Relaxing on Mumbo Island
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2008
1
10
25
Trip End
Aug 04, 2008
Mumbo Island,
Malawi
Monday, July 21, 2008
After breakfast, we put on our bathing suits and wnet for a hike across the island, pausing at Zimbabwe Cave (really, an overhanging rock) before proceeding to Lungduzi Cove. There, we swam, and Paul and the kids each claimed a rock, battling for control of shipping. Entertaining. I, meanwhile, sat under a tree until I convinced myself that a boomslang might have hitched a ride on a log from Mozambique, in which case, it probably would have landed at this cove, and certainly would have selected the tree for its new home. So I went and sat in the water.
We chilled after our return to the camp and lunch - reading and chatting, and began a progressive story about three monitor lizards and their assorted friends (including a half-antelope, half-weevil abomination) who attack a group of unsuspecting humans
Kayaking around Mumbo
. The wind died altogether, and we went out for a late afternoon kayak. It was perfect out on the water. We also saw two of the otters, hanging out in a crevasse between two rocks. The fishermen were out as well, poaching in the waters of this national park.Because it was so still, we decided to go out again for the sunset cruise. Not much of a sunset tonight - too many clouds and too much smoke on the horizon. The wind began to come back up, too, while we were out, but the lake was still like glass. We overheard a couple from Switzerland, telling about their trip. They had started in Zimbabwe, where her brother lives. The coffee they ordered in the morning cost 40 billion ... and by the afternoon, the price was 50 billion. Insane.
Showers upon our return, then we sat in our tent, enjoying the calm waters, watching the lights on the fishing boats in the distance. We also told - rather than wrote - a progressive story (about Private Public, Frick-Frick, the space probe, and a host of other characters, including, or so thought our kids, a General Pandemonium, though that was really just Paul's description of the chaos that ensues when ... well, never mind).
We enjoyed our fish dinner, then retired to our room, to play the Who Am I? guessing game. I was Mickey Mouse and Barbra Streisand, neither of which I guessed easily; Keegan guessed he was Mugabe quite easily, however. By the time we went to bed, the wind had returned in full force.
