Nov. 8, 2012 - Lake Malawi

Nov. 8, 2012 - Lake Malawi

Malawi:
Visa - None
Entrance fee: 0USD
Conversion rate: 290 Kwacha = 1USD

We spent 3 nights at Kande Beach on lake Malawi.  The lake is huge and covers the entire eastern border of Malawi.  The lake is known for the amount of small colorful fish called cicleds.  There are species of fish in the lake that cant be found anywhere else in the entire world.

On the way to the campsite we stopped through a market that had some super crazy clothes.  I suppose they know that all the overland trucks have a dress up party when they hit Lake Malawi because they have purposely altered the clothes to look absolutely ridiculous.  If you have ever heard me talk about the "Annual Goodwill Party" we had in Lexington then you know the premise of the party.  Everyone puts their name in a hat, everyone draws a name, then for $5 dollars everyone dresses the person they drew in a funny outfit.  I ended up in a one piece jumper that had a tail sewn onto it. All the outfits were epic in hilarity.

The first night we just chilled a bit.  The 2nd day on Kande beach Alene and I went on a SCUBA dive to see these cicled fish.  The dive was just under an hour and only cost 45USD.  In the water we saw not only the colorful fish but a sunken car and a couple of boats as well.  That was followed by more hanging out on the beach.

That night we had planned for a big cook out with chicken and steaks and veggies.  Just before dinner we exchanged outfits...it was difficult to keep who we had drawn from the hat a secret for so long. Everyone threw on their new clothes and we had dinner in costume.  The 3 other overland trucks also played along and partied with us that night.  Somehow I managed to stay up until 4:30am talking and hanging out with the other travelers.

Needless to say I slept the entire morning away and finally emerged at 12:30. Just in time to join everyone on our truck for lunch at the cafe. Lunch was followed again by even more water and beach! AWESOME!  This night we opted to go out to the local villge and have a family cook a traditional dinner for us.  It was about a 10 minute walk from camp to the home of the family cooking for us.  The guy, named Mel Gibson, rolled our a mat for all 7 of us to sit on.  We had brought our own dishes, silverware and cups.  The starter was sweet potatoe soup. Delicious. The meal consisted of rice beans and stewed greens with Ugali.  Ugali is a local bread made from casava.  They love their salt!  The beans and greans were a bit salty but when mixed with the rice it was quite tasty.  The Ugali, unfortunately, was almost uneatable.  The Ugali of Kenya and Tanzania was much more tasty as it was made from maize meal rather than casava.  During the meal our group was visited by some super huge creepy spiders.  Liz told us they were camel spiders.  They sent us jumping to our feet and almost running on 2 different occasions.  Spiders....eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww.  After dinner the children of the village showed us the local dances and sang a few songs.  They then invited us to learn the dance.  Hahhaa.  Good times. After dinner I returned to the campsite and immediately went to the tent for bed.

I should note, just for my memories sake when I am reading this 20 years down the road, that I came down with a bit of stomach trouble.  But that seems to be the norm when on long travels.


What I have learned:
Camel spiders are ultra creepy.  The creepy is magnified when you are sitting on the ground in a local African village in complete darkness.

Travelers diarreha is just as bad as it sounds.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa, which ill venture to say makes it one of the poorest countries in all the world.

If you ask for a T-bone steak in Africa the filet part of it will have been cut out.