Leopards And Lions And Hippos, Oh My!

It's not that easy to get to South Luangwa. There is only one daily minibus and goodness knows when it leaves. So Sean and I left our guesthouse and just waited on the junction that leads towards the nearest village of Mfuwe and waited until we either caught a hitch, or a shared taxi offered us a decent price (i.e. $15 each and not $40 each).

We found an honest taxi driver, hooked up with a couple of locals going in the same direction and off we went up what has to be the bumpiest dirt road full of dips and bumps in a standard car when we should have been in something high-rise for sure! This road is also mainly under construction. Good news for those of you that will visit in the future because by then it's sure to be a wonderful flat tarmac road. But right now it's just dirt and rocks and bumps. We arrived in Mufwe covered in dirt and pretty teeth shaken!

A 4x4 picked us up at the drop off point and we were transferred to our lodge - Wildlife Camp. If any of you ever come here, this is the place you have to stay! It was right on the river bank, which was filled with hippos and with crocodiles on the central banks. It was beautiful! The only issue is that you can't walk around camp after dark due to the very real concern that wildlife will attack you (such as the hippos, or in fact the lions that have wandered out of the national park as one picture in the camp demonstrated).

But luckily we survived - yay! But we did indeed have hippos munching around right next to our tent at night (pretty scary) and there were also elephants wandering around too we were told, and baboons tried to open the zip on our tent too. I just shut the window and padlocked the door flaps and prayed that lion wouldn't return!

The going 'things to do' here are morning and nighttime game drives. So next morning we were picked up by a 4x4 again (open sides and top), introduced ourselves to our two Swiss-German companions, our guide Su and off we set. South Luangwa doesn't have fences like many other national parks. It is instead defined by natural boundaries such as the Luangwa River. This means animals are free to roam. Before we even made it into the park we had seen:

1) A hippo in a swamp about 100m from our tents

2) A herd of impala on the junction past the hippo

3) Several giraffe just past the impala...

...and then up the road towards another lodge we saw two other game drive vehicles parked and knew something was up. So we headed down to take a look. Wow! We weren't disappointed. We were confronted with 3 lions eating their latest hunt, a baby giraffe! Not only were we just a couple of metres away from them, but they were really laying into their kill. It was quite the spectacle. It's quite something to suddenly realise that you're only in this open sided truck next to these beasts with such teeth right next to you. You're certainly not in the zoo.

We then headed into the park. After the lions I was happy to just sit back and enjoy whatever we saw. Our companions were keen on birds and Su was the best guide we have had yet - so knowledgeable and with eyes like a hawk. And all this made South Luangwa my favourite park yet. Su spotted agitated birds around one tree and we saw a 'baby' python in the branches (although it wasn't that small!), he told us really interesting facts about the antelopes that I have completely overlooked in other parks as they weren't the 'big 5', we learned how to recognize the park's unique species of zebra and giraffe, the mating rituals of puku and impalas and we saw lots of different types of birds that I would normally not see let alone care about, but with such a guide telling you all their habits you can't help but be in awe.

Another highlight was a dead hippo in the Luangwa river. Not because it was dead as that is of course tragic. But because it enticed all the crocodiles! And some of these crocs were huge! They are evil looking things that's for sure.

We stopped for tea and coffee under a tree filled with birds' nests, watched the hippo in the swamp being cleaned by 'Jesus Birds' (so named because they seem to walk on water!) and checked out the eagle on top of a huge baobab tree. And finished off by seeing two elephants on our way out of the park cooling themselves in the mud. Quite incredible.

Here's a collage of our morning game drive:

I know Sean has a thing about the obsession everyone has with the Big 5. But I like lists and checking things off them. I was amused to learn there is also a 'Green 5' (a list of 5 ferns/grasses/trees named after Big 5 animals for example 'Elephant Grass'), the 'Ugly 5' (Hyena, Vulture, Wildebeest, Warthog and Maribu Stork) and the 'Little 5' (Buffalo Weaver, Elephant Shrew, Leopard Tortoise, Ant Lion and Rhino Beetle).

