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Malawi
I'm now back in Lilongwe after 3 weeks. After my last email I had an exhilerating cycle ride from Mzuzu 50km through misty valleys almost all downhill and fast enough to whiz past those screaming kids and suicidal chickens. To the sunshine shores of Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa and at the southern end of the Great Rift Valley.

Southern Africa - part 6

Stevemonty
2005-09-23 18:46:45

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Malawi
I'm now back in Lilongwe after 3 weeks. After my last email I had an exhilerating cycle ride from Mzuzu 50km through misty valleys almost all downhill and fast enough to whiz past those screaming kids and suicidal chickens. To the sunshine shores of Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa and at the southern end of the Great Rift Valley.I spent a week here Scuba diving and staying at the excellent Njaya lodge with my tent overlooking the lake. Managed to sharpen up my diving with 4 dives along with Jim and Tessa and Mat a welder from Powys and included an amazing night dive that finished in almost storm conditions on the surface. At night the vis was really low, I could only see about 5 metres through my torchlight and certainly couldn't make out the surface, but during the day we swam around large rock formations including a couple of tunnels and saw zillions of colourfull cichlid freshwater fishes. Many of these are unique even to certain bays in Lake Malawi and is one of the major sources of freshwater aquarium fish in the world. The dives here are excellent value at $20 a go including twice individual training with just the instructor Erhard.

I returned back to Lilongwe to meet Dana who was flying out to travel with me for 2 weeks. It was interesting to see Africa again through the new eyes of someone just arrived. As we went through my now normal process of squeezing onto buses, buying doughnuts and corn on the cob, even carrots through the bus windows at chaotic market stops and balancing on the back of pick up trucks and open lorrys along the rougher tracks.
Our first stop was at Liwonde National Park, we hired a motor boat to enter the park along a 2.75 hour safari upriver. Large groups of hippos lined the way along the river to the luxury Mvuu camp. We camped here just 50 metres away from Elephant tracks and went on a safari drive and a total of 4 hours guided bush walks. The guides were really informative ...