Before the bordercrossing with Malawi we filled our tummies once more with a Tanzanian speciality - chips mayai or a french fries' omlet. Very filling for the price.
The making of chips mayai for us.
Then we rolled up at the border. On the Tanzanian side everything was easy and quick, but once we got to the Malawian side it got a little more complicated.
The thing is that although we both have two passports we are starting to run out of blank pages (hey, it is country number 44 we are visiting), and we are trying to combine the two so that the pages we have left would be used as economically as possible, so that we don't run into a dead end too soon. Meaning it happened so that we got the Tanzanian exit stamp in one passport and the Malawi visa in the other.
- "But I cannot put an entry stamp in a passport that does not have an exit stamp!"
- "OK, so what do we do?"
- "Go back to the Tanzanian side and get an exit stamp into the passport with the Malawi visa!"
So, we went back to the Tanzanian side.
- "But I cannot put an exit stamp into a passport that does not have an entry stamp!"
Right, back to the Malawi side.
- "But I will not put the stamp…"
!!!
Estonians can now only get a new passport if they give fingerprints ("biometric" passport) which can only be done either in Estonia or an embassy of Estonia (closest of which is in Cairo, Egypt). We've contacted both the Estonian police and the ministry of foreign affairs to see if they could make an exception and issue us at least a temporary passport without giving our fingerprints, but no. But flying back to Estonia just to give fingerprints is absurd, if not impossible. It seems we'll have to try use the existing passports for as long as it is at all possible, and then see what happens. Ideally we'd like to ride up the West coast of Africa, but that means a whole bunch of countries that want to see an empty visa page or two in our passports.
Two hours later we had our passports stamped and we could continue our journey. The roads in Malawi are not as smooth as in Tanzania, but they don't have speed bumps here either, which is a total relief. Also, Malawi only has two radars for measuring speed.
First thing in Malawi we went to a local restaurant. I prefer to stick to the classics, so chicken and rice were in order, but Kariina always likes to try the local stuff, so she had beef with nsima. Basically it seems to be the sam thing as the Tanzanian ugali, but even more tasteless.
Chicken rice Malawi style.
Nsima.
Unfortunately, food is relatively expensive in Malawi - a plate of simple food starts at $2.50, at tourist places at $4.00, so we mostly have to self-cater.
We continued, enjoying the glittering, green landscapes of rice fields. Traveling in the wet season definitely has its advantages - in the dry deason it would all be dry and lifeless.
Malawi landscape.
In front of us went a military truck full of Malawi ladies, who, as they saw us behind, started to sing. A truly special experience! Too bad our recorder was tucked away in the pannier, but to give you an example of the local music, here's a recording from the local radio:
Soon we arrived at the lake Malawi (or Nyassa as it is better known), and were surrounded by a bunch of kids wanting to have a picture taken of them.
Special type of canoes for Lake Malawi.
Boy sitting on a wooden canoe.
Panorama of lake Malawi and life around it (click to enlarge)
Drying fish in a fishing village.
Local kids gather if you stop - spot a future policeman on the picture.
How many facial expressions you see?
Malawi children curious about everything...
Girl carrying stuff and her young brother.
As fun as it is to have all those kids surround you, it is also stressful as you really cannot relax - as much as you may want to trust these little fingers touching everything they find, you still have to watch out not to have something snatched. So after a short session we went to look for a quieter beach where we could actually take in the views. And we found one! Topless ladies were doing their laudry, and naked boys were bathing in the lake.
Just as we got our photo camera out, the show began, with boys jumping saltoes in the water, forwards and backwards - I had to try really hard to get the focus right. But they got even more excited as Kariina drew out the video camera - first they just posed, not understanding that it was not a still image machine, but as she showed them the playback, they really got into the thing, singing and dancing. Wow!
Kariina filming and children showing off accordingly.
Portrait of a local.
Playtime on the lake.
Action.
Backflip salto.
Future bantamweight boxing world champion?