But I digress: the only one of the Big 5 list that we had not yet seen was the leopard. And South Luangwa is supposed to be one of the best places to spot these cats. So I headed off on the night game drive with hope in my heart. Su had a plan too to make this happen - we drive as far as we can into the park with little stopping and therefore by covering as much territory as we can we have more chance of spotting the owners of those territories as we drive slowly back to the gate. I liked it!

We stopped by the river for 'sun downers' (Mosi beer at sunset) and were treated to wonderful views and colours:

And as soon as we got back into the 4x4, literally 100m from where we had just been standing by the river we spotted it - our leopard:

It is quite frightening to realise how close this creature had been to us really. We watched her for a good while as she gave up her hunt and sat down, in the knowledge that we weren't going anywhere and our spotlights kinda ruined her moment. But then things got interesting. She reinstated her hunt of an impala group. Our driver said that we weren't allowed to assist her hunt by using the spotlight to aid her as this prevents 'natural selection', so we parked up and turned off the lights.

I mentioned I have an over active imagination right? Well the spotlights would go on for a few seconds every few minutes just to check her position. One time she was looking at our truck. Then some guy in our jeep asked me where she was (I was on the same side of the jeep as she was). Then my mind decided that I could see her looking at me (the impression it was left with from the last spotlight search). My mind then convinced me that she moved towards us gathering speed and when I screamed because I thought she was jumping at me I startled everyone on the 4x4. This of course was all in my head and I felt pretty embarrassed that I'd done this (in my defense these animals can kill humans and we're in this stupid open sided truck in the pitch dark). But we continued to wait none the less to try to see the kill (I just sat with my eyes shut!). However, the guide eventually said that she must be hungry as she was taking her time to ensure her hunt was successful and that it could take all night and we had to head back to the gate. So it was that, and not my stupid screaming I tell you, that made him make his way back.

On the way back we saw genet and civets, hippos, tortoise, a hare and some nocturnal birds. We also stopped in on the lions from the morning (there were now four of them!) who were still in the same spot still eating the last of that poor baby giraffe.

But nothing will match that leopard. So beautiful and so close it made me literally jump out of my skin.

South Luangwa was incredible. Our guide superb. And the best end to our time in Zambia. We now head back towards Livingstone for a couple days of chill out and email catch up before we join another African Trails tour to take us through the "expensive and otherwise inaccessible by independent travellers without their own car" countries of Botswana and Namibia.

Zambia has been my favourite African country so far I think (with Malawi close second). It's expensive compared to Malawi, but our experiences here have been so amazing that it has made a lasting impression on me. This one has to go on your short lists. It's even child friendly if you can afford to hire your own jeep for the duration!

Other things Jennie will remember:

1) Thinking how good it was that the Muhanza family bus company went up the aisle with a big bag half way through to collect the rubbish.

2) Being appalled when the Johabie bus company gave you cookies and then throw all the rubbish out of the window (cardboard boxes and all)

3) Running into Ken, the American Army Officer whom we had met at Livingstone, again at Chipata

4) Running into the taxi driver who had taken us to South Luangwa upon our return to Chipata and the sincere thanks he gave us for the blessings we had given him by giving him the fare

5) Never being so scared (and excited) in my life - far too many warnings about wildlife, pictures of lions eating tents and too little protection on the vehicles such as metal sides.

6) The free ride back to Mfuwe offered to us by the owner of Wildlife Camp - thank you so much for being so kind!

7) That the impala are nicknamed 'MacDonald's' due to the fact that the stripes on their bums look like the golden arches and they are fast food for leopards and lions

Something Sean will remember:

1. Jen's blood-curdling scream. It haunts my dreams.

Here are the photos:

BT66_South Luangwa 25 - 27 Apr 2011

Testies Survival Kit: Compass

ITEM USED: Compass

COUNTRY USED IN: Zambia

CHALLENGE OVERCOME: Hippo Tracking

Hippos can be hard to spot. So I turned to my trusty Testies Survival Kit for support. And it gave me the compass. So I set out to try to locate the nearest water hole in which hippo may reside.

