Wednesday, December 4th – Tuesday, December 10th 2024
World Tour Days 32- 38
After leaving Dar es Salaam we continued making our way south towards Malawi, our 5th country so far on the world tour. We had a full driving day to get to Mikumi, Tanzania where we spent two nights just hanging out and relaxing. This was followed by a 9.5 hour driving day (including a 5 hour traffic jam) to get past Iringa. As we drove up a mountain there was a car accident blocking both lanes of traffic. Our truck and a few other vehicles that had the horse power weaved through the trucks using the opposite lane whenever there was not another vehicle. We spent the night at Kisolanza farm where the buildings had straw thatched roofs and our dinner was farm to table. The showers were nice and hot as they were wood stove heated.
Our last day in Tanzania was a 10 hour drive to a coffee plantation. We stayed in cute bungalows with beautiful flowers on the property. There was a pool overlooking the surrounding coffee plantation and mango trees everywhere. A few of us from the truck joined a coffee tour on the property. They walked us through the different stages of planting, transferring, picking, maintaining, and processing the coffee cherries. The main processes they used were wet and dry. There was machinery we got to look at that was used for cleaning and processing the coffee. At the end there was a tasting where we had to guess which one was arabica, liberica or robusta which are the main species they grow on site.
After a 9 hour drive we crossed into Malawi, stopping to see the giant baobab trees. The border crossing took about one hour longer than it should have as there was a person who had not gotten their visa ahead of time. Luckily that didn’t cause too big of a delay. When we stopped for lunch a massive school just so happened to be finishing for the day or having a break as there were about a hundred children in uniforms who came running from across the road and watched us.
We stayed at Chitimba Camp, which is right on Lake Malawi with the mountains visible in the distance along the shorline. The beach and scenery reminded Nick and I of Hawaii. In Chitimba we went for a walk through the local village to go and visit the local Witch Doctor. On the walk there were a hoard of children who followed us, chased us, waved to us, and ran up to say hello. They were very friendly and adorable. Some did excited dances when we said hello back, others even ran out from their homes butt naked in order to be able to come and say hello.
The children sat with us as we waited for the Witch Doctor under a mango tree. Ripe mangos fell from the tree and hit one person in the head. Alex and one of our guides climbed the tree to pick some mangos for the whole group. I did a few ‘tricks’ for the kids including going cross-eyed, pretending to take my thumb off, and using my hands as binoculars. They loved it. When the Witch Doctor was ready we made our way into his ceremony hut, where villagers played drums and women beat wooden blocks together. The Witch Doctor had white paint on his face, anklets with feathers, a horse tail whip, and a belt with bells. He danced in the middle of a white circle to the music, aggressively shaking his hips. Each person had to dance with him one by one for about 20 seconds. I was last to go up and channeled my inner belly dancer, shimmying as fast as I could while twirling the horse tail whip. I got quite the applause from the women who were beating the wooden blocks. The next person in our group did not want to go up after that.
The Witch Doctor showed us some of his medicines, answered questions, then took one person in at a time to tell us our fortunes. It was an overall unique and cool experience. We learned about how one becomes the Witch Doctor, what they do for their village, and what they do in their daily routines. On our way back to the camp the parade of children followed once again. Two people from our tour went to take a selfie with them to see if they would be happy. The children went absolutely crazy, jumping, smiling, laughing, it was like a selfie was better than candy. We ended the evening by walking on the beach and interacting with more children, who were happy to show us how many mangos they were eating.
We drove 10 hours up a mountain and back down to go from the north of Lake Malawi to the middle. Our lunch stop this day was on the side of the road at a rubber tree plantation. We explored through the trees looking at how they collect the sap for rubber production. At the next camp we were able to set up our tents right on the grass beside the sandy beach. There were kayaks and a pool available as free activities. We were there for 2 nights to relax and catch up on logistical things.
The lake has a few fun facts: it has the more fish species than any other lake in the world, it has crocodiles so there were times you should not swim, and it also has a parasite that can be caught from skin contact. Needless to say I did not go swimming, but Nick did. The sunrises on the beach were stunning, with fishermen in boats on the water and birds in the sky.
Our entire time in Malawi was on Lake Malawi. It was a beautiful country to drive through, a short but sweet 3 days as we made our way further south to Zambia.
