Durch Afrika: Malawi (12.

Malawi people are said to be the friendliest people in Africa. However, when we arrive at the boarder and the officer asks Claudia “Mama, are you retired?”, we are not sure about it. Maybe they are friendly, but not polite. He tries to recover by explaining to us that in Malawi you can retire after working 20 years, but it still hurts…

Paperwork is done quickly and there even is no visa fee. The road to our first campground in Chitimba is very picturesque, and gives us beautiful views over the huge lake. Lake Malawi is 500 km long and you always have the feeling to be at the ocean.

The Sangilo Sanctuary Campground is our home for the next 2 days. We have a view over the lake and especially the bar at the private beach has a Caribbean-like flair.

When Thomas discovers a not-used and dusty Catamaran, he doesn’t stop until he has convinced Mark – the owner of the lodge – to fix it. He even gives some of his valuable spare parts to make it ready for sailing. Together, they spend half a day fixing the boat. The effort is rewarded with a nice afternoon sailing over Lake Malawi with strong winds. Even “Mama” is enjoying a longer sailing trip.

Like in every campground we have our own watchdog. Samson seems so busy protecting us at night that he sleeps the whole day next to our tent.

We enjoy swimming in the lake and washing our clothes. Thomas calls it world’s biggest washing machine.

We try to make a day trip to Livingstonia, which is said to give a fascinating glimpse into Malawi’s colonial past and also offers a marvelous view over lake Malawi, since it is located in the mountains above.

However, we never arrive there, because the road is extremely bad.

Nevertheless, we enjoy the great view …

…and give a lift to Georgia and Olli, who walked down all the way, only with their flip-flops!

Another highlight for us is the Vwaza Marsh Game Reserve. This park is famous for its huge population of elephants and hippos. Admission to the park and camping are only 18 Euro and we are the only guests. Already while putting up our tent, a herd of over 30 elephants passes by our place. It is not easy to find the campground, since the sign was again destroyed by the elephants!

The only annoyance are the many tsetse flies! Blue and black towels are to be seen everywhere to attract them, but obviously they prefer much more us and our car. While driving, they follow us in huge numbers and since they are big, similar to horse flies, hitting the windows makes a noise like rain drops against the car. Thanks to our chemical weapons we get along without being bitten…

Driving through the park is how we imagined it from TV.

The park lives up to its reputation. We see many hippos in the lake, even from very close distance, and at night they are eating the grass around our tent. Here still without electric fence like in Kenya.

Thanks to Thomas’ adventurous nature we take a different road back to Lake Malawi – off-road! The bridges we have to pass don’t look very trustworthy, but they fulfill their purpose.

Even there are small shops along the road, we enjoy buying at the fruit stands. It’s always funny for the people selling us “small” quantities, since everything is sold by bucket…

We are happy to be back at the lake, at a beautiful campground overlooking the lake in Nkhata Bay.

On our way south, we pass through very big rubber tree forests. It’s interesting to see how they produce the basic material for rubber.

In Nkhotakota, we stop for lunch break in a nice beach restaurant and try for the first time the famous “chambo”, a delicious fish fresh from the lake. It’s really delicious!

We spend our last night in Malawi in Senga Bay, another beautiful campsite at the lake, and the noise of big waves wakes us up in the morning. Again we have the feeling to be at the ocean… another nice sunrise and we are heading to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, and on the the boarder of Zambia…