Lake Malawi

Spent four days in one place! Kande Beach campsite, on the shore of Lake Malawi, by the village of Mbambo. This has been a real highlight of the trip, due to plenty of (very enjoyable) interaction with the local villagers.

Just a couple of minutes' walk from the campsite there was a row of craft stalls where all sorts of things, but mostly Malawi chairs, were being carved and sold. Many of our group spent a long time negotiating prices (to their delight these often included items to barter - literally the shirt off your back), and specifying the designs they would like carved into their chairs. All of this business was conducted sitting in the craft huts, in between being taught to play bao. Since I wasn't buying chairs, I played a lot of bao and had the chance to talk to lots of people and photograph adorable children.

On our second day in Mbambo, we set off early to buy dinner. It was curled up cutely looking at us when we first met it, and tied to a huge stake by the time we eventually got it back to camp. The pig roasted slowly over the fire all day. I took a break or two from tending it (actually sitting around watching Chris do the man-with-big-fire thing) now and then for a swim in the lake. Bilharzia? We play with fear! As the afternoon wore on, it seemed appropriate to finish preparing the punch by chucking a few bottles of pop into the pot where the fruit had been soaking in spirits all day. Then it seemed appropriate to taste it... Suffice to say a good time and lots of pig was had by all. And a very revealing game of 'I have never'.

The lake is beautiful. The only problem was that I kept calling it the sea. It's huge. Waves lap up on the sandy beach... great for swimming and no sticky saltiness!

Another day we played a football match - our truck against the village. I explained that I can't play football, but that made no difference - I was there in the starting line-up. Successfully made contact with the ball, ooh, maybe once. My embarrassing uselessness didn't seem to matter and certainly didn't stop it being great fun. That evening we went for a meal at a villager's house - great to try some local food. After dinner the massed choir of Mbambo's children sang and danced for us and soon had us up dancing and singing too.

On our last night in that campsite I went off to my tent for an early night and a good read. Soon the wind was getting up so I went out to do some re-pegging as the tent started to shudder and sway - not easy to get a firm fix in the sand. Could hear distant thunder and rain was starting to spatter. Was back inside, firmly in the middle of the tent away from potential leaks when the storm hit. It felt tremendous - howling winds making the tent flap and billow and shake, drips coming in... began to wonder whether the tent would last the night - and whose I would run to when mine collapased!

Left that campsite this morning and drove all day to reach Blantyre.

Hope to add photos to this before you see it, but will publish anyway as after tomorrow there will be no internet again for a while.

Everything going pretty well. No bad side-effects from the larium (don't think erotic dreams about my fellow travellers count). Every day think to myself how pleased I am that I had my eyes done. Having clean clothes feels like a luxury... It's a good life.

A step-by-step guide to roast pork

Tanzania to Malawi

Entered Malawi at Karongwe, followed the lake South, left it to go over the hills before reaching Nkhata Bay. Now in Blantyre. From here will go into Mozambique, crossing the Zambezi before bush camping near the Zimbabwe border. From there we head to Harare.

Click on map to go to larger enlargable version. I hope.

Tanzania to Malawi

Other than a fearsome haircut from the butcher of Zanzibar, left the island without incident. Next time I'll swot up on the Swahili for "Just a trim" - luckily I managed to remember and sputter out the word for stop - simama! simama! - while I still had a little stubble. Oh yes, one other incident - an internet cafe wiped out my memory card with a virus, losing me 1kb of photos. Hey ho.

So instead of risking card again have burned a cd - only to find myself in a place where the computers have no cd drives. So you'll just have to look back for the photos when I add them.

After Zanzibar and one night back near Dar es Salaam, we headed South through Tanzania. First through a lush tropical landscape and then as the road climbed the land became drier and scrubbier again. Climbing more, the air started to feel cold and fresh and there were stunning views. We drove for some time through a rocky alpine area where sunflowers were being grown along with some more wild looking white-flowered plants. All very Swiss Alpish. Half expected Julie Andrews to come skipping down the hillside to freedom.

From there we descended into an absolutely stunning valley, bordering Udzangwa National Park, where the road snaked along above the river. On either side scrubby trees grew, and between them, dwarfing them, bizarrely grandiose leafless baobab trees rose. Their twisted, bulbuous trunks were topped with ever decreasing branches and they looked like large vegetable roots growing upside down out of the ground. We camped amongst all this - possibly the most beautiful campsite I have ever seen. I could happily have stayed there a month. It was nothing but a space between the trees with a shower and candlelit toilet, and it was perfect. We watched the sun go down and the clear sky fill with millions of stars. A sight which may have been made even more mind-boggling by the consumption of a quantity of Zimbabwean cane spirit.

In the morning we drove to Iringe, then on through Mbeya, and a small town which I suspect may be the banana capital of Tanzania. Again, the scenery stunned at every turn. Gaining altititude once more, we were shrouded in a very wet mist, then descended through the rain to find a bush camp site, just short of the Malawi border.

Within minutes of arriving, we had been joined by dozens of children who had a great time playing with a football Chris gave them and generally running round in a state of high excitement trying to steal cutlery while we tried to put up tents, cook, erect a tarp for cooking under in the pouring rain and dark. The kids were great fun but somewhat exuberant - somewhere in the course of all this, my tent was knocked down. Yes, I had put it up properly! By the time I found it (hard in the dark when you are looking for what you expect to be a vaguely vertical structure), it contained three inches of water and a couple of frogs so I opted to sleep in the truck. Hopping out for a pee, I found myself calf-deep in a puddle and loved it. There was a real scooby-doo thunderstorm - you know, where the lightning is coming so thick and fast that it's never quite dark, and the thunder rumbles and grumbles and growls incessantly. The rain drumme on the roof, even drowning out the sound of the frogs and I fell asleep damp and blissfully happy.

The next morning was a stunning one. The sun beat down as we crossed the border into Malawi. Sitting up front in the cab I enjoyed even more wonderful views. Malawi is quite heart-achingly beautiful. Chris pumped up the music - some fabulous African stuff - and the whole world seemed to smile. People here seem friendlier than anywhere, smiling, waving, calling welcomes. The sun, the people, the music, the landscape... sounds naff, but it made my heart sing. Lake Malawi appeared before us - the far side not visible 40km away. We crawled up a steep and winding road, round potholes and sleeping cows, and eventually in the early evening we reached our campsite on the shore of Lake Malawi, at Mbambo, about 50k south of Nkhata Bay.

I thought that the driving might be tiresome, but the three driving days from Dar to Mbambo have been fantastic.

Will backdate this (it's actually the 19th today) and write some more catch-up soon. And go back and add photos. Thanks for your lovely comments, Kate. And for the wide african skies.