I quickly found a waterhole. But couldn't see any hippos.

I consulted my compass:

Which told me this way:

But that didn't seem right, so I had another look:

And removed my sunglasses for a better look still:

And it took me north towards the South Luangwa river:

But I had a funny feeling something was looking at me:

So I returned to the waterhole:

And saw this:

I was very very happy that yet again, my Testies Survival Kit had been the reason for yet another awesome sighting on the BigTrip!

NB: When we tried to return to the waterhole later that day, the camp site owner strictly forbid us to do so as hippos are very dangerous. We therefore wish to inform you dear readers that no Jennies, Seans or hippos were harmed in the making of this film.

Tikondane

Tikondane Community Centre was set up by a German born Australian widow named Elke Kroeger-Radcliffe. Elke originally worked at St Francis' hospital teaching trainee nurses. Upon the death of her husband and using the funds that he had carefully provided for her after his death, she set up the community centre which opened in 1999 and it has been developing ever since. Tikondane means "'let's love one another" and its purpose is to help support the 20,500 people in it's catchment area from the district of Katete (c222,000 population) in Zambia, one of the world's poorest and least developed nations on earth. They estimate that in this district around 80% of people are unemployed, with most people depending on subsistence farming. January, February and March (the 3 months before the harvest) are called the 'hungry season' as supplies have run out from the previous season. Tiko runs a guest lodge which employs local staff, conducts educational workshops for villagers, orphans and vulnerable children to educate them on the basic principles of hygiene, the prevention of HIV transmission , the importance of a balanced diet and regular Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT). The school at Tikondane educates about 500 children and also provide adult literacy classes. Guests are invited to participate in various workshops (weaving, shop making, permaculture), visit local villages and markets and also the local hospital St Francis'.

We spent 3 days at Tiko Lodge over the Easter weekend. On our first night we had a few beers with Edward (Kiwi fella also a visitor like ourselves) and John a VSO worker at the local hospital who is their engineer and supervising the construction and renovation of several new wards. We also met Stan, a pharmacist at St Francis' of whom we were very grateful he had the day off on Good Friday cause he was just a wee bit tipsy!

On our first day, Moses (Mosa) was kind enough to take us on a guided tour of Katete. We hoped on the back of bike-taxis (basically a bike with a cushioned seat over the back wheel that you perch on) and headed the 3km to Katete. The market here was huge and we were glad to have Mosa's guidance! The usual things are on sale here, bowls, plates, cups, jugs, second hand shoes, clothes made in China, spare parts for buses, bicycles and spare parts for them, vegetables and beans, flours, meat, hair accessories, knock-off DVDs and CDs and of course the odd general store and barbers. There are notices at Tiko Lodge advising you of items that would be useful as gift donations, so we purchased a couple of school uniform sets, some second hand shoes, exercise books and pen to donate. Sean also got a hair-cut from a guy that had obviously never shaved Mzungu hair before and couldn't therefore understand why going against the grain wasn't actually cutting his hair. It took quite a while for him to finish the job, but he was certainly a perfectionist!

We then headed back to the lodge and walked up the road to the hospital where John had offered to provide us with a guided tour for the cost of beer in the bar later (VSOs don't earn much he reminded us).

The hospital was actually quite impressive. They had n+1 redundancy on their UPS supplies and generators, enough beds for 380 odd people, surgical wards that provide operations 3 days a week and counselling and testing areas (VCTs). They even had housing for women to reside in before they give birth (for those that live many kms away) and some shacks for relatives to bed down in on mats.

Common ailments here are broken limbs from falling off ladders and out of trees, the affects of physical abuse (especially prevalent on the women) and malaria sufferers.

