I crossed the Songwe river into Malawi early one morning.. this former British Colony (it was called Nyasaland) remains one of the world’s poorest countries (The average earnings being less than a dollar a day)
Nearly half the population is chronically malnourished and life expectancy is only 53
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| Life has a slow pace here... |
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| Open air butchers... |
Village life in Malawi - a high population growth puts strain on resources - transportation and food supply. There is lots of queueing - especially for maize which is used to make Nshima - a maize porridge
Nshima is the "staple" - eaten several times a day - every day - it feeds the nation. A shortage of maize can be catastrophic!
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 Pounding cassava...  |
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| Local market - tomatoes and fish and...err... that's it!! |
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| Lake fish laid out to dry - mostly pounded and put in sauces... |
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| Police road blocks are a way of life - and a source of funds for the police...by that I mean bribes.. |
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| Typical Malawi Town |
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| Having my trusty sandals repaired again! |
The first destination was Chitimba - we stayed at a lakeside backpackers called Hakuna Matata. It was run by an extremely eccentric Afrikaaner called Willie who was an amateur historian and paranoid conspiracy theorist - made for interesting dinner conversation!
Despite all this hardship the people are friendly and welcoming. The country is dominated by the lake - it's called the calendar Lake - 365km long and 52km wide - most of my time here was spent either close to it or on it!
For this part of my trip I had teamed up with a German backpacker called Timo - he made me look like a day tripper as he had been travelling for about 5 years!!
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Sorgham beer - looks like porridge hence you have to shake it!!
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Malawi is well known for its Scottish connections - the most famous of course with David Livingstone. Close to Chitimba a mission was founded shortly after he died. It is called Livingstonia - a 2½ hour hike according to Lonely Planet - 5 hours later we reached our destination - proof indeed that the Lonely Planet writer had not done the trek!
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| The road to Livingstonia Mission |
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View down to the lake from the road to Livingstonia |
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| Colonial Hospital at Livingstonia |
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| Childhood diseases still cause massive problems here |
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| Livingstonia Mission House |
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| No beer though!! |
It was Easter when we arrived and many celebrations were taking place. We stayed overnight in Stone House - a colonial mission house - lovely hospitality but as you can see no beer!
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| Just spiders!! |
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| Stained glass of Livingstone arriving at Lake Malawi |
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| No docks here - clamber on to the ferry as best you can!! |
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| Sunset Lake Malawi |
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| Fisherman in dugout canoe- I tried this - it is virtually impossible to balance!! |
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| My little helper on the 4km trek across Likoma Island - she showed us where the backpackers was and insisted on carrying my bag!! |
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| Beautiful Likoma Island |
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| Mango Drift backpackers |
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| Routine sunset... |
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| Fishermen on the lake shore |
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| 1st class ticket got me this!! |
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| Even had to steer the boat myself!! |
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| A long way from home! |
On the last evening here I attended a concert in a local university. The purpose was to raise money for impoverished students - about 25% have had to drop out because of lack of fee and subsistence money.
My original plan after Malawi was to head overland to Mozambique. This was always going to be the most challenging part of the trip. Mozambique has had rebel problems for many years. When I left the UK conflict was at a low level and not in areas I was visiting but in March there was an escalation with Renamo rebels attacking vehicles on the main North - South highway with around 20 people injured, 3 killed and tourists having to travel in military convoys...
I like to think I'm an adventurous traveler but all that was a step to far even for me!
So it was goodbye to Malawi and also goodbye to my plan of making it from Entebbe to Durban overland..
I made my way to Blantyre airport - destination sunny South Africa!
