We also now have the Rovuma ferry captain's mobile number so we are happier to do this crossing instead of the three days on the Ilala, although this does sound really lovely.

We arrived at the Immigration and Customs counters at Songwe border post. We completed our exit form and got our passports stamped with our exit stamp. Got the Carnet signed and stamped by a neatly dressed man in uniform. With all this done, we were on our way out of Malawi and into Tanzania. We needed to call the man who did our carnet to open the gate for us to leave Malawi. Both having had a wonderful time in Malawi again, we were sad to leave the warm heart of Africa and the Lake of the Stars.

============ Travelled through - Tanzania - Rwanda - Uganda - Kenya - Tanzania (again) ..... and then ... ========

Thursday 21st August 2008:

Almost 2 months to the day from when we first entered Malawi, on our way up to explore East Africa, we entered Malawi for the second time, only this time for a fleeting transit on our way to Mozambique. We got our passports stamped for 14days, knowing we only really needed a week, but it's always better to have more days than needed so you can choose to leave when it suits you, rather than being forced out. We had the carnet stamped with no problems and completed the register book at the front desk as well as the book at the gate, and drove into Malawi, a country we feel we know quite well now.

We drove FAR and LONG, passed Lake Malawi (the lake of the stars) and Livingstonia, all the way to Mzuzu, to stay at Flame Tree Village (Mk500p/p/night camping). Ross was crazily keen to drive all the way to Lilongwe, but we had already driven far too far in the dark, along some pretty bad windy roads tonight, breaking the 'No driving in Africa at night' rule. We hoped that by getting so far south, we could leave Malawi for Mozambique tomorrow or the next day, depending on our route from Malawi into Mozambique. The Hulleys had sent us a text message, telling us the only place you can cross the Zambezi River by ferry is Caia, so to choose our route carefully. The other option is to go via Tete and cross the Zambezi on the only vehicle bridge over the river there.

We followed the camping signs to Flame Tree Guesthouse in Mzuzu, but on arriving there, found out they cannot accomodate rooftop tents as they have a tiny carpark. They do offer camping, but for ground tents only. Flame Tree Guesthouse looked really lovely. The receptionist at Flame Tree Guesthouse gave us very vague directions to their other place, Flame Tree Village which could accomodate rooftop tents. Flame Tree Village is well signposted along the main road leaving Mzuzu towards Lilongwe, but the 400m from the main road is the most difficult part to find, as there are no signs as to which place it is. We pulled into a place that we thought might be it, but soon realised it was a private home. After a few tries, we found the right place and found a levelish spot to park Duz in for the night. The receptionist at Flame Tree Village was so lovely, especially since we arrived so late. She gave us keys to one of their huge, very nicely done, family rooms to be able to have a hot shower, as their camping showers were only cold at present. It was freezing and the sky was amazing, sparkling with stacks of stars.

We both had lovely hot showers to warm up and then added 2 minute noodles to our cuppa soups, before jumping into bed to snuggle up for the night. Today was a long hard slog, but we managed to cover a lot of ground. Malawi's roads are generally very good, so we were lucky we could transit through it, seeing as the Rovuma ferry is no longer an option. Tomorrow will be another long day, but we will be able to hopefully relax once we hit the coast in Mozambique.

Friday 22nd August 2008: Flame Tree Village and Camp, Mzuzu, Malawi

GPS Info: S11° 29' 08.5" E33° 58' 03.4"

Miles Today: 408 Total Miles: 34 220

Up to an early start for another long days drive. We planned to drive from Mzuzu through Lilongwe, stopping briefly at Shoprite to buy a few things and then over the escarpment road to spend the night in Blantyre. We met the lovely receptionist again and handed back the room key, very appreciative for the hot showers. We also met the owner who was very happy for us to advertise this spot to camp at in Mzuzu. We explored the very pretty gardens with carefully planted colourful flowers, and after breakfast set off for Lilongwe.

The road to Lilongwe seemed to take ages to cover. The vegetation in Malawi had changed from when we were here in June and July. The Flame Trees were all flowering, contrasting strongly with their bright red fleshy flowers against the drier brown bush and baobab trees. We also saw some Impala Lilies flowering, with their bright pink flower, reminding us of our time in Mali when they were flowering there.