There was of course also a large maternity ward with so many women in it that they had matresses on the floors, but surprising to us was the size of their premature baby ward. The rates for premature births are high here due to the levels of malnutrition of the women giving birth. There was one western style incubator, but of course this kind donation had long since broken and with no one skilled in repairing it and with the spare parts required not readily available this machine has been gathering dust in the corner ever since. Instead the babies were in rather ingenious wooden boxes with a glass fronted 'flap front'. Inside were heat bulbs to provide warmth. The boxes would remind you of the type of heated cages in which young chicks are kept in (except yellow glow and not red). The room itself was also heated to help ensure the room stayed hot. The mother's of these babies were in a room next door manually expressing milk out of their breasts (this looked an extremely painful procedure) to feed their babies with. Cobwebs hung off the corners of the corrugated iron roof and no hand sanitizer was available. There were not enough boxes for each child, so half the boxes contained two babies and any more new additions would also be required to share. Against all these odds, these babies were fighting and all but one very fragile little chap appeared to be winning the battle.

The hospital also had a TB ward, which was now closed because the prevention of TB in the area has become so successful that it's use as a ward is no longer required.

A new children's ward was in progress of being built. It had started two years ago and they hope to complete it by the end of this year. Funded by the Dutch, this facility will allow more beds (in more private areas similar to those we have in UK hospitals rather than the one large ward they currently have) and will connect through a covered corridor directly to the maternity ward (at the moment there is quite a long walk in the outdoors). The old children's ward will be turned into the 'out patients' clinic. At present there are very long queues in the sun to a very small building and this will allow the hospital to minimize these queues by providing more treatment rooms.

All in all, we were surprised to find such half-way decent facilities here. But it was clear that this was only because of the generosity of the donors and the passion of the volunteers like John that this was possible. John talked about how donors like to see progress on their projects and when he and his team are trying to make the donated money stretch as far as they can by making as much things as they can (bricks, the iron roof - in fact everything except the specialist flooring and door frames) it takes time. They also had to manage their time across this and another project to ensure both progressed enough to ensure the donated money was not withdrawn. Tricky stuff eh?

Our second day was spent in the peaceful grounds of Tikondane, followed by a visit to the village of Graya where we saw where some of this community centre's money is being spent. They have built a pre-school building there (it's pretty sparse on toys or anything remotely educational currently), pigs and chickens with houses of their own and a permaculture garden complete with bore holes supplying water to the village.

In the evening we were allowed to sit in on the weekly practise of the women's traditional dancing. Local men are not allowed to view these practises, but 'white men' are seen as 'honorary women' so Sean and Edward got to sit in. Blimey - this dancing was pretty, erm, fertile I'll say... Edward's face was a picture (he went quite red at times) and Sean was loving it. I got the best lap dance though - sorry chaps! It was really a great privilege to view this dancing and we thoroughly enjoyed it - even if the women were taking the mickey out of us for most of it - they had a wicked sense of humour! I'm sure that my rendition wasn't that bad either.

The following day was Easter Sunday. Before we headed on towards South Luangwa national park we stopped into the local Anglican church to see how they do things over here. It was great fun. Very little preaching, a heck of a lot of singing and dancing, drums and crowd participation and shouting mandatory. Being in church was fun. The service goes on pretty much all day, but we stayed only 45 minutes (I even donned a local skirt for the occasion).

From what we have learned here it is challenging to provide the help required. One example given to us was when a class teaching how to put on condoms was refused the use of a plastic demonstration penis as it was deemed inappropriate and was forced to use a cucumber instead. The students were later seen buying cucumbers thinking that they helped to prevent HIV transmission. The local language also only has numbers up to 5 (6 is referred to as 5 plus 1) making it very difficult for local teachers to teach multiplication as they themselves do not understand it. But the people here are trying and their dedication is paying off little by little.