Another panorama of lake Malawi and life around it (click to enlarge)
We had read that if you turned inland from the beach and went up the mountains to the village of Livingstonia, nice views would be awaiting. The track there was pretty rocky and slippery, but up there we saw old buildings, breathed fresh air and enjoyed the views down to the Lake Malawi.
Road to Livingstonia.
Dry mudtrack is very rideable.
Decent British-style houses in Livingstonia.
Banana seller.
Malawi landscape seen from Livingstonia.
Panorama of Lake Malawi from Livingstonia (click to enlarge)
Lake Malawi reflection.
Too often we get so immersed in our everyday life that we forget to notice the details of the life that surrounds us. Due to the rotation of the Earth we have day and night, due to the variations of the Earth's angle with the Sun we have seasons, the magnetic field works as a protective shield from the lethal radiation, creating at the same time magnificent plays of light on the poles of our home planet.The stellar wind ionizes our atmosphere during the day which heals itself during the night, thanks to the gravitation of the Moon the life on ocean shores is affected by tides, differences in water temperatures in different parts of the globe create currents, distributing energy to places far away from the equator, the friction between the soft air and the hard ground creating a complex circle of life. It is just like a huge cacophony, or maybe quite the opposite, a symphony vibrating in our bodies? All the sensations, the smells, gusts of wing and displays of light, stuffiness and freshness. Like a radio playing the static noise, yet within you can sense a clear tune.
Sometimes our planet can be a paradise. If you just notice the right moment and hook on to it.
Panorama of sunset colours above Lake Malawi (click to enlarge)
Colours of the dawn at play (click to enlarge).
The last beam of light...
A swim in crystal clear Lake Malawi...
Kariina and a local crossing the lake on canoe.
Fisherman on Lake Malawi.
Water and Air...
A lone fisherman...
The very last beam of sunlight...
After-the-rain colours on the rich shores of Lake Malawi...
A drop of water...
A leaf...
The transition zone between a collecting thunderstorm and a fading sunlight...
A mystic cloud above an island seen from Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi...
A reddish flash of thunder inside the cloud reflected from the water during the dusk...
Fishermen on the lake having their last catch...
Fishermen returning home at dusk, just before dark...
From Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi we headed to Malawi's capital - Lilongwe. Just like every other African capital we'd visited so far, it isn't actually a place one must visit. Do you remember us writing much about Djibouti City, Addis Abeba, Nairobi, Kampala, Dodoma? Not much to see there, so I think why people end up there is to have something done. In our case it was the South-African visa - a tricky thing to obtain if you are not resident in a country where you apply.
We went to the South-African high commission together with two Slovenians whom we'd first met during our stay in Nairobi, and later in Nkhata Bay. Vlasta and Dean both ride a Honda Africa Twin and they're headed to Cape Town. Because the overlanding crowd tends to move along more-or-less similar routes in Africa (either up or down!), you inevitably stumble upon familiar faces - in Northern Ethiopia we'd met a German couple - Siggi and Gerdy on two KTM 640 Adventures whom we'd met later on several occasions, and in Nkhata Bay we once again met a Finnish guy Jami on his Yamaha Tenere, whom we were familiar with from Nairobi.
But back to business. Stocked with passports, application forms, photos, application fees, and also copies of our credit cards (the "sufficient funds"), explanation letters (stating the purpose of our intended visit) and invitation letters (big thanks to mr. Welsh!), we went to the high commission. There we were told that even with all that documentation we only have a fifty-percent chance of getting the visa because they only issue visas for non-residents in highly exceptional circumstances. Not very encouraging, I must say.
Four days and numerous phone calls later we did have the visas, the consul reminding us that we might still be turned down on the border for not having a return ticket and that when we proceed to the border we should take with us a heap of supporting documentation including bank statements and invitation letters and so on. Scary.
We got on our way again. Quite unusually for us we rode some 250 kilometers with the Slovenians, until we took separate routes - they wanted to see southern parts of Malawi whereas we wanted to go to the northern part of Mozambique. We would surely meet again.
Dean's and Vlasa's grill-plate - works wonders as a travelling kitchen!
Riding part of Malawi with Dean and Vlasta.
Kariina and Vlasta at Cape Maclear during dusk.
