3 March 2010
Yesterday we left Kande Beach and travelled north to Chitimba, via a town called Mzuzu. If I had thought that Rhundu was a bit wild, then mate, this was the wild west. It was however, home to one of Malawi’s only working ATM machines so some of us managed to get money out. We then hit up the clothing market, which is literally just people selling clothes out of a pile in the street. Pretty much all the clothes that get donated to good will, that no one wants seem to end up here.
After wandering around Mzuzu, we left and resumed our journey to Chitimba. It had been raining and lots of motorists were becoming stuck in the mud. We got out of our truck and helped push a smaller truck that was stuck. Upon getting back into our own truck, we found that we had sunk and had to get the sand mats off, place them under the wheels and push to get us going again. We all ended up very dirty.
This is a bit different to Kande Beach, which was backpacker and party central. This place is lovely and quiet and you can hear the gentle lapping of the lake. I went for a walk by myself along the shore, admiring the green of the mountains around the shoreline in this part of Malawi.
Today I sat around and did not really much of anything. I had a bit of a sleep in the bar and went down to the beach and took some photos. A local hawker hassled me the whole time, but I managed to ignore him and take some photos without too much trouble.
After going down to the beach me and some of the others decided to go check out the local wood carving shops. I decided to take no money thinking this would halt all souvenir buying. Sounds fool proof doesn’t it? I ended up buying a table, I actually ran back to camp, got money out of Pumba and bought a freakin table! Don’t get me wrong its an amazing table and I got it for next to nothing. Just have to figure out how I am going to get it home now.
After I bought the table I watched the sun set which was amazing, then had dinner and went off to bed for another insanely early start in the morning.