You too of course can help. And frankly having seen the good first hand that this place is doing it's nice to know that your money truly is helping. Here's how you can help:

Post gift donations of knitting wool for baby sets, educational books/CDs/Videos/DVDs (school text books, atlases etc), soft toys and children's games, second hand clothes/shoes for children and adults, pens and artistic materials, melamine cups, plates, bowls and cutlery (esp teaspoons) to:

Tikondane Community Centre

P Bx 550142

Katete

Eastern Province

Zambia

Africa

Or monetary donations can been made to:

Barclays Bank

Account Name: Tikondane Community Center

Account Number: 2496103

Sort Code 02-11-04

Just 7USD/7AUS/5GBP a month would support a child to attend their Community School from Grade 1-7. 50US/40GBP would enable a child to reach Grade 12 and open up the prospect of university tot hem or it would enable Tikondane to continue supporting their village outreach projects (pit latrine, water supply and solar energy projects). 75US/60GBP a month would provide a family with enough to meet their basic educational, health and well being needs. Visit www.tikondane.org for full information.

Ok, I'll stop preaching myself now and we'll make our way to South Luangwa National Park - the last of my big 5 is a leopard, so we're off to try to 'spot' one of them - hee, hee - get it? Spot! Hee hee!

Here are the photos:

BT65_Katete 21 - 24 Apr 20111

Somewhere Over The (Lunar) Rainbow

Ok, so we've done this a bit arse-about. Having entered Zambia from Malawi, in the far east, the plan had been to work our way slowly across the country over a couple of weeks before ending up at Victoria Falls in the far south-west. Instead, we sped over 1000km across Zambia in less than 48 hours and have been in the town of Livingstone, the gateway to Victoria Falls, for the past three days.

The reason for this is the fabled Lunar Rainbow.

The Lunar Rainbow is a phenomenon that occurs during the full moon in just two places on earth (and has been sighted just once ever at a couple more), and Victoria Falls is one of these places. Basically, as far as we could tell, it was a rainbow at night time, which in itself sounded hella cool. Arriving in Zambia when we did, our timing was such that we had just two days before the full moon, and so we decided that what is a once-a-month opportunity for the local folks here might be a once-in-a-lifetime shot for us. We went for it.

We made two stops along the way, firstly in Chipata, a bustling but pleasant town just inside the Zambian border where we took the final decision to make the big trip across the whole country, and then the following night in Zambia's capital Lusaka, which I would describe as Nairobi's uglier, less appealing sister. This is not a compliment.

The saving grace of these journeys was that the roads were generally good and the buses of decent standard, which made the trips far more pleasant than might have been expected. Arriving in Livingstone on the night before the full moon, we were tempted to go straight into the falls to see the Lunar Rainbow that night (it is also visible the night before and after the full moon) as the evening was clear, cloudless and beautiful. We didn't have the budget to go in on two separate nights, so it was with some trepidation that we decided against going in immediately, and made the call to wait until the night of the full moon itself. We hoped we'd made the right one. So we instead spent the first night in the fantastic Fawlty Towers guesthouse (yes, it's actually called that) chilling out and doing something very uncharacteristic for us - drinking beer.

Victoria Falls - known in the local tongue as Mosi-Oa-Tunya (The Smoke That Thunders) is, of course, one of the world's great natural wonders at any time of day, at any time of month, and so the following morning Jen and I made the trip into Victoria Falls National Park for a daytime visit. I'd read a lot about the monumental volume of water that crashes down over the falls every second, but these are all just numbers on a page until you actually view the thing in person and see just how much of the wet stuff there is - it is truly awe-inspiring.

In fact, the amount of water is magnified at this time of year due to the water level being at its highest - it doesn't just come tumbling over and down the falls, it sprays into the air all around the park. We'd been warned that we'd get wet, and so paid $1 each to hire a raincoat at the entrance to the park. This proved to be money well spent, but even so nothing prepared us for the almighty soaking we copped whilst exploring the falls - it was truly like being caught in a storm.

