Robert Munro - Malawi

Malawi

Malawi in August 2006.

Crossing into Malawi saw us on some slightly better roads and greener landscape as we descended towards Lake Malawi.

Lake Malawi has a greater variety of fish than the Atlantic Ocean, many of them endemic. This one was delicious. We didn't actually enter the dinosaur museum, but did peer through the window to see the bones of the the Malawisaurus.

Riding down to the lake at Nkarta Bay.

At Big Blue lodge where we met up with Paul again who's riding with us for the remainder of the trip. Bottom right are the Mzuzu girls football team. They beat Nkarta Bay 4-1.

We took a local boat north to Sanje. The first picture is a local headman, complete with dress shirt and tie, paddling his canoe for 8 hours to visit another village. The ever-present hordes of kids found us there too.

Around the lake shore - big boats and boababs.

We caught the MV Ilala - two nights from Nkarta Bay to Monkey Bay. We met a fun group of Brits on board - there wasn't a whole lot to do except lie in the sun (and also the moon - we didn't have cabins so everyone slept on the deck, the lucky ones in tents) and jump off into the water each time we stopped.

After relaxing in Nkarta Bay and on the ferry we took a well-earned break for a couple of days in Cape Maclear.

An important part of travelling is sampling the local delicacies - it's always great to see the look of joy on someone's face as they watch me savour the gizzards, entrails or fish-head that they've specially prepared. Sometimes it's also good to find ice-cream.

Staring at a flat tire won't inflate it. Just when Peter and I were feeling pretty good about our 3000kms from Nairobi we ran into Kurt and Dorothee who have been cycling for 8 years criss-crossing most continents a few times.

South of Blantyre we had an almost flat day of cycling, bringing the total amount of flat days to 2 1/2 so far. Here we are approaching the Mulanje Massif.

We dropped the bikes off at the bottom and hiked for 3 days in a circuit up Mulanje.

The whole area was lush but up high it was above the tree-line and quite sheer. The last photo above is an area burned out by poachers hunting Hyrex - we never really saw the poachers but could see their fires up on the hills at night.

We summitted the highest peak on the second day, just in time to see a wall of mist roll in and destroy the view.

Wild men and wild flowers.

An abandoned village in the forest and one of the huts we stayed in.

Back down for a swim in a beautiful rock-pool before completing the trialathon of a day by cycling across the border to Mozambique.