Livingstonia

Malawi
April 12th, 2009

Bidding a rainy farewell from Nkota Bay, we headed further North to Livingstonia. Adding an extra couple to Nessie’s load, Alex and Veera- friends from Chizzy, we made our happy way. The company was great and the drive wasn’t too long, but the last section of the road was extremely steep. This particular section of road had been shut the previous week due to rains and mud slide, but was fine now- well drivable anyways. We set up camp at the Mushroom Farm (a few kms short of Livingstonia) and admired the views of the hills and lake below while enjoying a G&T. I do mean a G&T – there was a whole bottle of gin but only one tonic, we had to make due with soda which worked rather well as the four of us polished off the bottle quite nicely.

The next morning we headed up the final few kms to Livingstonia. Arriving we drove straight to the church, which is the main attraction of the town. Climbing out of the car we headed for the wooden doors. Locked. What? Yes it was locked. Not people to give up we decided to try and find the vicar to open the church for us. The vicar it seems was away in South Africa for a Sunday School meeting. However we did enjoy a tour of the cathedral (set up specifically in a Malaria free area) given by the vicar’s son of twelve. The tour consisted of a pointed out impressive stained glass window, a tour up steep and rackety steeps past the church bell and on to the roof of the church for lovely views, and the back room of the church where meetings are held.

Satisfied with our tour we wandered around town. Feeling hungry we asked two people sitting on the steps of the town department of antiquities (yes I know) where we could eat. They told us we could eat there. Deciding to be forward thinking we thought it best if we ordered our lunch then, so we could wander as meals often take about an hour to prepare. No problems. Order taken and we happily continued to explore. An hour later we returned and waited an additional half an hour. At last the meal was ready. Unfortunately it just wasn’t the meal we ordered. No beef stew only fried chicken- but fried chicken African style with maybe three bites of meat on the poor roadrunners wing. No fair.  Our next stop was to find a bottle shop where we stocked up on beers and an interesting bottle of gin with an illustrated label consisting of a man without hands eating you guessed it, fried chicken.

The final destination of the day was to see the waterfalls nearby. Not exactly sure where to go, we heard some children shouting ‘waterfall’ and stopped. Parking the car we had another tour, this time led by four boys aged 10. Quite cute they led us to the first waterfall, and then to the second. On route to the second though, they decided it was too dangerous but only after we jump crossed some water and navigated some slippery mud. All in all it was a fun couple of days, and we enjoyed your company so much A&V. Thanks for the good times.