It meant that in many places the view of the cataracts themselves were somewhat obscured, but somehow the atmosphere was enhanced by the drenching. We were also able to climb down a rocky path to the Boiling Point, where the water swirls to a quite frightening degree, and to go onto the suspension bridge which separates Zambia and Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls is on the border between the two) where we could watch the bungee jumpers take their life into their hands (which we might have done ourselves if we'd had the spare $130 each in our budget to do it) and visit Zimbabwe, if only for a matter of seconds.

The relative lack of commercialisation of the place - given its status as one of Africa's premier tourist destinations - was both welcome and refreshing, and extended to an endearing lack of health and safety precautions, meaning you could get close to the flow of water right on the lip of the falls. I mean, like, really close.

The day visit to Vic Falls was spectacular, but as the clouds gathered in the afternoon we were feeling more than a little apprehensive about our prospects for the main event that evening. The National Park has a money-making scheme going on whereby on the days of the full moon they open the park at night, but don't let any day visitors stay inside to wait for the rainbow. Nope, you have to leave the park and then pay again (with an extra $5 Rainbow surcharge added) to come back in. Bastards. It was for this reason that Jen and I, as well as a few others including new friends Duncan and Sandra, an Australian/German couple, Canadian teacher Derek, and Ken, a Brazil-born US army officer stationed in Afghanistan, initially went to the Zam-Zim bridge where admission was free and from where we had been told the rainbow was also visible. After an hour of standing on the bridge looking at nothing but night air, we came to the conclusion that this had been an utter lie. So while Derek and Ken inexplicably returned to Fawlty Towers, Duncan, Sandra, Jen and I paid up and went into the park.

The clouds had long dissipated and the night was by now brilliantly clear, so we were hoping for something special. I'll let you be the judge as to whether or not we got it.

Yep, I reckon so too.

There were several great viewpoints - the first couple were understandably, and deservedly, well attended by tourists (though, thankfully, nowhere was particularly or unpleasantly crowded), but the four of us were thrilled to head a little deeper into the park to discover an entirely different rainbow out of sight of the main one. It was down towards the wettest part of the falls, so taking pics down there was a little treacherous, but I think the ones we got were worth it.

And with that, breath sufficiently taken, we returned to Fawlty Towers to show Derek and Ken what they'd missed. Another pleasant day doing nothing but relax and sink a few cold ones has now passed - tomorrow we'll begin our journey back to the other side of Zambia, and will work our way all the way back here again in a couple of weeks on our way toward Botswana.

The smoke will still be thundering then. But there won't be a rainbow at night.

Things Jennie will remember:

1) The irony of being surrounded by "ze Germans" in a place called Falwty Towers (Don't mention it... just don't mention it).

2) Realising just how low Sean and I had lowered our standards when he can blog that the buses here are of a "decent standard" - they are still 5 seats across and therefore flipping squashed.

3) That getting drench at the falls was more like having a bucket of water tipped on you that didn't stop

4) That it wasn't the money that stopped me from doing a bungee but more the 111m drop to my death that petrified me

5) Being in Zimbabwe for all of 4 seconds :)

6) Thinking how annoying it is that since the SA World Cup Zimbabwe no longer offers the 'day visa' for you to cross over to visit the falls on their side - silly billies

7) The baboons at the falls - scary buggers

8) Our taxi driver back from the falls who I'm pretty sure was very stoned

9) The site of the spray of the falls from the road - it looks just like a building is on fire in the distance

10) That we made the right decision to travel to see the lunar rainbow (and being thankful that we'd met Jake earlier on our trip who'd shown me how to use the exposure setting on my camera!)

Here are the photos:

BT64_Livingstone 15 - 20 Apr 2011

Oh We Do Like To Be Beside the Lake Malawi-Side

Mick kindly gave us a lift down the mountain. We stocked all the empties into the back of his jeep and set off. The road was rather scary actually. The rains had created large holes and cracks, there were mini-waterfalls at points and on a couple of occasions Dawn had to get out of the car and move a few large rocks from out path. What with all that and Mick telling us around every corner exactly who had previously gone over the edge here I was pretty nervous. But we made it (no quicker than the men on foot in their Sunday best who shaded themselves with brollies).

