Porcelain Paradise

Going Fishing in Monkey Bay
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It would only be fair, after that last "Special Blog", to also inform you about Matt's contribution to our 41 hour escapade. Now I take full responsibility for planning the logistics of our journey but I will not take responsibility for the long lasting effect it will have on some unfortunate Malawians. It was during the last leg of the trip to Blantyre that two unsuspecting 1-year-old twin babies came face to face with a ghost. It was humorous to watch as they would sit contently until they would see Matt and scream bloody murder and look away as quickly as possible. They would forget about the ghost and sit contently and then one would look in Matt's direction and again scream uncontrollably. This went on for a good 20 minutes until they fell asleep exhausted from the ordeal.

Lady with matching bucket
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Just outside of Blantyre is a beautiful mountain (Mt Malanje) amongst lush green tea plantations. We set off with a couple of American travellers to embark on a 3 day climb. Ready to leave at 8am our estimated arrival to the starting point of the hike (9am) simply didn't happen as we spent the majority of of the day waiting for our easily side-tracked travel mates to get their 'stuff' together. As a result we started the hike at 4pm allowing us only 2 hours to get to the plateau before sundown. This meant we would have to take the much steeper direct route up the mountain side and we would have to complete the remainder of the day's hike with flashlights. This route was strenuous to say the least. In fact, Alisa said a lot of things this day that could never be included on a PG blog - some of which would almost definitely burn your eyes just reading the quotes.

Two unsuspecting 1-year-old twin babies came face to face with a ghost!

Fanta Delivery
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The next two days were spent hiking other mountain peaks, cliff diving and swimming in the waterfalls. At the end of the hike we met up with our American friends to discover they had arranged for us to enjoy lunch at a local eatery/sewing shop. This would prove to be a pivitol moment for a week to come. Our stomachs were turning and we spent a lot of time sitting in what we dubbed the 'pocelain paradise.'

We're still not used to the 12 hours bus rides (to cover distances of 250kms), which is how we made our way from Blantyre to Monkey Bay to catch the Ilala ferry. The weekly trip up Lake Malawi along the Malawi / Mozambique coast. We spent 3 days and 2 nights floating past beautiful islands on the crystal clear lake - thank you Aunt Shirley, it wasn't Lake of the Woods but it definitely reminded us of you. Although the lake was beautiful, it became very evident that our stomachs had not made a full recovery. We weren't aware we could get 'sea-sick' on a lake but we made multiple return visits to pocelain paradise - That being said it was still a very enjoyable trip. We met some new people as well as others we had befriended earlier in Mozambique - NOT SOO! -> ( Although we didn't check behind the boat to see if we had been dragging her from Monkey Bay).

The Ilala Ferry
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So here we sit in Nhakata Bay in a lakeside hostel preparing for our travels to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

The thing we will miss the most about Malawi is the friendliness of the Malawian people.