Dag 6, Woensdag 13 Mei 2009
It is my cyberboyfriend’s birthday today. A happy birthday to him. There was a piercing wind early this morning. Since the commencement of this trip I have showered every single day. Today, however, I skipped the shower. Why? Because today I was a coward. I was a girl. The bathroom is like a tiny cave in the forest. Full of frogs, reptiles of some sort and spiders of different shaped, sizes and colours. This is just one aspect of travelling that I will never quite grow accustomed to:
the goggatjies.
Ugh.
Lodie informed me that the responsibility of tonight’s dinner has been placed on my shoulders. I have to find fish, determine of it’s fresh (somehow) and then prepare it for us to eat tonight. This trip has turned into Master Chef: The African Edition.
We drove through Chipata and stopped at a total for some diesel. It is here that I again noticed something quite extraordinary. An entire family of four can (easily) we transported on a bicycle. Ma, pa, boetie, sussie. Everyone. Dad drives, mom sits on the back with boetie on her lap and sussie in a sling around her shoulder.
DESTINATION: MALAWI
I think the people at the Zambia/Malawi border swindled me today. I was on the way of negotiating an amount of K1200 and somehow walked away with only K1050. everything happens so fast and there are so many of them to exchange money with that you don’t know if you’re coming or going.
So far Malawi is the most beautiful country I’ve seen. Milky-white clouds against a bright blue sky and the most amazing green fields filled with banana trees. We decided not to stop in the country’s capital, Llilongwe. I did notice that this was the first country since South Africa that had traffic lights. Like in Zambia, Asian countries are also part of community projects in Malawi. Here Japan is involved with the projects.
Of all the countries we’ve been in so far, Malawi is the cleanest and neatest. We finally arrived at our destination: Senga Bay. Picturesque. The campingplatz is basically on the beach and when you zip open your tent you stare out onto Lake Malawi. We celebrated the beauty with some Mosi’s (Zambia’s local beer).
Apart from two people from Holland, we were the only people there. The bathrooms are extremely neat and clean. After we set up camp, we enjoyed a few Gin and Dry Lemons. Anja made us dinner and a girl we met earlier today, Cecelia, enjoyed pasta a la Anja with us. She is part of a conference of some sort. She is 20 years old and studies Business Management in Llilongwe. I think we convinced her to invite us to her wedding when she eventually gets married…
After dinner and coffee we walked along the beach to the hotel to find out more about their internet. Afterwards we has a cocktail at the bar and chit-chatted with a couple of Australians. Then we were off to bed. The only thing that can have an unsettling effect on camping near a lake is the fierce wind. Here’s to an interesting night ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment