malawi: the warm heart of africa
we were welcomed to malawi with a 3hr wait at the border for the official to show up after his lunch break. hardly an auspicious welcome to the 'warm heart of africa'. however, as we discovered, malawi genuinely is the warm heart of africa. everyone, even said official when he finally showed up, was unfailingly kind, gracious, friendly and warm.
malawi is not a large country, and has 16 million people, so pretty much everywhere we went there were people. the major feature is lake malawi - it covers a third of malawi's area. and it really is stunning - sometimes clear deep blue, sometimes exquisite turquoise, we soon caught glimpses of the lake.
because of our unplanned border delay, we were running a bit late to our planned campsite of lukwe (more on lukwe later) and on a whim decided to turn and check out a campsite advertised by the side of road. after going out to check it out i came back to sandi with the bad news:
me: 'i have bad news.'
sandi: 'oh no...whats wrong?'
me: 'its stunningly beautiful'
sandi: 'so whats wrong, is it expensive?'
me: 'its 5$ a night'
sandi: 'that's not bad'
me: 'it's not per person, that's for both of us.'
sandi: '...um...'
me: 'and a cold beer is less than a dollar.'
sandi: 'so whats the bad news?'
me: 'i lied about that part.'
this was our campsite:
we were right on an overhang that looked right over the lake. we managed to set up the tent and had just enough time to grab a quick walk along the sandy beach as the dying light of the sun lit up the sky:
the next morning was absolutely glorious. as i was standing there watching the sunrise, some distance away what looked like the entire village came out to do their laundry.
and a few curious kids came over to check out what i was doing. we couldn't understand each other, so instead we made gang signs at each other.
the next day we climbed up the escarpment, on an insanely steep road up into the highlands that run all the way down the country. lake malawi is actually inside the great rift valley, hence its long and narrow shape.
our campsite for the night, turned out to be an outstanding highlight of our trip. its a small place, called 'makuzi beach' but boy was it pretty. a little cove with palm trees and perfect little cottages built around it, with a white sandy beach - it looked like mombasa.
we were so enamoured by makuzi beach that we stayed there on the way back as well, so there will definitely be more pictures of this lovely spot coming. in the meantime, here's an interesting and also completely random fact: lake malawi is sometimes called the 'calendar lake'. why? it is 365 miles long by 52 miles wide.
malawi is not a large country, and has 16 million people, so pretty much everywhere we went there were people. the major feature is lake malawi - it covers a third of malawi's area. and it really is stunning - sometimes clear deep blue, sometimes exquisite turquoise, we soon caught glimpses of the lake.
because of our unplanned border delay, we were running a bit late to our planned campsite of lukwe (more on lukwe later) and on a whim decided to turn and check out a campsite advertised by the side of road. after going out to check it out i came back to sandi with the bad news:
me: 'i have bad news.'
sandi: 'oh no...whats wrong?'
me: 'its stunningly beautiful'
sandi: 'so whats wrong, is it expensive?'
me: 'its 5$ a night'
sandi: 'that's not bad'
me: 'it's not per person, that's for both of us.'
sandi: '...um...'
me: 'and a cold beer is less than a dollar.'
sandi: 'so whats the bad news?'
me: 'i lied about that part.'
this was our campsite:
we were right on an overhang that looked right over the lake. we managed to set up the tent and had just enough time to grab a quick walk along the sandy beach as the dying light of the sun lit up the sky:
the next morning was absolutely glorious. as i was standing there watching the sunrise, some distance away what looked like the entire village came out to do their laundry.
and a few curious kids came over to check out what i was doing. we couldn't understand each other, so instead we made gang signs at each other.
the next day we climbed up the escarpment, on an insanely steep road up into the highlands that run all the way down the country. lake malawi is actually inside the great rift valley, hence its long and narrow shape.
our campsite for the night, turned out to be an outstanding highlight of our trip. its a small place, called 'makuzi beach' but boy was it pretty. a little cove with palm trees and perfect little cottages built around it, with a white sandy beach - it looked like mombasa.
we were so enamoured by makuzi beach that we stayed there on the way back as well, so there will definitely be more pictures of this lovely spot coming. in the meantime, here's an interesting and also completely random fact: lake malawi is sometimes called the 'calendar lake'. why? it is 365 miles long by 52 miles wide.
