Lake Malawi, Malawi
L A K EāM A L A W I
M A L A W I
TIA - This Is Africa. You'll hear it over and over again in response to, well, anything and everything: border crossing, road closure, power outage, cold shower - you name it! But hey, we are in Africa after all. If anything, we're realizing how fortunate we have it back home.
The drives the past few days have been LONG, we're talking eight to twelve hours long. We're arriving to campsites after dark and making breakfast and leaving before the sun comes up. The accommodations have been one star, Hailey will say that's generous, and our new diet consists of camp food - think rice, hot dogs, beans... If you want to put your first week of marriage to the test, travel by bus with ten strangers through central and Eastern Africa.
And scene! Rant over :)
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and we witnessed it firsthand when crossing the border from Zambia. It was eye opening to see the villages, but everyone was so friendly and all the kids waved to us as our truck passed. Often times when traveling you only see the big cities, but with our Acacia Africa safari, we were able to see the real Africa!
Our first stop in Malawi was Kande Beach. We went on a village tour led by a local, he even gave us a tour of his own home, where his family of six lived. We walked through the village, toured the primary school, where there are 1,500 students and only 13 teachers, and ended at the hospital clinic. Village boys followed us along the way trying to sell art and kids waved and held our hands the entire three hours.
On our way back, Danny had a flip flop blowout, so one of the village boys took us to a friend who was able to fix it up for him! Best 30 cents Danny ever spent.
Our next stop in Malawi was Chitimba Beach. Our accommodations were much nicer than Kande, so Hailey was happy again! We walked along the beach of Malawi Lake and checked out the boats fisherman take out - hollowed out tree for a canoe!
There are two British girls in our group, so we decided to head into 'town' and watch the world cup game with them. They had made friends with one of the village boys earlier and he walked us to a place in the village to watch the game. We were assuming a bar or pub, but found ourselves in a small room with about 30 locals sitting on benches watching the game from a small TV. It was a fun experience and we got some good laughs out of everyone.
We took advantage of a drive-free day and went on a 15-mile round-trip hike to Manchewe Falls. It was great to get some exercise and the hike and falls were nice. We rewarded ourselves with some cold beers near the lake when we returned. Back on the truck tomorrow...
