Harare to Malawi, via Mozambique: The Lake, Mountains and Malaria Tests

Due to our unexpected delay in the Caprivi we changed our route and instead of heading to Malawi from Zambia we would now get to the "Warm heart of Africa" by crossing through Mozambique's Tete Corridor. The border crossing from Zimbabwe was relatively smooth apart from the Police check. They wanted to see police clearance for the car, which, we did not have. We had been warned about this and the fact that it was not actually required and they were merely taking a chance. So after much discussion and me playing as dumb as possible, I apologised and promised to bring it with next time. I then asked "what else do you need from me" (a pretty loaded question). This sparked excitement in the lady cop, who suddenly awoke from her slumber on the table, and said "You can buy us a cooldrink". I could not contain myself an laughed out loud and denied her request politely, getting in the car and crossing into Mozambique.

The invisible line created by the border caused a change in the huts and villages we encountered. They were far smaller and more compact but occurred more often, dictating that one reduces ones speed to avoid any excuse for the notorious Moz Traffic Police to fine you. We had taken every precaution to avoid the attention of the cops and had two red warning traingles, a reflective vest, 3rd party insurance, a yellow and blue triangle sticker on the front of the car and all our documents copied and certified. We were invincible. Sadly, there was not a cop in sight to display our conformance to.

I am not sure what We were expecting of Tete, but, what we were greeted with was definately not it. Tete, although being a large city, is comprised mainly of small huts and shacks and the only large piece of architecture is the enourmous suspension bridge which straddles the Zambezi River. The bridge itself connects the southern and northern parts of Tete and carries hundreds if not thousands of people across the river every day. It was a typical bustling African city and we were going to sleep here for the night. Easier said than done. We had read about the one and only campsite and set out to find it. Travelling along a potholed dirt road, past huts and small stores, we were suddenly stopped by a throng of screaming kids. They were all shouting "Campsite, Campsite Campsite" in unison and pointing in the direction we had just come. We had missed it, not a good sign. The kids ran ahead of us and opened the gate to the "Campsite". I took one look at the patch of overgrown grass and decided we would not be camping there. Ang, however, had other ideas and quite liked the place. An argument ensued, which I lost, and we set-up camp on the banks of the Zambezi. In truth the campsite, although lacking a bit of TLC, was perfectly situated and a good place to absorb the sounds of the nearby families as they went about their evening routines. There was one other camper mad enough to camp there. Ben, from the UK, was backpacking through Africa by himself before heading to India on his round the world trip of two years. We got chatting and offered him a lift into Malawi, saving him an early start in order to catch a bus. After a good nights sleep we squashed Ben and his kit into the back of Michael and were off to a new country, Malawi!

At the border we acquired a friend, although his services were not required, Patrick seemed to like us and followed us around from immigration to customs and finaly to 3rd party insurance. When we were done Patrick politely asked for his payment. Payment? what payment? We asked. He then proudly announced he was a runner and he had helped us get over the border smoothly. We are learning, albeit slowly. we paid Patrick a fraction of his fee and headed to Blantyre. We were inistantly struck by the rolling green hills interupted by large granite domes. It was beautiful. The first police road block in a new country is always a tense affair. What would they need to see, would we have it, would they demand money etc. We were pleasantly suprised and at the first stop we were greeted with a big toothy smile and after exchanging pleasantries (no conversation here can start before asking how the other party is and them doing the same) he enthuisiastically said " Welcome to our country. Welcome to the warm heart of Africa". Warm indeed!

In Blantyre we did a bit of shopping but had to do without luxuries like butter, cheese and meat as it was crazily expensive as it was all imported from South Africa. Beans on toast it would be. The next day we made our way to the lake and specifically to Cape Maclear. It was this journey that we fully appreciated the multiple uses of the humble bicycle. Not only was it used as a mode of transport for the rider but for him and a passenger or 3. They also carried huge bags of charcoal, wood, reeds (for house building), fish, chickens (hung on strigs by their legs), live goats and pigs as well as other bicycles. These bicycles occupy a rather large area of the already narrow road and make for some interesting driving.

