Day 21 to 22 - 20th to 21st November - Senga Bay, Malawi

Point of departure : Lilongwe

Point of arrival : Senga Bay, Lake Malawi

Accommodation: the rooftoptent -Steps campsite, Livingstonia Beach Club([email protected])

Km travelled today: 117 kmCum: 5 602km (gravel 0km cum 1 323km)

Countries so far: 4/16

Where to next? Nkhata Bay, Lake Malawi

Total number of photos taken: 95 (cum 1 002)

(background information source - Bradt Guide to Malawi)

Lake Malawi - is the 3rd largest lake in Africa (590km north to south and 85km east to west and occupies 20% of the country's total area.Only one river, the Shire (pronounced shirry), flows from it and it eventually flows into the Indian Ocean via the Zambezi River.Due to Malawi being landlocked, the Lake plays an important part in the country's economy with plenty of fishing villages scattered along the length of the lakeshore - it's a nation of fishermen.

Dr David Livingstone first saw Lake Nyassa (now called Lake Malawi) in 1859 and was bewitched by its beauty.The " Lake of Stars", he called it as a myriad of twinkling galaxies glittered on the lake.Here he battled slavery and disease in a country where his efforts shaped history.

In his time the Lake was dotted with dhow sails ferrying slaves and ivory across to the eastern shore for the long march to the Tanzanian coast.Today, peaceful dugout canoes sail the lake no longer fearful of Arab traders.

Our camp site was right on the beach with Lizard Island right in front.It was a beautiful camp site with good facilities.Lizard Island is a rocky outcrop and is renowned for its huge breeding colony of white cormorants and water monitor lizards.We intended to visit the Island but never got round to it.

We immediately felt a difference in temperature from Zambia - the lake area was hot and humid.Apart from an overland truck (with 12 people) and two South Africans - Jan and Jaco - who are currently on contract in Malawi for 18 months, we were the only ones camping.

Charlie (the local hotel guide), who quickly became our Mr Fix-it introduced himself to us.As a result of the fuel shortage in Malawi - rumoured to be foreign exchange shortage - Charlie organised 40 litres of diesel for us on the black market - at a price - MKW 400 (R20) a litre (going price MKW200) - the most expensive diesel we have paid to date.We had enough to get through to Tanzania but felt it was best to have a backup in case Tanzania had shortages (we had been hearing rumbles along those lines).

We woke up on Saturday morning with the sound of waves crashing and looked out from our tent and saw the lake was very choppy - the wind was blowing (hence the reason for not going to Lizard Island).It was amazing to see the transformation on the lake from a mirror calm lake the day before to a very choppy one this morning.By the afternoon it had calmed down quite substantially.We had our first experience of the locals this morning - they arrived at Senga Bay en masse to swim in the lake.We ended up at the hotel pool (MKW500 each = R25) - we needed to cool down and were quite hesitant about swimming in the lake, although Charlie assured us no bilharzia.

We also met Brian Connors, BJ and David with their sons - they had arrived that morning for a father and son camping weekend.They are US citizens and Brian is with the Peace Corps and BJ with the State Department.David is a private consultant.Brian kindly gave us tips on the coast road north and his number in case we needed anything whilst in Malawi.

The fishermen arrived with their dugout canoes and freshly caught fish - whereupon Charlie quickly bought us a nice size butterfly fish, cleaned, gutted it and filleted it for us for the braai that evening.It was truly delicious.Our very first fish braai on the beach.