Greetings from the SeaLion, Lake Kariba’s only operating ferry that allows you to travel the length of the entire lake. We are on it for 23 hours, so I might as well make use of the time to write an update for our site, which I hope to be sending out through cyberspace with the next available internet at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
 
We wrapped up filming at Lake Malawi and I am quite happy about the footage I got. Now months of reviewing, logging and editing lie ahead. I am very thankful to Pieter for having supported me thoughout the production process and I have left Malawi with fond memories of the people in the fishing village of Chembe, especially the kids, and in particular a little boy named Kumbo who was quickly by my side every time we were shooting in the the little fishing port.  

Before departing from Lake Malawi we chartered Musafa (the only yacht on the entire lake) with our friends, Hans-Peter and Colleen, from South Africa. We enjoyed a splendid time in great company, saw more of the lake and commemorated our 7th wedding anniversary having returned to the same catamaran we had been on during our honeymoon. The highlight of the charter was the visit of a remote and very secluded little fishing village on the eastern shore on the boarder to Mozambique. The village featured truly rural and untouched existence of fishermen surrounded by majestic Baobab trees and a few subsistence veggie gardens. The people though warned us not to go into the water since a crocodile had just tried to attack a woman doing her laundry in the lake. This didn’t deter Pieter, nor our friends Hans-Peter and Colleen to go diving in the lake.
 
We carried on to Zambia and revisited the Luangwa River Camp site that we remembered well from our Tour d’Afrique in 2006. It comes to show that memory is a very selective thing because while I remembered the lovely hot showers I had forgotten the fact that a shower results in one smelling like a smoked fish since the water is brought to boiling temperature by a smoking firewood geyser. We met a couple of fellow globetrotters whom I spent the entire morning with discussing the philosophy of traveling while Pieter rode his bike to the boarder of Mozambique and back. The couple had been on the road for 18 months already and the woman, Jan, told me that they were at a point where they did not really know where to go and what to do next. Both she and her husband Trevor felt that they had become slightly complacent with traveling in Africa after such a long time on the road and wondered if they should go on or perhaps go to a place like India instead. I told them that the more exotic, the greater the risk and the more one pushes the comfort zone – the better the choice. We said good-by and the couple headed-out eastward, in the opposite direction from us. A few hours later on the road we met them again. They had thought about their choices and turned around. Now they were going to India which means shipping their car out of Durban to Mumbay.  This must have been the biggest impact I had on anyone in a long time!
 
We only spent two days in Zambia and then crossed the boarder to Zimbabwe at Lake Kariba. There we had a spectacular close-up encounter with lots of hippos at night. Not only did they enter the campsite from the lake but they were mowing and fertilizing the grass directly around our tent.
 
We had a very good time in Mana Pools and saw lots of animals. Pieter, however, was a little disappointed in comparison with the huge amount of wild life he was able to spot during his last visit in the dry season. After lots of rain the park is very lush and the animals don’t have to come to any of the 4 pools in order to find water. Yet we had a big elephant bull in our camping spot and lots of visitors at night, including impala, hyenas, lots of hippos, and something mysterious that kept brushing against our ground tent. We crawled into our tent while our camp fire was still burning and the hyenas between the fire and our tent cast over-life size shadows on our inside tent walls. What a sight!   The commotion was big around our tent all night and we heard lions roar, elephants trumpet and the hippos snorting throughout the night. Mana Pools is a truly magically place with superb untamed wildlife and unique vegetation right on the banks of the mighty Zambezi river. It is also the only game reserve with lions, buffalos, hippos, leopards, and elephants, in which one is allowed to walk around unaccompanied. We hope that people are sensible so that it will stay this way in the future since most dangerous encounters are typically provoked by people, and not by the animals.
 
Time to go, since the sun is setting over Lake Kariba and the Gin&Tonics are in order for another beautiful sunset in Africa. ($0.95 each!) If you ever want a ride on this amazing floating watering hole, contact www.karibaferries.com.

After Pieter completed the grueling 8-day Cape Epic Mountain Bike race successfully with his stellar Czech partner Milan (the team landed on the podium 3 times), it was time to get serious about organizing our trip to Malawi.

