A lot has happened since my last post, that I am not even sure where to start. We have witnessed the agressiveness of African killer bees and why they were given the nickname "killer", we have enjoyed eating with our hands the local dish nshima, we have crossed flooded waters on our bicycles and refused to give countless people money.
After leaving Livingstone, we got more of a taste of local food and how people eat. There is mainly subsistence farming in Zambia and Malawi, and people eat relatively well since the soil here is so productive. Everyone has a maize plot, and the popular food to eat is nshima, which is a very thick porridge made from maize flour, which is taken off in pieces and used to scoop up the "relish" (usually tomato sauce and spinach or rape or sometimes cabbage), similar to the way a chapati is used to scoop up daal or something.
As soon as getting into Zambia we were hit with rain. It rained at least part of the day almost every day we were in Livingstone. One day it rained particularly hard while we were in the market, and the access road to Gustave's farm was this clay-ey mud that was so hard to traverse. It I took off my shoes so they wouldn't be ruined but then had no traction, so I was slipping and sliding even as my bike became harder and harder to move...the mud just caked on until the diameter of the wheel and increased by 3 or 4 inches. I ended up dragging my bike the rest of the way home! Fortunately, it was only a quarter of a mile or so.
This rain plagued us through Malawi, sometimes giving respite for a week and then coming back with a vengeance. On the days it only rained at night, the days were often quite comfortable with an overcast sky blocking the sun's most intense rays. But the days that it rained it rained hard, until all of our stuff was wet and smelly, and there was no way to get it dry without the sun, since everyone here air dries...there is not an automatic dryer to be found anywhere.
The worst rain came the day we rode into Nkhota Kota in Malawi. Not only did it pour buckets, monsoon-style on us for twenty kilometers, but we slogged through several kilometers of roads flooded to our knees, almost losing our bags in the process!
Well, now we are in Tanzania and so far it is our favorite country. I would recommend tourism to Tanzania above Malawi or Zambia based on my own experience.Running out of time, will try to post again later.
Thank you for your long awaited post! Sounds like you have had an "interesting" trip through the rain! We are so jealous of you all even for the killer bees and 3" mud on your bikes.
ReplyDeleteHere's to sunny days and dry smooth roads and a breeze at your backs.
:)