Should you find yourself visiting Lilongwe in the near future you shall see for yourself there is not a lot of tourist activities. Bars/restaurants are the main focus. One thing everyone agrees upon however is the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre.
Here animals are brought from all over the world to be cared for. The aim for the majority is to nurse them back to health & release them into the national parks. In some cases this can't be done & the animals have to remain at the centre. I arrived for the 10:00 o clock tour. With no great surprise found myself the only participant. It was a Tuesday morning after all. My guide was very accommodating & we even managed to sneak off the path to go down & see the cobra. As I imagine happens a lot the lions could not be seen. Both lions shall live out their lives in the centre as they are unable to return to the wild due to their age and how they have been treated. Bella the female spent most of her life in a Romanian Zoo in the snow & developed problems with her back legs. The centre had had problems with floods that it was still recovering from. Some animals were lost at this time. There were many different types of monkeys to be seen. All of them had boiled eggs added to their diet as a protein supplement. The African crocodiles were a sight to behold. Walking towards their enclosure I didn't even notice them as they were so still & camouflaged. I wouldn't wanna go walking on my own in the wild and encounter them. The female croc & I asked my guide this twice was called Shearer! I explained the football link to him. Though he understood I was from the UK, where Newcastle exactly was isn't something he needed to know.
The work the centre does like any charity is important & benefits everyone. All zoos have been closed in Malawi & keeping wild animals as pets is a crime with a sentence up to 30 years in jail.
Apparently there were trails I could have walked for bird watching. By the time I had found them though I had already arranged to be collected.
With the weather threatening to turn for the worse Scotty & decided not to head to a pool. Instead we went to BCC again. Though this time unlike the first night we were able to sit outside on the terrace. Some of you may remember from my first visit this was the Chinese built hotel that was unsafe to enter. Now fully repaired it is part of quite a complex with the performance art centre. The whole square can be hired for weddings & other events. The till broke when we came to pay, & Scotty demonstrated his maths skills adding up what we had had in his head faster than the staff with calculators.
We collected Don from work after another gruelling day for her ;-). Level 31 on FarmVille I believe was achieved.
When deciding where to go I asked for somewhere nice & relaxing & they delivered. Ufulu is a hotel/bar with a swimming pool. I only paddled in the shallow end this evening.
It's difficult coming up for places to take people when entertaining as everyone is very accommodating. When choosing dinner tonight & pointed out Lonely Planets top tips. Ad Lib is a Glaswegian American chain restaurant. Yes that's what I said, I know in Malawi! I went for the Jamaican goat burger with Texan fries. Having had too much of the starter bread I had to take the meat out by burger in order to finish. The food was delicious though. This restaurant wasn't open last time I was here, but previously it had been an Italians & the old owner was in as we ate. They had a large back room and looked like they could handle a lot of covers.
Back at the house, more Ricky Gervais rounded off another throughly enjoyable day.