Cape Maclear is situated on a small peninsular on the southern shores of the lake, with views of the Thumbi and Domba islands that bob a few kilometres away. We liked this place and we would stay here for a bit. We set up camp only 10 meters from the water at the Fat Monkeys Lodge. All the lodges are located on the watres edge with the village situated around them and you really get the feeling that you are part of the everyday life of the residents. Fisherman stroll the beach with their catches of the night before, Kapenta (small fish) boats go in and out and local ladies wash their clothes. We organised a snorkelling trip to one of the island with one of the community guides and it proved to be one of the many highlights of our stay. the water was absolutly clear and the fish were pletiful. Hundreds of chiclids of all colours swam round us and occasionally the odd brave one would nibble at you toes. Snorkeling in the fresh water was great and being 28 degrees we stayed in the water for a good few hours. The snorkeliing was only interupted by some lunch on the island and a trip to the west of the island to "feed the Fish Eagles". I was a little aprehensive of this as it felt a little touristy and a bit like watching the lions getting fed at the zoo, but, I quickly discarded those thoughts as one of the fish eagles swooped down to snatch the fish we had thrown, from the water only 15m from our boat. It was amazing and to witness it so close made for some great shots.

Fat monkeys proved to be very popular with overlanders and we met an English couple, David and Jayne, that have recently come down the west coast of Africa from England and are now making their way up the east coast crossing into the middle east before heading to South East Asia and India, all in their 1996 Landrover Defender (risky). Check out their trip on http://www.lizzybus.com/. They plan to travel the world in their car and have taken 7 years to do it. It is meeting people like them that humble you and put things in perspective. We are not doing something unique by travelling through Africa in Michael. Unique would be cartwheeling the length of the continent naked. Overlanding is not new, but, everyone we have met doing it, loves it and have awesome memories and stories to tell.

After four days of relaxing, swimming in the lake and enjoying spectacular sunsets we left Cape Maclear in the rain that would follow us all the way to the Capital, Lilongwe. Here we would stock up with supplies and the medication for Bilharzia which could be contracted from swimming in the lake. We stayed at a backpackers and treated ourselves to take-aways for dinner. After a big shop off we headed north west into the Viphya Mountains for a bit of walking and bird watching. The road to the Luwawa Forest Lodge had taken a bit of a beating by the rain and the logging trucks and made for some white knuckle moments. Again Micael passed with flying colours. The Lodge is nesteld in huge plantations of pine, but, close by there are also large ares of indigenous forest which proved a good spot for birding. We met up with An and Jo (Belgians) here and enjoyed a walk through the forests and chilling in front of a huge fire place (it got a little chilly there being 2000m above sea level and with the rain). I woke early one morning to go on a guided bird walk and I managed to notch up a few lifers, the most exciting of which was a great sighting of Whyte's Barbet. Talking to George, the owner, he mentioned that there were in fact three roads one could take to get to the lodge and the one we had taken was very rarely used due to the state of the road. So it was decided we would take the path most often travelled on the way out and onto Nkhata Bay, our next stop.

A: We've been in Nkhata Bay for two days so far, and stayed at Njaya Lodge, a quiet spot with an amazing view. I haven't been feeling so good, but after a couple of sms's to Nads and Craig (our on-call doctors, thanks so much guys!) and lots of TLC from Grant, i'm definately on the mend! Yay! We are trying to send this blog through today and catch-up on emails etc. We were planning to head to Likoma and Chizumulu Islands today by taking the 8pm ferry, but after discovering an amazing gem of a place: Mayoka Village (a backpackers/lodge) we may just stay on here for a couple of days. Will see though.

Things Ange has learnt:

1. It's a lots harder to prick one's finger for a malaria test than one would have thought... picture grant making a running start and then chickening out as the lancet got close to my finger (the result was negative! Yay!)

2. Grant tolerates an ailing wife very well.

Things Grant has learnt:

1. March is the rainy month in Malawi.

2. Malawians battle to pronounce their R's and substitute it with an L instead (the chinese of Africa perhaps). Asking for directions can be quite interesting, for example: "you must drive on this load until a t-junction. Then turn light onto another load. It is a lough locky load. Then turn left and then light and light again" the problem is that i find myself repeating the directions using the new terms "light" for right and "load" for road.

We are using the internet at Butterfly Community Centre, an amazing spot where people are doing great things for the communicaty at Nkhata Bay. Painted on the walls are these words in Tonga on onde side and then the English translation on the other side:

"Linweka lidu likuta nkhuziwa kuti chimwemwe ndi vyaluta vidu chaziwika ndichandulu kukwaskana ndi wanthu wanyidu kuziya. Mukupereka ndi kuronde kuti tizenge vigawa vidu charo chose chapasi ndi ywe tawenecho".

"Hidden in our hearts is a longing to live deeply and with purpose and joy. To know and be known, to be concerned with another, and to make a difference. In the dance of giving and receiving, we create our community, our world and ourselves".

