MONDAY 8/1
Hi all,
After I last wrote, we went on a night game drive. We got to see our leopard again! We went to where we had seen it previously and it wasn't there. But then it walked up behind us and went back into the undergrowth. Very cool!
Unfortunately other than that we didn't really have much luck. We stopped and had a drink at the river as the sun went down, and then went game driving with a huge torch. We saw lots of hippos out of the water, they come out at night after the sun has gone down. During the day, the sun hurts their skin so they stay in the water (as a pale person I feel their pain!). Their skin was pretty gross and covered in scratches from the river, it kind of looked like sausage meat. Other than that we saw many animals we had seen earlier in the day, then a rabbit and a type of African small cat. No hyenas unfortunately!
We did, however, see lots of fireflies and the sky was impressively filled with stars that looked like diamonds. It was beautiful!
I slept a lot better than the previous night. I could hear a pride of lions making lots of noise as I went to sleep and recorded it, but then put my earplugs in. I was able to sleep pretty well after that.
This morning we got up early and headed towards the Malawian bird. After a couple of hours we stopped and I got some money out at a bank to change once we got to Malawi. Then we went to the border and got through. The stamp for Malawi was cool but took up 1.5 pages. I'm running out of space!
Once we crossed through we drove for about five more hours. Unfortunately while on the way to Lake Malawi, I checked my bag and the small purse with the money I had withdrawn wasn't there. The border crossing was pretty crowded and stressful and I don't know what happened, but it was gone.
I had a bit of a moment on the bus where it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, the same feeling I had when my phone was stolen a few years ago in Spain. The tour group are really nice though. They put some music on to cheer me up, and people have said I can borrow money if I need to.
About 6pm we arrived at our accommodation at Kande Beach by Lake Malawi. A few of us are pretty fed up with our guide telling us we will arrive by a particular time and then arriving lots later. Today we were told we would arrive at 3pm and we arrived at 6. So when we were asked to meet 15 minutes later for a village dinner we didn't really feel like it.
At 575km by 80km, Lake Malawi is the ninth largest lake in the world and the third largest in Africa, and its deepest point is 706m. It takes up 20% of Malawi's total area, which means that Malawi's roughly 18 million population are dispersed around the rest of the small country. There are people everywhere here! Everyone seems really nice and Malawi has been nicknamed the 'warm heart of Africa'. We have seen lots of families farming together from the bus today, and lots of happy kids smiling and waving to us. They run up towards the bus so excited! It sounds silly being upset over money when kids here have nowhere near what I lost and are so happy.
Rob and I had said for days we would be staying in accommodation tonight, and we aren't letting the money situation stop that. We have camped for eight nights in a row and are exhausted.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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