The last two weeks have been excellent, Malawi is one of my favourite countries. Week 46 started with the birthday celebration of Joana, one of the girls we had met in Monkey Bay. We stayed in Cape Maclear for a few days before we decided to head north, but on the day that we tried to leave Charlie found that he had a puncture in his rear tyre. We tried to patch it but apparently having ‘slime’ in your tyre prevents patches from sticking. We had already slept in Cape Maclear from nine nights but we had to stay a tenth night so that we could sort out Charlies bike, he put a smaller tube in the tyre to last until we could get to the next town. The next morning we set off north and stayed a night in Kande Beach before we arrived in Nkhata Bay.
Nkhata Bay is the most popular tourist destination on Lake Malawi, I prefer Cape Maclear, but Nkhata bay is nice too. We stayed in a lodge called the Butterfly which offers opportunities to volunteer in the local community, in return you get discounts on your accommodation. We spent the weekend there and then stared week 47 by travelling to Livingstonia. Most of the journey was along nice tarmac roads with beautiful views on either side, then for the last 15Km the road turned into a rocky track which winds its way up the mountain to the town of Livinstonia. We stayed in the most amazing lodge I have ever visited, Lukwe Gardens. The lodge has been there for eleven years, the owner has built a permaculture farm which supplies the lodge with fruit and vegetables.
We relaxed there for a few days before heading over the border into Tanzania, but on the way to Mbeya I lost touch with Charlie, we didn’t have mobile phones so we couldn’t find each other, I stayed a night in cheap accommodation before heading off on the long 830Km drive from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam. I arrived late at night and Charlie arrived the next day, now we are trying to arrange a ship to Zanzibar. Yesterday we had a ship that would take us but we couldn’t get past port security, the next ship leaves on Monday, hopefully we can get into the port then.