1989 - MalZamZimBot

[Nenette]

I promised this quite a while ago. So, here we go for a trip back in the last millenaire ......

 

Traveltrip MalZamZimBot 1989

 

LLW BA53 27OCT is written on the ticket sticking in my dairy:

Flight from London via Harare to Lilongwe. After Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe (VicFalls) two more african countries I will be seeing: Malawi and Zambia.

But the first touch on african earth seems to be endless. We are stuck on the airport of Harare. Nobody has the right to leave the plane, only the first class seems to move.

Beside the Airplane, a red carpet is rolled out, people are standing in a line and I have a short glimpse on a group of dancers, someone more important than me seems to be received by officials.

Our plane continues its way with a delay of two hours and only then we learn that the King of Swaziland is visiting Zimbabwe.

 

White cumulus are piling up high in the sky and before we land, the plane is given a good shaking, but that doesn't matter. I'm back in Africa!

 

At least that's what I think!

 

What did I read in the travel guide about Malawi? Women may not wear trousers or skirts that don't cover the knee.

What does the stewardess tell me as I leave the plane? You need to wear a skirt!

Well, here I am with my luggage full of trousers covering my knees, but no skirt.

I'm allowed to go to the duty free shop, escorted by the stewardess. Unfortunately the duty free shop is rather specialized in African artcraft than in skirts and so I continue my way tightly wrapped in a typical African „pagne“. What seems to be the perfect clothing for any african woman, uncovers my rather disgraceful way of walking.

Even the police man at the customs seems to read my thoughts. You may not wear jeans under the skirt!

What a mess! So off I go to the toilet, unwrap my „pagne“, take the jeans off, and then … well..., HOW do I put this skirt on again? I wrap it tightly but it slips, it opens, nobody to help anywhere, at the end I fix it with a large knot so it won't end up on my knees!

It wasn't graceful before and now I look as if I was dressed in a bed sheet.

 

I rush into a taxi and my first call goes to Matthias, the tour guide and a friend of mine. He picks me up at the hotel and we spend the afternoon looking for a conveniant skirt for me. Finally, I order the one and only tailor-made skirt of my life and this is where it comes from:

 

[twaffle]

Nenette, this is wonderful. I never knew about Malawi and skirts. I never take a skirt with me on safari!

 

I've had that message when posting photos and it has something to do with the type of link you are posting. I think Game Warden has photo insertion instructions somewhere but basically this is what you do.

 

Go to where you have the photos hosted (I have mine on picasa but you can load them here), then open the photo you want. I have a Mac so option click on the pic and choose 'copy link' then come back to your post and click on the little photo icon above your message. You insert your copied link here making sure that you only have one http.

 

Good luck.

[Nenette]

Twaffle, the skirt for women as well as short hair for men is no longer mandatory in Malawi. So you can go there without changing any clothing habits.

Unfortunately, the link still doesn't work. It must have something to do with the way the photos are hosted.

[Atravelynn]

News to me on the skirts. Perhaps that has changed by now.

 

There are some hints here: http://safaritalk.net/index.php?showforum=13

 

I have some more if you PM me.

 

We simply must have some skirt shots in this report.

[Nenette]

Finally, when hosting on Picasa, the images are shown. So I will redirect my pics to Picasa.

 

[twaffle]

Well done!

[Nenette]

The next day the rest of the travel group arrives, a group of friends, two couples and a woman of my age. The first contact is a bit distant but at the end of this trip we will be a closely connected team. For the moment, we need to get to know each other.

After another night in Lilongwe, we start our trip to Kasungu, Lifupa Lodge.

 

We study intensely the very african danger sign about Charlie:

 

 

Who the hell is Charlie? A leopard? Cheetah? Baboon? He doesn't show up.

 

I enjoy my life at the banks of Lifupa. Hippos on the other side, lechwes, a lonely wart hog, marabus and black storks. The yawning of a hippo brings back memories of Baringo where this noise kept you from sleeping at night.

 

 

The game drives are not as rich in game as I know from Botswana but we see white back vultures, elephants, reedbucks, lechwes, buffalos, Lichtenstein's hartebeest. and snake eagles. The bushes are dense and it's difficult to shoot good photos.

 

 

Finally Charlie appears to personally welcome the newbies and his size clearly makes him the boss of the lodge.

[Atravelynn]

Thank you for not leaving Charlie a mystery the whole report!