In Lilongwe, we stopped at the 7-Eleven shop next to the Total garage, which we had stopped in at before. The 7-Eleven sold Ouma rusks for half the price Shoprite sold them for, and they also had most of the other things we were hoping to get for cheaper too. Ross was beaming from ear to ear after finally managing to buy some Ouma rusks again. We changed more Euros into Malawian Kwacha to fill up our diesel tank and then joined the stagnant queue to fill up with diesel at BP, the only garage with diesel, apparently... The diesel crisis in Malawi hadn't changed since we were there 2 months before. Rather than spend the next few hours in the diesel queue, we decided to head to Shoprite and queue afterwards. It didn''t look like we were going to be able to make Blantyre tonight with the diesel situation, but neither of us particularly wanted to spend the night in Lilongwe. We specifically wanted to buy some more delicious pan roasted Malawi nuts, which we needed to go to Shoprite for, as well as buy some more fresh produce and bread.

After a quick Shoprite shop, we joined the traffic leading out of Lilongwe back to the BP garage, hoping to be able to fill up with fuel with enough time to still press on to Blantyre, knowing it would mean more hours of night driving. Whilst waiting at a red traffic light, we saw 2 taxis being filled up with diesel at the Total we had asked at earlier. The light changed and we drove in asking for Duz to be filled up. "We have no diesel, Sir", was what Ross was told. He then queried as to how we were able to see two taxis being filled up if they had no diesel. Ross explained that we had cash to pay, which we hoped would be more favourable. He was taken to the garage owner who made a special allowance for us to have 100 litres, even though we had asked for 120 litres to refill the one jerry we had had to put in, to get to Lilongwe. We were very grateful for the owner's generosity and were then able to be on our long way to Blantyre before the sun set.

We drove far and long in the dark, until we eventually arrived in Blantyre at Doogles Lodge. Doogles Lodge (Mk400p/p/night camping) was full of people and the only spot available to park in, in the crowded carpark, was luckily near another overland Landy with a rooftop tent. We checked in and decided against eating here as we didn't like the smell coming from the kitchen. We were shown to the ablutions, which you access via the bar. The place was buzzing with people out for a good party, totally not what we had in mind after our long day's drive. We chatted to our camping neighbours - an Ozzi in a landy and an American cycling couple. The enthusiastic American couple had cycled down west Africa and gave us a few contacts to stay with in Mozambique. We had a quick dinner and then climbed up the ladder to get a good night's sleep. It was late by the time we had arrived at Doogles, but sadly having the campsite as part of the carpark, undisturbed sleep is not an option, as cars constantly come and go into the early hours of the morning.

Saturday 23rd August 2008: Doogles Lodge, Blantyre, Malawi

GPS Info: S15° 47' 01.2" E35° 00' 53.8"

Miles Today: 355 Total Miles: 34 575

Our plan was to get on the road early to cross over into Mozambique and try to get to sleep at Chitengo Camp in Gorongoza Reserve. We had been told by a few people that Pink Papaya, in Chimoio, doesn't do camping. Plans and reality take on two totally different meanings when you travel around Africa. We left Doogles early and took longer to get through and out of Blantyre as it was congested with Saturday morning traffic. We had planned to fill up with diesel in Blantyre, as diesel is cheaper in Malawi than Mozambique, but we were a bit worried about its availability. We stopped at a BP garage and were directed down to a wholesale pump where we were able to fill up our full tank (120l) and a jerry (20l). Pleased we were able to get good quality fuel we set off towards the border. We had been told by the cyclists that 1 Malawian Kwacha should be worth 1.45 to 1.60 Meticals (Mk1: 1.45 - 1.60MTn), and had also been shown the new Meticals so as not to be fooled by getting old invalid money. With this knowledge, we approached the money sharks, armed and prepared. Due to the Mozambicans' rather dodgy reputation, we wanted to try to rather change our money on the Malawian side rather than the Mozambican side. On the Malawian side, we stopped at the first sharks, but their best rate was Mk1:1.40MTn, so we drove on to rather change at a better rate in no-mans land or on the Mozambican side. We got our passports stamped out of Malawi, as well as the carnet, and were quickly on our way through a few kilometres of no-mans land.

This was such a quick transit through Malawi, our 22nd African country, 29th country in total.

Happy birthday Aunty Colleen. We hope you have a very special day and are able to spend your day doing something you really like.

Happy birthday Karl. We know Melis will spoil you on your special day, and can't wait to see you guys back in SA soon.