Liwonde National Park and the Ilala Ferry

Kim and I have had a tough time finding decent Internet lately, so we'll do our best to recap the last couple weeks. After Blantyre we headed for Liwonde National Park. Definitely one of the craziest transportation attempts so far. When we got off of the minibus in Liwonde, about 6 km from the park gate, we were literally swarmed with men trying to get us into their taxis or onto their bicycle taxi. Why not take the bike right? It was quite a trip. I think now is a decent time to mention that most of the people we met in Malawi (and elsewhere) have not seemed overly concerned about body odor. So I'll just say that 20 minutes 5 inches from that guy's armpit was plenty for me!

Riding the Bicycle Taxi

The camp we stayed at in the park was pleasantly surprising. We slept in our tent, but the tent spots were under a long thatched pavilion that could support about 10 tents. While we were setting up our tent we saw a baboon stroll through the camp, which made me a little nervous about sleeping with our food! In fact, the next morning we saw a baboon steal some food from the tent nearest us. The park offered various activities and breakfast/lunch/dinner in the lodge. We went for a sunset drive one night and a canoe safari one day, and we ate our dinners at the lodge.

Canoe Safari in Liwonde

The canoe trip was especially nice. We saw lots of birds, about 10 Kingfishers put on a show for us as they hovered and dove for fish all around our canoe. We also paddled right alongside a pod of about 12 hippos! It was great to get to see them close up--they are very vocal! We also had plenty of downtime to relax around the park and do some reading. In all, it was a very nice few days. (We did see lots of other animals as well: buffalo, antelopes, warthogs, elephants, and zebra. It's funny how quickly those animals become second mention, but they are still fun to see.)

Relaxing and reading at the park

We had to leave the park to catch the Ilala Ferry at Monkey Bay, Malawi. We managed to get a ride from Mark and Jenna, two South Africans we met at dinner who are working in Malawi. It was really nice to ride in a truck with A/C and nobody on each shoulder. Also, Mark had been a safari guide in Tanzania for a few years, so we got to pick his brain a little along the way.

The ferry is such a scene. You can tell that years ago it was pretty stylish, but the years have taken their toll, no toilet seats, mostly rust where iron was, and the wood is years past needing a new coat of paint. That said, it's still worth the trip. Kim and I got a cabin class room, everyone else had to sleep on the deck, or under decks down by the engine. Turned out to be the best decision we've made in a while, because the water got pretty rough that first night! So nice to have our own sink, if you know what I mean!

The Ilala Ferry

By far the most fascinating part of the trip was trying to get off the darn thing. Without my noticing about 400 people filled a space for 200 and each of them must have had 75 pounds of luggage (mostly fish or some other commodity). And there is one exit. If you've ever been to a Twins playoff game or a Vikings game, think about trying to force everyone in the Metrodome out one exit, and give each of them a gunny sack or two full of vegetables. That's about what it was like. I know I stepped on at least 5 people and was myself stepped on multiple times. Interestingly, this will prove to be a pattern we saw over the next couple weeks, whether waiting in line for something or in traffic, people just fill in the open spaces, no matter how much it will slow everything down.

The deck of the ferry

We spent six nights at our ferry port in Nkhata Bay. In all a nice town, pretty low key. The best part of it was walking along past the children, who are everywhere (without any parents in sight). They go out of their way to say, or more likely yell "hello". There were plenty of white people in the town (100 or more), but they never got tired of saying hello and waving to us with big smiles. It was nice to have so many reasons each day to return a big smile.

We've put some new pictures on at the link on the left, so check 'em out! Good-bye until next time, we miss you!