We had gotten our car, a Defender, and spontaneously named it “Tin-Tin” (see pics to see why). Build for the yuppies of Cape Town, it still needed seriously pimping for our expedition. 

We added a roof rack with a top tent, a water tank, a heavy-duty shovel, gas bottle, jerry cans, a retractable awning, and an extra fuel tank as well as a fridge and an onboard power transformer with multiple plugs to charge our computers, camera batteries, GPS and phones. Apart from that, with the car came a ton of paperwork including the necessity for a South African driver’s license, international insurance, police clearance, and a subscription to a satellite tracking system. Because we are not residents of South Africa previous B&B landlords kindly let us use their address. This is Africa… so no problem there. We also got several copies of our paperwork for the likely cases of roadblocks and harassment during boarder-crossings and had them certified by the Stellenbosch police. This was a particularly interesting task since the police officer decorated all papers with two stamps each as well as his signature but never bothered to see any of the originals. We were good to go and rushed almost straight from the podium celebration of the Cape Epic to the N1, the long road north from Cape Town to Johannesburg in order to pick-up our film equipment that was safely stored with our dear friends Colleen and Hans-Peter.
 
By the 5th of April we had made it to the boarder of Zimbabwe, though before crossing our awning needed fixing, which had broken completely in the heavy rains of the night. We had seen a lot of intense downpour by now and started to wonder if our wet sleeping bags and clothing would ever dry again. We crossed the Limpopo River into Zimbabwe and headed straight to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins that embody Africa’s contribution to civilization. The remains of the old sophisticated structure are well guarded by the Zimbabwean army and also gave the country its name.  Zimbabweans are very friendly, quite educated people, and the roads and towns are surprisingly clean. Despite all warnings in the media that fuel is scarce we got at first attempt diesel in Harare, and we were amazed by how business flourishes again in Western franchise shops, albeit everything being very expensive. The economy is now entirely based on the US Dollar and we even got change of a rare 2$ note when paying for one of the many well-maintained toll roads. After the last hard two years with over 1,000% inflation people have become plausibly very opportunistic and after we had crawled up the steep ladder into our rooftop tent at night people immediately came out of the woods to use the coals of our fire to cook their own supper.
 
Flies, dirt, beggars, grumpy civil servants, and their demands for bribes marked the boarder crossing to Mozambique. The back and forth between different tents and makeshift shacks that houses the uniformed masters of “stamp crack-down” is not only confusing because different locals offer their expertise in navigating this bureaucratic jungle for a small fee, but its also extremely time consuming. After filling out endless forms, each carbon copy requires its own stamp before all forms are passed from one officer to another for further inspection. Then comes the ultimate question that opens the gate: “what do you have for me?” We found out that anything goes from a tin of beans to a can of beer or even a few hard-boiled eggs which were the bribes of the travelers before us and which were devoured before us by the officials who occupied the road tax payment tent. Mozambique’s countryside is without a doubt very beautiful but poverty is omnipresent in all corners of its rural areas. A seemingly rather unproductive population re-sells fuel in small amounts on the side of the road, and lottery tickets speared on branches of Mopane trees advertise a chance for a better life.  By now we are also used to the routine of camping, the dish washing in a little bucket and the cooking on a single gas flame. Setting up and breaking down the camp has become easier and faster but we are now also looking forward to staying put for a little while.
 
Upon entering Malawi the skies were blue and the people became friendlier with each kilometer that we ventured deeper into the country. It took us 3 days to get to the lake because we enjoyed photographing lots of wild life on the way, including elephant, wildebeest, impala, kudu, warthog, and different types of monkey. We didn’t sot any hippos but their snorting sound was heard throughout the night. Now that we are in Chembe we want to focus on filming. The village on the south-shore of the lake has grown a lot since we have last been here and we are pleased about the fact that we can hike to one of the lodges to connect to the internet. It feels incredibly good to be back here and the bright blue-tailed geckos are still as fantastic as the lake itself. ……..

We are way behind in keeping you posted but please stay tuned for updates when internet becomes once more available. Greetings to all! Rita & Pieter