We said goodbye at Chitimba and Sean and I parked ourselves under a tree in the shade waiting for the next available transport. After about an hour and a half a very packed bus showed up. On we hopped and with Sean parked on a suitcase in the aisle and me very grateful for the conductors seat that I was offered we continued onto Mzuzu. This is nothing much but a transport hub where we stocked up on cash from the ATM and got into mini-bus to head down to our next destination, Nkhata Bay.

We arrived in the dark, but luckily saw the guest house we wanted to try first on route so were dropped off at the entrance. This guest house (Big Blue Star) is situated right on the edge of the lake. You first encounter the bar, where we were offered marijuana before we'd said hello and that we just wanted a room. We then made our way down to the steps to reception where we'd been directed and were shown to our beach hut. This hut was a basic wooden shack, with just a bed and a table, but it was literally built into the lake edge and had a balcony with these fabulous views:

The room was also very reasonably priced. We chilled out here for a couple of days, but decided that it wasn't quite the beach time we were looking for (Nkhata Bay is more rocky than beachy). So we packed our bags and headed to the bus stop to get to Cape McLear.

We ran into our 'first' Mushroom Farm customers, Tom and Betty, on the bus which was nice! This bus took us all the way to Salima where the Lonely Planet informed us we could get a matola (a pick-up truck / open top Ute basically) to Monkey Bay where we could transfer to another to Cape McLear. Could we heck! There were no mini-buses or matolas and sketchy information about any bus that may or may not be turning up that would take us to Mua which is half way. We eventually found a bloke with a matola and a crazy over-priced fee, but figured that at least we'd get there before dark by leaving now. Hmmm. That's what we thought. We sat in the front cab with the driver so as not to sunburn to death in the back. The vehicle couldn't go much over 45kpm and the driver kept driving in the middle of the road which was unfortunate since the car behind was the police who stopped him and confiscated his license (he'll apparently get it back if he goes to the local station and pays a fine). Then the vehicle overheated (my bum was awfully hot!), a quick water fill up was required and I decided to hop in the back with the locals to ease my poor bum. The rest of the journey was very enjoyable as all the locals walking on the side of the road cheered and gave me signs of approval for being a Mzungu doing it 'local style' in the back of a pick-up (I also think my hair was doing a Bridget Jones since I'd forgotten my lovely green hankie which might have also been their source of amusement). This matola then dropped us off in Mua and transferred us to another. I hopped in the back again, but was then quickly covered by people, bags, wood, sacks of fish, bowls, suitcases etc. Wasn't going to be so comfy this one! Another 2 hours later, the sun starting to set and we were still 20km away from Monkey Bay. At this point this matola ran out of fuel. There has recently been a large fuel shortage in Malawi which is still being felt today. So this vehicle wasn't going anywhere. This driver paid for us to get into a mini-bus that came along to get the last few km to Monkey Bay.

We arrived in the dark, and of course no more matolas were running to Cape McLear (unless we wanted to hire them out for a mere 6000 kwacha - to put this in perspective this is 6000 for 1 hour, when we had travelled 7 hours down half the country for 1000).

So we decided to stay the night in Monkey Bay and a 'beach boy' kindly escorted us in the dark to Venice Beach Backpackers. We ate, met a bloke called Karston from Germany and got an early night. The next day we saw just how amazing this place was. It was right on the lake with its own private beach. It was beautiful. Throw in what we thought was free wi-fi and we decided to stay another night.

Having spent 2 hours on Skype, the wi-fi cut out. When Sean went to enquire why we were informed this was actually a 600 kwacha per hour service. Crap we thought. We cut a deal for all day usage (I'm pretty sure this was going into the pocket of the manager rather than actually being a charge) and continued with our communications to the outside world. Was great to speak to everyone and find out how they were doing (even if the connection did keep dropping out and video was a bit sketchy).

