Home » Malawi » Day 20. Thu 10th October Mbaya to Karonga

A lie in at last, until 08:00. Today we cross the border into Malawi and then drive to Karonga on the tip of Lake Malawi, a total drive of about 150Km.
On the way to the border we stop at a tea plantation. There are no photogenic tea pickers about, but a few children from a nearby school get wind of us, and I do the camera trick again. Before we know it hundreds more are streaming out of the school, sensing by instinct that something exciting is going on, and we practically have to push them out from under the wheels of the Land Rover before we can drive away.

Day 20. Thu 10th October Mbaya to Karonga

DaveMidgley
2005-10-22 12:50:51

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A lie in at last, until 08:00. Today we cross the border into Malawi and then drive to Karonga on the tip of Lake Malawi, a total drive of about 150Km.
On the way to the border we stop at a tea plantation. There are no photogenic tea pickers about, but a few children from a nearby school get wind of us, and I do the camera trick again. Before we know it hundreds more are streaming out of the school, sensing by instinct that something exciting is going on, and we practically have to push them out from under the wheels of the Land Rover before we can drive away.

The border crossing is uneventful, although we do see two young lads being carted off in handcuffs, apparently they have been stealing cement and smuggling it across the border.
All our hard learned Swahili is now useless, as are our Tanzanian shillings. Malawi has about seven languages, the official ones being Chechewa and English. Like Zambia they also use Kwacha, but they are different Kwacha with a different value, so we must come to terms with yet another exchange rate.

At the Beach Chambers Motel in Karonga we wander down to the lakeside to see the fishermen who are preparing for a night's fishing on the lake.

We are offered a ride in one of the dugout canoes, and Pete, Andy, Chris and I agree to pay the requested 100MK (between us - just under £1). I leave my camera behind with Nathan and Amanda , which is just as well, as the dugout canoe is exceedingly unstable and has a several inches of water in the bottom (although Pete, at the front, reckons he was quite dry once I had got in at the back!). The ride only lasts about 10 minutes, which is quite enough, as we only have about two inches of freeboard, and it feels as if it is going to tip over any minute. By the end we are all fairly wet. We return to the hotel for a shower to wash off any lurking bilharzia snails, and I hang my money, which was in my back pocket, out to dry.