More from Malawi

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. There is not much industry and people live of agriculture and fishing in a very traditional way. Corn, tobacco and tea are important crops but seven years of drought have not made life easy. School classes gather under huge baobab trees and up to one hundred children for one teacher is common. Life expectancy has in fifteen years risen from about 40 years to over 50, according to an article I read.

We arrive in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Immigration formalities try our patience but finally we are able to enter the country. Our rented car turns out to be a very much used Toyota Corolla, but we comfort ourselves with thinking that spare parts will be widely available in case of problems. The roads are not too bad although potholes have to be avoided all the time, and suspensions are terribly worn out on our Sputnik car. Police stops are frequent, but the police men are always polite and not looking for bribes. Malawi is a safe country to travel in with very little criminality. 

We stay one night in Monkey Bay before heading out to Mumbo Island (see previous post). After wonderful, relaxing days at Mumbo, we drive south to Satemwa tea estate, which is one of the big tea estates in the country. We get huge, colonial rooms in the beautiful, old mansion and are treated to a fancy dinner in the dining room with silver candelabras. After breakfast with local tea and coffee, we drive to the city of Blantyre and jump on the plane back to Johannesburg. Driving home from O.R. Tambo airport, we realise just how much more developed South Africa is from the rest of this continent. 

Magnificent Malawi

This year has been a bit busy as you must have noticed with the total absence of blog posts, sorry about that. Loads has happened and hopefully I can slowly come back to all events and post some pictures later. However, today I want to share a few pictures from our recent trip to Malawi. These are from the beautiful Mumbo Island in Lake Malawi. I will post more from the countryside and tea plantations, I just snapped a little too many and it has taken me several weeks to go through half of them. 

Mumbo Island

Mumbo Island lies an hours boat ride from the lake shores of Monkey Bay. Here we found the most lovely eco lodge you can imagine. All the huts are built of local material, they have wooden decks with uninterrupted lake views, where they bring you a coffee and tea tray every morning so that you can sit and enjoy the quiet morning before breakfast. All power is from the sun, and every afternoon solar lanterns are put along walking paths so that you can find your way to the restaurant. Shower water is solar heated and brought to the lovely bathroom for bucket showers, which actually work much better than unreliable warm water systems in other places we have stayed at. The lake water is warm and crystal clear and teens took Padi open water certificates. The dive master actually came to stay on the island with us for a few days in order to teach them! Enjoy the pictures, we loved our stay!

Beach view from our hut.

Lake view from our hut.

Always helpful Rapha took us on a tour around the island.

Morning coffee tray.

Divers on their way out from the beach.

The water is amazing with lots of colourful fish but also great to swim in.

Merry Christmas and Happy new year 2017

947 bike race

We did it! Almost one hundred kilometres of biking with start near our home, trying our speed at the new Kyalami race track, all the way to downtown Johannesburg riding on the highway, over Mandela bridge and back home through Cradle of Humankind and Lion Park. It was tough but definitely worth it. Our legs were rather wobbly in the evening and our bums sore. 

The radio station 94.7 organises a bike race every year and it has become a massive event. 30.000 bikers joined this year. Many do it over and over again, for K and me it was the first bike race ever. We trained on our old mountain bikes, which was maybe not the best ones for a road race, but we really enjoyed the day and were very proud to finish it. The vibe was so great we might actually join next year again. 

We rode for a charity called Project Dignity, which provides washable sanitary pads and panties for township girls who cannot afford to buy sanitary products for those days of the month. They use tissues, leaves, newspapers, whatever they can find and often miss school up to one week per month. With one pack of SUBZ, which includes nine pads and three pairs of panties, they are able finish school as the pack should cover them for five years, so about ages 13-18. 

One package of SUBZ costs 200 rand (about 15 euros). With the proceeds from the race and other fund raising events before the race, our team raised enough money for 500 girls!!! 

Awesome roadtrip in SA

Wow, another awesome holiday is behind us. This time we decided to do a roadtrip in South Africa so we packed up the car with food, drinks and a trailer and headed towards Drakensberg and our favourite place in the mountains, the Champagne Valley. Four days hiking, riding motorbikes, horse riding, swimming and just relaxing after a hectic time at school and work. 






Then we packed up again and drove through Zululand to the coastal town of St. Lucia, which is famous for the hippos that roam the streets at night. St. Lucia turned out to be a lovely little town with wild nature areas just next to people's houses. We saw hippos playing in the water close to the campsite, but did not spot any on the street. Unfortunately we had only one night at a lovely B&B, but the wetland park and Cape Vidal would be worth exploring another time. 


Last Christmas we were at superb beach called Mabibi Beach. It was so great that we wanted to revisit and so this time we checked in to the amazing Thonga beach lodge just below the campsite we stayed at last time. What a place! Nestled among trees with wooden walkways behind the untouched beach and the ocean. We enjoyed the waves, the beach, the delicious food and K and J also managed to explore the sand tracks around the lodge on their two-wheelers. On our last morning the housekeeping lady knocked on our door and told us that the first leather back turtle was on the beach laying her eggs. It was amazing to see how she struggled to cover her eggs by scooping sand with her fins for at least an hour before heading out to the sea. In about two months time the eggs will hatch and tiny turtle babys will follow her route. 

Champagne Castle Hotel

Our cosy chalet

J enjoys driving in the soft sand.

The South African national flower is called Protea.

Thongs Beach Lodge

The first Leather back turtle for this year on Mabibi Beach.

Lake Sibaya, South Africa's biggest lake.

Views on Zululand from the car.

Confirmation party for S

In August, just before returning to Johannesburg, we celebrated S's confirmation. The priest kindly offered to come to our home, so family and godparents gathered in the garden for the ceremony, followed by lunch. Here are some pictures from the day.