We ran into Karston again that evening who turned out to be a great guy now that we were talking to him without sleepy heads on. So much so that we all headed to Cape McLear together the next day.

Matola rides are brilliant. They will stop, pick things up, drive 2 meters, pick more up, drive another 2 meters, pick more things up, double back to the place we were at first and pick more things up for about one hour before they finally get going on the journey. This time we were accompanied by 21 people and 1 baby (breast fed en route), 1 crate containing block of ice, large pile of wood, several sacks of dried fish, several sacks of charcoal, buckets and bowls, 12 sacks of sugar and of course our backpacks and the suitcases of the other passengers. Needless to say it was a tight squeeze! Karston and I were pretty much just sat on the back hoping that the rope that held the sides and the sacks in place didn't give way.

Cape McLear was worth this risk though. It's so beautiful.

We stayed at this great little camp called Malambe which has beach huts again and were entertained by the staff there; manager Winston (who was on our matola ride down as it happens), Chicco the barman, Captain the 'tour leader' aka bloke who takes you out on boats and the amazing John-Banana (he is adamant this is his actual middle name, jury is still out on that).

Our first night there we had a fresh water fish dinner, cooked for us on an open fire by a guy called Flamingo (seriously). It was really yummy. We were then escorted to a bar down the road to watch the Man Utd v Chelsea game (United won, Sean went crazy) . By then John Banana was pretty wasted and also rather funny as he tried to seduce this group of girls who were all teachers from Malawi (they'd been following us for the past few days and were also staying at our camp). Needless to say, John Banana was not around in the morning to take us on our boat trip. So instead it was Winston and Captain, along with an Irish friend we'd met that evening; Charlie plus Karston, Sean and I who sailed along the water's edge and then out to Thumbe island where we disembarked. I was still struggling with the whole Bilharzia thing so figured if Sean swam I wouldn't so that at least one of us would be well should we get it. Also the thought of a parasite going through my skin didn't appeal. Captain showed us how to catch fish with our hands and Sean became quite good at it!

The water was so clear that it didn't matter that I was a scaredy cat because I could still see all the colourful fish when Sean was out snorkeling. We had another fish meal for lunch - this fish was super yummy and then set sail to the other side of the island to feed the Fish Eagles.

This birds were incredible. The boys would whistle to them to alert them to our presence and then throw a fish into the lake. The birds would then swoop down to retrieve them - this was really quite phenomenal to watch as they are such huge and majestic birds.

A quiet trip around Otter's Point later and we made our way back to camp.

It was Karston's birthday (Did I mention it was his birthday to everyone? Of course I did!) so we went to celebrate. We ate at Blue Cactus and headed to a reggae bar where some 'orphans' (I'm dubious about this) were playing drums around a campfire. We each had a go at drumming which was great fun and I got to tickle and tease the kids a bit. They even all sang/drummed Happy Birthday to Karston, following by a rendition of Who Let the Dogs Out.

So back to the bar we were in the night before for dancing and silliness before I decided that my drunken antics had to end and it were best we get to bed since Sean and I had to leave at 6am the next day to get our bus back to Lilongwe.

It was thankfully a rather uneventful journey to Lilongwe during which Sean and I managed to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Karston and Charlie were great blokes to have spent those few days with and Karston was generous enough to even cut his Zambia/Malawi Lonely Planet book in half to give us the Zambian part and he gave me a mini camera tripod that he no longer wanted - thanks again Karston, you're a generous guy!

So we're now in Lilongwe and about to head into Zambia tomorrow - and to our 5th African country. I'll be really sad to leave Malawi as we have had such a great time here relaxing in beautiful surroundings and meeting such wonderful people. But we have to keep moving forward - so Zambia here we come!

Here are the photos:

BT63_Malawi Shores 9 Apr - 14 Apr 2011