Cluny Lodge Lilongwe

... campsite bar after we finished with Pepper, and had a nice sleep in the next day. The weather was not so great when we woke up, so we just hung out in the little cafe on the campsite.
Our final night in Kande was mellow... nothing too exciting happened. The drive to Lilongwe was equally as uneventful, and when we finally got here we did some grocery shopping and ate lunch at this fast food place called Nandos. It was ...

... began. Basically the guys on the stalls are willing to trade you wood carvings for books, pens, clothes, shoes, blankets, torches, you name it! With that they still expect some payment in US dollars or local Malawi kwacha. Alan and I got a few items and left minus a pair of flip flops, a few articles of clothing and a blanket. Its a good way to lighten the rucksack! We were pretty exhausted after hours of bartering and examining so we had an early night.

... place to have pool, and you could wash your clothes in Malawi without having your clothes stolen. Laura, Jules and beck all had parts of their clothing taken L man I fel sory for them, especially cos I know that any piece of clothing is valuable!!! bras were the main item taken apparently theyre are rare to see and get and therefore expensive

overall lovely campsite tonight, very hostel like and last night in Malawi!!
Lilongwe, Lilongwe, Malawi courters

... emails and cards, especially thank you cyfa for your card, you made me cry you horrible people! Really strange to be all the way over here for my birthday, but it was a really really good day, we went out for breakfast AND lunch, involving sneaking undercover into an exclusive golf club, and did more shopping (the "its my birthday!" argument is a WINNER with the guys on the market, should have saved all my shopping for then and got the birthday discounts! I even had half the ...

... being loaded onto the car sent to bring us back to Kumbali lodge. We drove the 4 hours by the other road... the inland one not the border road. Still it looks to me like nothing is ever finished or when it has reached it use by date just build a new one next to it. All buildings are made of baked mud bricks and it seems they are not very house proud, no paint or ...

... we stayed at, Gecko Lounge (so called because of the huge amount of geckos everywhere, they're so cute!), was perfect, we had our own little chalet right on the beach and we lazed around in hammocks all day! It was a proper holiday, one we needed. It was about 35 degrees which was wonderful after dreary Lilongwe which had gotten too cold for our liking! We spent most of our time lying on the beach, reading and listening to music. We weren't complete slobs though, we ...

... filled with people. To save ourselves a lot of money we decided to put the bags on our laps and prepare ourselves for an uncomfortable 7 hour journey. (This coach has 5 seats per row and is the same size as you average coach so it was very uncomfortable and claustrophobic).
Suddenly there was an uproar from the passengers and everyone began to panic and fight to get off the bus. We looked out the window and saw flames coming up the side of the bus ...

... stories and singing songs with our porter and guide. It was wonderful, complete blackout with only the stars and fire for light. There was no electricity all the way up there! The night made the trek up worth it. Before that, it hadn't been worth it at all! Luckily on the way down we started off really well, we were speeding away and arrived at the half way point in no time at all. But it did get harder. Steep downhill takes just as much effort as steep uphill. We stopped off ...

... this week? We went to our friends house for a bbq on Friday night and then again on Saturday and used the washing machine, oh it was amazing! Never thought I would actually get so excited over a washing machine, but it really was an amazing amazing moment! :p Then we had a binbag party on Saturday night which was the funnest thing ever...yes it did involve dressing up in binbags and having a catwalk and lots of dancing...and yes it did involve sitting playing uno in our binbags ...

... sexy dress, rather than the short haired, long skirt wearing women
I'd seen in the streets. They reminded me of the prostitutes in the hotel
in Blantyre.

Lots of flirting was going on between the Malawians and also between them
and us. It was a bit hard to get rid of the guys coming onto the females
of our group, but we had a good time dancing and watching.