Zimbabwe: Visiting the Smoke that Thunders, making friends and being blown away by an amazing people

On our first day at Vic Falls we walked to see Mosi-Oa-Tunya ("The Smoke that Thunders") - WOW! seriously very impressive! When you see that huge quantity of water falling such great heights, you think your eyes must be decieving you. Because it's rainy season and the Zambezi is so high, the Falls create huge amounts of spray and at parts we couldnt see the Falls at all, but just got soaked from the spray (which was just like rain except it fell up instaed of down). Now I understand why it's one of the seven wonders of the world. Tick.

While in Vic Falls we met a couple from Belgium, An and Jo, who are in the second half of their epic journey across Europe, Asia and then up the length of Africa.(Check out their journey on http://www.anenjo.be/). We got chatting and decided to meet up in a few days time in Hwange and then travel together along the length of Lake Kariba and into Mana pools. We tried to do some grocery shopping before leaving Vic Falls so that we would be prepared for a week in the bush, but couldn't find much in the shops. We were struck by the desperation of the touts in the streets, trying to sell old Zim dollar notes to tourists. They get quite intense and don't accept 'No' for an answer. You can sense their absolute desperation and we left V Falls feeling quite saddened at the state of such a beautiful country. This feeling continued as we entered Hwange National Park.

Although Zimbabwe is now using the US Dollar as their currency and things have improved, you still get the sense that it is country on its knees battling to stand up again and raise it's head as a Tourist destination again. The use of the dollar also meant that Ang and I had to do some serious arithmetic when shopping and at times I had wished I had learnt my 7 times table better in primary school.... 7 times 7 is......ah....uhm...well 7 times 5 is 35 so that means..........and so it went on. You also don't get anything below one dollar even if the price says it is as there is no change. At one shop we had to take our change in sweets...Ang was not complaining though. This unfortunately means that 1 dollar bills here are increddibly "well used" resembling dirty pieces of cloth with a rather bleak looking George Washington staring back at you.

We stayed at the Sinamatella Camp on the first night and were one of two groups of tourists in the camp. The staff try their best to keep the facilities clean, but the camps are totally run-down and in need of serious attention. The view of the flood plain from the camping area was amazing though as we witnessed an electric thunderstorm over the park.

We drove through the park the next day towards the Main Camp, but unfortunately didn't see much game. The bush is very thick and in parts the grass was higher than the car. We also read that poaching may have affected the numbers of game. We arrived at the Main Camp and noticed that a renovation programme was in place, so things are looking up! The staff were so friendly and helpful. Before and after each game drive the gate guard gave us tips on which routes to take based on game sightings in the past few days. Our luck was not playing the game though, and after two nights and three days, all we'd seen was a few ellies, impala, zebra and giraffe.

An and Jo met us at the Main Camp on our last day there and we decided to find a camp site just outside of the park for the night (the camping fees were quite steep) and then head off along the road to Kariba the following day.

The drive the next day was beautiful. Neat little huts, cattle pens and maize plantations nestled in bushy green vegetation and huge trees. We decided to explore the town of Binga on the South western bank of Lake Kariba, and were taken in by the views of the lake from Masuma Lodge and decided to camp there for two nights. We ate like Kings, combining our food and recipes and had a great stay there. The first night we tasted the famous Kariba Bream. The Second night Jo made authentic Belgian fries in our little bread potjie on the fire and we were educated that French Fries actually originated in Belgium, not

France. Delicious!

While at Masuma Lodge we went on a boat trip, for the boys to do some fishing and to hopefully see the elephants at Elephant Bay (a bay along the lake where the elleies come and drink everyday). Again, we did not have much luck, the boys didn't catch anything and the ellies didn't come drink! But a beautiful day on the water nonetheless.

We left Binga and headed East for about 250km's to the town of Karoi. We had heard that the road may be a bit of a challenge and not many of the locals could give us much information about its condition. It turned out that the road was not too bad providing enough puuddles and potholes to keep me and michael on our toes. The drive took us around 9 hours due to the condition of the road, but the drive was probably one of our trip-highlights so far. The people living in the villages we passed were so friendly, running to the side of the road to wave and scream "How are you?!!" We all commented that we spent the whole day with our hands in the air, waving and smiling and screaming "Fine and you?!" out the window. Our perceptions of the country were changing and our hearts breaking at the characters of the people, desperately poor, but so friendly. It was on this road that we were stopped at the Tsetse Fly Control Point. As we stopped we joked that they would check our cars to see if we were smuggling any of the biting flys. And then, true as nuts, I guy came out of a small hat carrying a net, he was actually going to try catch the buggers if found. Luckly we were not transporting any of the critters and saved the net-guy the effort of clambering around in our car.

