até mais logo: Malawi Adventures

During my two-week break in July I traveled to Malawi to meet up with two of my best friends from high school, Emily "Schu" & Melissa. I hadn't seen them since Christmas so I was beyond excited to get to spend 10 whole days with them. We arrived Thursday, July 17th and I met them at Doogles Backpackers...I was supposed to meet them at the airport when they landed (and I even made a sign!) but I was late getting into Blantyre. We all hugged for quite awhile and talked about our travels getting to Malawi. They didn't get much time to relax and adjust to the time zone in Malawi because Friday morning we left Blantyre to go to Cape Maclear/Lake Malawi. We decided to sleep in and not leave at dawn but in doing so we had a lot of problems. We found a mini bus right away and left the city but almost immediately after leaving the city the driver pulled over and started taking apart the dashboard. It was definitely not a good sign...later that day (on the same mini bus) we broke down two more times. After a terrible first travel experience for Schu and Melissa we made it to Cape Maclear around 8pm. We were so exhausted but hadn't really eaten all day so we ate dinner and went to bed.

Saturday morning was a much better day! We relaxed on the beach all day--had french toast for breakfast, hamburgers and ice cream--it was definitely worth the terrible travel experience the day before. On Sunday we took a boat trip to Thumbi Island. We went snorkeling (schu's new favorite thing to do) and our boat captain, Ian, made us lunch on the island. We all tried fish from the lake and it was surprisingly good! The fish were so bright for being fresh water fish and we spent all morning snorkeling, sun bathing and relaxing on the island. We ate more yummy food for dinner (cheese & bacon sandwich!)--you can tell I don't eat yummy things in Nacuxa since I'm writing about all our meals :)

Our boat captain, Ian, is also the director of a nursery school in Cape Maclear so on Monday we went to visit the nursery school. There we met Haistings who teaches jewelry making to older students and helps run the nursery school. We had a fun morning playing with the kids and bought some beautiful jewelry from Haistings whose profits went to help the school. That afternoon we decided to venture out on kayaks...we went to another island and saw wild monkeys (we didn't stay too long there because we weren't sure if the monkeys would be angry and come get us, haha). On the way back the current was pretty strong so it felt like our kayaks only went left-it took me a lot more time to get back to shore. By the time I made it back I was ready to be done! This was our last night in Cape Maclear so we had spaghetti for dinner and pineapple fruit fritters for dessert.

The next morning we left Cape Maclear at 6am on the minibus to head to Liwonde Safari park. This day of traveling was a bit better but it still took a lot longer than anticipated. We arrived at noon and Elvis, a driver from the camp, came into town to pick us up and take us back to our backpackers. Schu wasn't feeling too good after our drive so she relaxed in our tent and Melissa and I explored on the observation deck and took some very close pictures of elephants. The camp where we stayed was inside the National Park so the animals could come in and around our tents. At night, walking to the bathrooms you had to be sure there weren't elephants or other wild animals in your path.

On Wednesday we got up early and went on a 4-hour game drive through the National Park. We saw so many animals--water buffalo, water bucks, antelopes, impalas, elephants, warthogs, monkeys and a lot of birds. We got very close to the elephants and water buffalo so we got some good pictures but it was a little intimidating being so close without any barriers between us and them. The rest of Wednesday and Thursday we just relaxed in our tent and the observation deck since both Melissa and Schu were feeling pretty sick. Thankfully they were feeling a bit better on Friday so we traveled back to Blantyre.

When we got to Blantyre I went to the Chichiri Shopping Mall...it was amazing!! It had shoprite, game (a walmart type store), a bookstore and even a food court! It seriously looked like America (although if you ask Schu and Melissa they probably would not agree, haha). I got some ice cream and bought some water and snacks at shoprite and headed back to doogles to get dinner with Schu and Melissa. Saturday was my birthday so we decided to get breakfast at the mall...we got doughnuts and juice and walked around the different stores and shopped a bit. We got pizza and nachos for lunch and some ice cream for dessert. Schu and Melissa even bought candles and put them in my ice cream for my birthday. We even went and visited two Catholic churches in Blantyre (thanks to our nice waiter at lunch who showed us how to get there). It was such a wonderful 24th birthday! After our adventure at the mall we took our LAST minibus ride back to our backpackers and bought some souvenirs. We packed and ate dinner and enjoyed our last night together in Malawi chatting and snuggling :) Overall we had a wonderful trip to Malawi and it was such an amazing time getting to spend 10 days together!

Today was the start of classes but half of my students still haven't returned to Nacuxa. I have a little over 100 days left in Mozambique and so much to do in that time. This month my English theater group has to really get working because the competition is at the end of September. The library is also going to be moved into the bigger classroom at the end of August and we're having another training and hoping to start up the activities and tutoring the last week in August. Time is flying! So happy I got to have a trip to Malawi with Schu and Melissa before all this craziness started :)

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Lake Malawi and Thumbi Island

Our breakfast at a neighboring backpackers...waffles and strawberry sorbet :)

Schu, Melissa and I at Thumbi Island--getting ready to snorkel

Relaxing on the beach :)

Lake Malawi and a view of Thumbi Island at sunset

Snorkeling!

Our boat

Schu loved snorkeling! I'm pretty sure it's her new favorite thing :)

Melissa and I on the boat trip

Schu and I on the boat trip

Melissa rockin' her new giraffe capulana

Enjoying our time at Thumbi Island

The view was just so beautiful at sunset (and anytime) that I went a little overboard on pictures :)

Schu and Melissa watching the sunset

The welcome board at Liwonde Safari Camp...do you see the second to last line where is says the pretty pink flowers are poisonous?

Here are the poisonous flowers...they look so pretty I'm glad they told us they were poisonous!

The observation deck where you can relax and watch the elephants, warthogs and all sorts of animals

Our tent we stayed in at the safari camp :) We saw wild monkeys in the trees above and in front of our tent. It was sure scary leaving the tent at night to go to the bathroom knowing wild animals were all around you.

A Baobab tree at the safari camp

The elephants we saw the first day at the safari camp

We might have gotten a little too close...

It was so amazing seeing them eating and just walking around the camp

A view on our game drive through the National Park

Impalas on the game drive

This Baobab tree is over 4,000 years old!

We were able to stop and take pictures since no animals were around :)

The three of us enjoying our African safari. It was really chilly that morning--with our jeans and sweatshirts it doesn't really look like we're in Africa :)

More elephants in the National Park

Some baby elephants eating...it was just so interesting to see elephants in their natural habit and not in a zoo. But a little intimidating being so close to them.