Zomba Hiking - Forest Old and New

The last day in Zomba we decided to have a go at a hike even though it had poured the night before and looked threatening the whole way. We didn't make it as far as the famous lookouts (named for the Queen Mother of England and the Emperor of Ethiopia - both of whom visited the plateau over 60 years ago) but were just glad we didn't get dumped on. 

The area is famous for seeing huge loads of wood being carried for kilometers down the mountain. This particular group of women were not all carrying wood and the one load was quite a bit smaller than typical but it was at a moment where I could easily ask permission to take a photo since it wasn't too steep.

Unfortunately, there are lots of areas on the plateau which have been completely stripped of forest. Happily, what you probably can't see, is this whole hillside seemed like it had been prepped for seedlings and there was a large group of people there whom we assumed were going to be planting seedlings. There were many other hills with seedlings in various stages of growth (in addition to many hills with no trees left). 

 The photo above and below were taken quite close together. Below, John is standing in the old growth forest. And above is where that ends and you see the beginning of an area that was clear cut. We wondered how much of the plateau was covered in forest when the above mentioned dignitaries visited in the 50's and 60's.

Zomba - Sunbird Ku Chawe

One of the perks of being posted overseas is that John gets both local and US holidays. Taking advantage of our second long weekend we thought the next good place to visit during the rainy season was the mountain area in the south. Fortunately, as you can see from the photos here we had a pretty clear afternoon when we arrived to the beautiful Zomba plateau.

The baboons at the Sunbird Ku Chawe hotel really were a nuisance (they had to lock the doors to the dining room at breakfast time so that they didn't run in and steal food and there was no way to eat outside on the patio for breakfast). However, these two provided quite the entertainment on our first afternoon as they enjoyed the ketchup from the people who had an afternoon snack on the lawn. But the next day at dinner there were no bottles of ketchup to be found for the french fries and the waiter had to bring the little packets instead!

Food, Glorious Food

Sometimes people have asked me what we eat when we live in Africa and for us, the answer is pretty much the same thing that we eat in the US. But it does take a while to figure out exactly what that means in each new place. We have the added challenge here that John and I have both changed our eating habits since we last lived together two and a half years ago so it will be a while longer before we completely figure things out. Read on for some photo highlights of food in Malawi.

This was the lunch I ordered when we were at the Lake - curry chicken. I think the rice and beans combo is pretty common here - although Malawians prefer nsima - basically a stiff porridge made out of white corn meal (called sadza in Zimbabwe).  We had a lunch at John's boss's house last Friday and Rodwell, our housekeeper did local dishes - nsima, beans (prepared with vegetables) and pumpkin greens with groundnut (peanut) flour. It was fun to finally have someone make local food in my kitchen - that was a first in all of our years in the foreign service.

I bought a crown pumpkin and asked Rodwell to prepare it - it's delicious.  It was a big pumpkin so we had it quite a few times - like this and then roasted in cubes. 

A family favorite from the time that we lived in Costa Rica. I have a big freezer so I'm trying to freeze up some mango because I think you can only find it in season. Plain yogurt that is similar to what we can get in the US is very hard to find but I did find it in a shop yesterday that I'm hoping will normally have it in stock.

A beautiful lunch salad - again thanks to Rodwell. I love eating salad but neither John nor I love making them. Avocados are also in season (but carrots are hard to find right now).

Happy to be back to our favorite brand of South African juice. You can find this in the US (they even had it at the shop at Carnegie Mellon University where Abigail goes to school) but it we get all the varieties here - including this new one.

Yes, this is fresh salmon (not previously frozen). There is a store that occasionally imports salmon - the sign said that it was caught last Tuesday in Norway. You had to buy the whole fish but there were two couples who wanted to split a whole one three way and we were standing at the counter looking at the packages of smoked salmon (since there was no way we were going to buy a whole salmon) and they asked if we were interested in joining them. I hadn't really intended on buying some but I must say it was delicious!! The best salmon I've had in a while - sold right here in Malawi. 

First Excursion - Lake Malawi

For years we have heard our Malawian friends tell us the wonders of Lake Malawi. Since my very first weekend here happened to be Martin Luther King weekend we decided we ought to take advantage of that and head to "the Lake" even though we are in the thick of the rainy season. This is a good post for lots of photos:

Can you see the car in front of us? As we got close to our destination we saw a lot of them. I guess they are the out in the country version of the minibuses. The hatch was open for the passengers!

The grounds of the Livingstonia where we stayed.

The beach at our hotel. 

View from our room - we were out on the beach for a while and watched the rain roll across the lake. It took a long time but eventually reached the shore.

There were a number of brief pauses for the cows crossing the road. 

After breakfast at our hotel we wandered down the coast with a destination of the Red Zebra Lodge where we wanted to eat lunch. It was very picturesque and some of the bright blue sky returned.

So, the business at the lodge is exporting exotic fish. We had a tour of the tropical fish farm which was very interesting. The lake in general has been overfished so one of the things that the farm is working on is restocking the lake - not just removing fish. 

The spot for our lunch was in the garden right next to the lake. A perfect spot for lunch.

I'm not usually a big soda fan but I do enjoy a good ginger beer. This is Malawi's version of Stoney which we drank in Zimbabwe and Kenya (Arianna says its available in the US but I've never seen it).

A beautiful blue sky - there has not been a lot of that in the three weeks since I've arrived. We hope to go to another part of the lake when the rainy season is over. Next excursion is the mountains!