We spent the night in Karoi, which looked as if it used to be a hub of a farming town, comparable to a town in the Natal Midlands. Now, it's run-down and there were no camp-sites except the parking lot of a small guest house. We had an interesting evening. I had a small confrontation with one of the "operators", who, after learning that we were South African kept calling me "Madam", "Mummy" and "Boss" despite my protests. Sleep that evening was replaced with listening to said operator playing all the ring tones available on his cell phone and phoning various friends using speaker phone. An and Jo were also awakened from their shortened slumber by the sounds and motions of their car being washed whilst they were sleeping in it! Strange indeed.

Our excitement for our planned stay in Mana Pools was shattered the following day when we learnt that Mana Pools was closed due to flooding. Apparently four of the sluice gates at Kariba had been opened two weeks ago and they were planning on re-opening them soon without any notice. A real bummer. Jo had nick-named Grant "the big-guy" (the first time I have been refered to as big) and we had been joking during the previous days about the Mana Pools lions choosing 'the big-guy' over the rest of us. So now we'll never find out ;-) Dissapointed and deflated we opted to drive to the town of Kariba, camp the night and see the town. We were met with more derelict campsites, lodges and shops, without any other tourists in sight. We eventually decided to camp at Warthog's Bush Camp, our cheapest camping yet at $3 pp!

The following day we headed to Harare, where we are currently, staying at Small World Backpackers. We've indulged in their laundry service and all our clothes are currently being washed- yay! Today, we walked to the closest shops and again our perceptions of Zim were changed. Harare is a bustling, clean city (the parts we've seen of it), the shops are well-stocked, the people are enterprising and positive. However, there is an undertone that rears it's head every now and then. One of oppression borne by a country ruled by a dictator. Today there was a protest in the Capital against sanctions with threats of intimidation being made.

Zim is sucking us in and we wish we could spend more time here, but time is ticking and Malawi is calling. Tomorrow we plan to do some shopping and then head to Malawi via the Tete corridor in Moz.

Things Ange has learnt:

1. The washing machine is man's best invention

2. When you are offered a free meal from the resturant at the campsite you are staying at and all you hear is 'Schnitzel', you can't be blamed when learning on completion of meal that the chef actually said "Warthog Schnitzel"- apologies to all Rennies!! :-)

3. My suspicions were correct- Bullie Beef tastes and smells like dog food.

Things Grant has learnt:

1. If you don't like waving hello to people, then Africa is not for you.

2. Ange has set the world record for the most number of sneezes in a day! 5 million and counting (shame she has been suffering from some serious hay fever)

3. Zim is the land of milk and honey and the people have hearts bigger than their president's greed.

Road trip tunes:

Ross's CD's!! they are awesome- thanks Rosco! Also a bit of Regina Spektor and 500 days of summer soundtrack.

The best birthday present and leaving Namibia

So, Friday the 18th arrived in Katima mulilo. Grant treated me to coffee and muffins in bed, hung a colourful HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Grant: A real peach of a find in the local shoprite) sign across our tent and I opened pressies from home! Such a treat!! All the sms's and phone calls from home were amazing, thanks everyone- it was a great day!

We cycled into town and went for a cooldrink with the wooden-bicycle-packing-team, all the while awaiting the phonecall from Christof (the mechanic) that would determine if we would be leaving Namibia the next day. After a great chat and laughs at the Madese Catering Cafe (see below: the bossy Mhlungu is telling our waitress how to take the picture!), we searched for a new power cable for the laptop as the old one had packed in.. and then made our way back to Fish Eagles Nest.

We eventually spoke to Christoff and he said all was good to go, the part had arrived from Windhoek and therefore JHB, it had been fitted, Michael had been taken for a test-drive and we could come collect him at 5pm!! Really the very best birthday present! After we had collected our wheels, we went out to the Bezi Bar on the Zambezi river with Frik, Mart-Marie, Julianna, J.G, Fransel and some others. I was spoilt with more pressies and we had a great evening! Thanks guys!

Saturday dawned, we did some grocery shopping and were off!! We passed through the Namibia-Botswana border post and drove through the Chobe for 60km's (seeing a couple of Ellies on the way) and then into Zim (Via the Kazangula Border) to Vic Falls. (It was at this border crossing that we were asked for the

first time by a Zimbabwean Police Officer what we had brought him from South Africa. So using a line from a book I had just read I replied " Goodwill, lots of goodwill") We booked ourselves into the main campsite in town and enjoyed the camping vibe once again, having Mikey and all his luggage close by :-)