Malawi

Place: Karonga

Tunes: U2, Nine Inch Nails

Very tidy treeline. There are a lot of forests around here.

A crashed lorry and some local villagers watching as the bodies are pulled out.

The view out from my new office. The view is truly unobstructed by anything.

Someone hauling a container has had a really bad day.

The first beach we saw on Lake Malawi.

Peter and Teijo planning on rowing to Zimbabwe on this here boat.

In no time at all we were surronded by children, who are every time amused by the screen of a digital camera.

A sunset at the hotel.

The ride to the border and the crossing itself were easy. It took a while as we had to wait for the right bosses to get there as the under-bosses could not open the gate across the border. At the crossing, the money changers you always see were the most desperate ”businessmen” that I have ever seen. They had their usual ”no is not an answer” routine and thick wads of notes and they just kept on going and going. All the way into Malawi and even outside the border compound. Some were even running after us. This stinks of desperation and it is never nice. They were almost as sad as the merchants in Egypt.
In Malawi, things were pretty much as before in Tanzania. The roads are generally ok, but there are a lot of these "stealth" potholes that are almost impossible to see as there are shadows from trees around the road camouflaging the holes. We also saw several crashed trucks, lorries and buses. The saddest scene was a wreck where the police was just pulling three bodies out of. One man, woman and child went in that mess. Regardless of this, the bus drivers go as fast as the bus will go. Everywhere, all of the time. In general the traffic in Malawi is light and everybody drives quite nicely, apart from us. Or the buses. The beach road alongside lake Malawi was a nice lazy ride all in all.

The rest of the day was uneventful and we found this reasonable resort full of Germans and hookers, and hookers with the Germans. 

The only noteworthy thing about our bungalow was that it was full of ants. In the bathroom, there is cold water coming out from the right tap and ants from the left. All of our stuff is now covered in little ants and they will be impossible to get rid of. There is aircon at least and it even works.

The service at the restaurant was rubbish as usual in places like this and there is zero chance of getting the right change for whatever you buy. Another day on the road...