More on Malawi :)

Another wee update on us.  We’ve arrived safely in NZ and so far are enjoying being back with family.  We went to a supermarket the other day,  I never thought I would be so happy to be in a supermarket!  There were soo many things that I hadn’t seen for a while and wanted.  Jono had to limit my buying!  We’ve been suffering a bit of jet lag.  As for next year, we are none the wiser!

I left you just after we’d arrived in Cape McClear, Malawi.  We spent 3 days there, here is a summary (a rather long one) of it.  The ‘beach’ is quite nice, golden sands.  A bit sinky to walk on though.  Unfortunately there’s a reasonable amount of rubbish on it, which I found a bit sad.  There were lots of locals out on the lake front – washing.  Washing themselves, washing their clothes, washing their dishes, washing anything else you can think of that needs washing.  This makes a walk along the lake front a bit novel, dodging in and out of the locals cos the sand is too hot for you to walk on it, so you want to be slightly in the water. 

Some of the washing

Sunset

The view from our lodge

Often saw fishermen in canoes

Jono's artistic shot

Sunset :)

Uncomfortably I have never seen so many naked people in my life before.  It seems there it’s appropriate up to about the age of 8 to be naked.  What’s even more alarming is that some of them try to get you to take their picture.  I didn’t really want to have a picture of a naked 8 year old local on my camera, so kindly refused.  The water itself is quite nice, definitely worth multiple dips due to the heat!  Sadly slightly murky I imagine from all the stuff that is put in from the washing, and rubbish.  Often on walkies people would harass you down the beach trying to get you to buy their stuff(souvenirs).  Engaging with them is dangerous, it’s hard to leave once you do.  Towards the end though it kinda felt like we got some reasonable deals.  We had money issues there – Cape McClear doesn’t have an ATM, and some of Southern Africa seems to be a cash society.  I don’t think street people would accept a credit card, and that’s where the best deals are (I think!).  We had tried to get money out at monkey bay (the town before Cape M) but the ATM didn’t work :(.  Luckily one of the local lodges let us get money out, otherwise it would have been no souvenirs.  The food there is pretty cheap ~$5-9 for a restaurant meal, food takes QUITE a while to come, it felt like we spent about an hour before each meal waiting.   

View from the lodge's resturant

And of course you can pay for some local entertainment

 Drinks were cheap too ~$3 for a cocktail, ~$1 for a bottle of water.  We swam, walked and read a reasonable amount.  One morning we started to climb a hill, we got up early to try to avoid the heat of the day.  However it’s hot at 6 in the morning, so it was still sweaty as.  Turns out no one else is up at that time and wanting to sell you water, so we had one 500ml bottle between us!  We didn’t make it to the top, water issues, heat, plus the terrain was getting a bit tough/grassy/could easily stand on a snake.  But we still got a pretty sweet view, and some DECENT exercise.  When we got down and found a stall – we had the best drink of pineapple Fanta EVER.  It tasted AMAZING.  We drunk 1 bottle while we were waiting for the guy to get our change.  We continued along the beach and stopped at another place for another drink, which also tasted absolutely amazing, but not quite so amazing as the pineapple Fanta.  

The view

Us, someone didn't tell me I had messy hair!

The flys up there were super annoying. 

 We went for a boat ride to a nearby island and did some snorkelling, watched fish eagles being feed and jumped off a reasonably sized rock.   

Hard to take photo's of fish without an underwater camera

Fish Eagles

The leap of faith...

The nights were sooo hot I had to (resort to, I was resistant to this for quite sometime!) sleeping with a wet towel on me, with the fan going.

A bird for Malcolm to idenify

The picture doesn't show so well, but my bum is on the ground.  Useless hamack!  Maybe that's a hint?

Signs!  I do find them enjoyable

Not sure if we bit it back? I can't remember what we ate entirely

It’s kinda funny how long a summary is!!!  I guess I should leave it there so it’s not SUPER long.

 Prayer thanks

- For safety as we've travelled

- During the first leg of our flights we randomly got upgraded to Business class which was soooo lovely!
- For the good times we've had with family and friends

Prayer requests
- For guidance about what to do next year.
- For continued safety as we continue to travel
- For more good times with family and friends

Bethesda and OM prayer requests
- For a good, safe and refreshing holiday break for the staff.