On November 4th, we crossed the border into Malawi. The country side was beautiful with the mountains. Then, you see Lake Malawi to east and it is awesome. The lake is super blue and looks just like you are driving along a beach coast line. The landscape reminded me a lot of Uganda.
Our first stop was at a camp site right on the lake. It was a beautiful site and the wind was blowing which was nice to cool us off. It gets a bit hot on the truck when the AC gets turned off (aka we have stopped moving because there is not AC anywhere in Africa!). We have to always cover up outside the campsites since we are white and don't want to stand out more than we already do and there are a lot of Muslims. We set up camp and played some volleyball. Even Henry, our driver, played for a bit. That night, I started to feel bad. I am pretty sure with a fever as I went to bed with about 10 clothing items and woke up with two on with the rain fly was off the tent. I woke up with a killer head ache but took two Advil and by lunch was feel better.
We stopped in Mzuzu, Malawi to buy dinners for three nights and to pick out clothing for our party that would be later in the week. The catch is that the clothing was for whoever we had drawn from the hat and the clothing options were like going to a goodwill store, chopping all the clothing into half, sewing random pieces back together, and adding tails to some of them! The best part is that they were good salesman trying to get rid of this wonderful clothing. I got Bob (yes, my 57 year old cooking partner from the blog before!) to dress for the night.
Our second camp site in Malawi was in Kande Beach. We set up camp and went for swim. The lake is fresh water and super refreshing. Instead of being worried about sharks and jellyfish, you have to worry about crocs and hippos! Jordan and I set up a scuba dive for the morning. That night, I was doing dishes and had to stop and run to the bathroom. After that, the sickness was back and I was straight to bed.
The next morning with a horrible headache and not going to miss my first fresh water dive, we headed to the dive shop. We jumped in for a 50 minute dive around an island. The rock formations were awesome but nothing compared to a reef. We saw tons of ciclied fish, fish that we will most likely never see unless we are next to a super cool aquarium. We have tons of pics because we paid $5 for them to follow us with a camera. We also got to see a boat, canoe and car. Not sure how the car got out there. It was a very nice dive. I headed back and a laid on a sofa next to the water from about 10:30 AM until 4 PM only getting up to go potty as I thought my head was going to explode. I even took my prescription super strong advil that the doctor gave me....that did not work. I missed cooking dinner as I don't think anyone wanted me touching food. We exchanged outfits and Bob got to wear pink pants that had a men's tie as the tie to keep them on, an old man pj silk shirt that he was to tie up. Don't worry, he also had me and I had to wear tights with a tutu attached, a flower shirt and two matching flower arm accessories (the ends of the shirt cut off). I was looking hot but it was a lot of effort to get dressed so I just laid on a mat for a few minutes before calling it a night. Everyone in the group looked great and the trashcan punch smelled good! The night was good minus the 9 PM run, like race run, not sure I am going to make it run from the tent to the bathroom. I am not even sure if I had my head lamp or glasses as I ran thru the sand but I made it and did not have to return until about 4:30 AM!
The next morning I was feeling much better, thank goodness! I watched the sun rise, spent the day laying on the beach, had lunch at the cafe, and went back to the beach for a swim. That evening, we headed into a local village where we had a local dinner in between two homes. It was hot so we sat outside on the ground. Two huge spider bugs went by and we all screamed like little girls so I know the locals were loving that. We had rice, beans, veggies, sweet potato soup and their local bread. It was all good minus the local bread. Then, the kids did their local dances for us. We got to join in and it was turned out to be a great night in the local village. The kids got to have all our left overs once we were gone which made us all happy.
Today is November 8th and we have drove to Lilongwe, Malawi to pick up two more people. We are staying a camp site that finally has Internet that is affordable so got to update a few things! Also, I am under budget as a whole for the trip so excited about that and looking forward to the many activities Zambia has to offer!
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