Malawi
27th September 2014
How different can two countries be despite being neighbours. Immediately on arrival in Malawi, there was an aura of calm. A hassle free crossing into the country, minimal traffic, few speed humps and bumps and traffic police who were actually pleasant although one did ask if we had a biromand - a novel! Most were just eager to view our house on wheels. Malawi lies predominately in the Great Rift Valley with Lake Malawi stretching almost the full length of the country. It is a green and lush country despite it being near the end of the dry and hot season. We've found supermarkets which stock, at a price, South African goodies, a very welcome change to what we've been living off for the past six weeks or more . It is an expensive country in comparison to Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya. Many of the buildings could be described as faded glory and like everywhere else there is a distinct lack of funding for updating the infrastructure. Yesterday we crossed a new bridge which proudly displaced a large sign saying that it had been funded by the Japanese. EU money has also funded a number of projects.
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Zomba
2nd October 2014
After a long but straight forward journey we reached Malawi's southern uplands, a green and fertile area where we even managed to find strawberries and raspberries for sale by the roadside. A very welcome change from bananas. The scenery was magnificent as we climbed ever higher onto the plateau.
Zomba is the former capital of Malawi (Nyasaland) and many of the original state buildings are still in evidence, some restored to their former glory, others still in need of tender loving care. As in most of the Africa we have been travelling through, there seems little urgency to make repairs. So many projects we passed had been funded with monies from the European Union, Norway, Australia, Japan, China and very little from local sources.
We are sorry Sheila and Gilroy but we failed to locate your old house in Zomba. We found the road but there were no house numbers and a local who we talked to had no idea which one number 4 might have been. Many of the houses had 'sprouted' extra buildings and were obviously not now dwellings.
Moving on to Blantyre was a mistake - not at all attractive and with no choice of an overnight stop. We ended up at a backpackers lodge next to the heaving bus station, and had to pay for beds in a dormitory. Needless to say, we slept in Nicolle on the car park and left early before it was discovered what we had done! The beds in the dormitory were not at all appealing.
[click] to continue our travels into Mozambique
Zomba
2nd October 2014
After a long but straight forward journey we reached Malawi's southern uplands, a green and fertile area where we even managed to find strawberries and raspberries for sale by the roadside. A very welcome change from bananas. The scenery was magnificent as we climbed ever higher onto the plateau.
Zomba is the former capital of Malawi (Nyasaland) and many of the original state buildings are still in evidence, some restored to their former glory, others still in need of tender loving care. As in most of the Africa we have been travelling through, there seems little urgency to make repairs. So many projects we passed had been funded with monies from the European Union, Norway, Australia, Japan, China and very little from local sources.
We are sorry Sheila and Gilroy but we failed to locate your old house in Zomba. We found the road but there were no house numbers and a local who we talked to had no idea which one number 4 might have been. Many of the houses had 'sprouted' extra buildings and were obviously not now dwellings.
Moving on to Blantyre was a mistake - not at all attractive and with no choice of an overnight stop. We ended up at a backpackers lodge next to the heaving bus station, and had to pay for beds in a dormitory. Needless to say, we slept in Nicolle on the car park and left early before it was discovered what we had done! The beds in the dormitory were not at all appealing.
[click] to continue our travels into Mozambique