Cape Maclear panorama during dusk (click to enlarge)
That's it for Malawi. Next stop: Mozambique.
Ride safe,
Margus & Kariina
The making of chips mayai for us.
Then we rolled up at the border. On the Tanzanian side everything was easy and quick, but once we got to the Malawian side it got a little more complicated.
The thing is that although we both have two passports we are starting to run out of blank pages (hey, it is country number 44 we are visiting), and we are trying to combine the two so that the pages we have left would be used as economically as possible, so that we don't run into a dead end too soon. Meaning it happened so that we got the Tanzanian exit stamp in one passport and the Malawi visa in the other.
- "But I cannot put an entry stamp in a passport that does not have an exit stamp!"
- "OK, so what do we do?"
- "Go back to the Tanzanian side and get an exit stamp into the passport with the Malawi visa!"
So, we went back to the Tanzanian side.
- "But I cannot put an exit stamp into a passport that does not have an entry stamp!"
Right, back to the Malawi side.
- "But I will not put the stamp…"
!!!
Estonians can now only get a new passport if they give fingerprints ("biometric" passport) which can only be done either in Estonia or an embassy of Estonia (closest of which is in Cairo, Egypt). We've contacted both the Estonian police and the ministry of foreign affairs to see if they could make an exception and issue us at least a temporary passport without giving our fingerprints, but no. But flying back to Estonia just to give fingerprints is absurd, if not impossible. It seems we'll have to try use the existing passports for as long as it is at all possible, and then see what happens. Ideally we'd like to ride up the West coast of Africa, but that means a whole bunch of countries that want to see an empty visa page or two in our passports.
Two hours later we had our passports stamped and we could continue our journey. The roads in Malawi are not as smooth as in Tanzania, but they don't have speed bumps here either, which is a total relief. Also, Malawi only has two radars for measuring speed.
First thing in Malawi we went to a local restaurant. I prefer to stick to the classics, so chicken and rice were in order, but Kariina always likes to try the local stuff, so she had beef with nsima. Basically it seems to be the sam thing as the Tanzanian ugali, but even more tasteless.
Chicken rice Malawi style.
Nsima.
Unfortunately, food is relatively expensive in Malawi - a plate of simple food starts at $2.50, at tourist places at $4.00, so we mostly have to self-cater.
We continued, enjoying the glittering, green landscapes of rice fields. Traveling in the wet season definitely has its advantages - in the dry deason it would all be dry and lifeless.
Malawi landscape.
In front of us went a military truck full of Malawi ladies, who, as they saw us behind, started to sing. A truly special experience! Too bad our recorder was tucked away in the pannier, but to give you an example of the local music, here's a recording from the local radio:
Soon we arrived at the lake Malawi (or Nyassa as it is better known), and were surrounded by a bunch of kids wanting to have a picture taken of them.
Special type of canoes for Lake Malawi.
Boy sitting on a wooden canoe.
Panorama of lake Malawi and life around it (click to enlarge)
Drying fish in a fishing village.
Local kids gather if you stop - spot a future policeman on the picture.
How many facial expressions you see?
Malawi children curious about everything...
Girl carrying stuff and her young brother.
As fun as it is to have all those kids surround you, it is also stressful as you really cannot relax - as much as you may want to trust these little fingers touching everything they find, you still have to watch out not to have something snatched. So after a short session we went to look for a quieter beach where we could actually take in the views. And we found one! Topless ladies were doing their laudry, and naked boys were bathing in the lake.
Just as we got our photo camera out, the show began, with boys jumping saltoes in the water, forwards and backwards - I had to try really hard to get the focus right. But they got even more excited as Kariina drew out the video camera - first they just posed, not understanding that it was not a still image machine, but as she showed them the playback, they really got into the thing, singing and dancing. Wow!
Kariina filming and children showing off accordingly.
Portrait of a local.
Playtime on the lake.
Action.
Backflip salto.
Future bantamweight boxing world champion?
Another panorama of lake Malawi and life around it (click to enlarge)
We had read that if you turned inland from the beach and went up the mountains to the village of Livingstonia, nice views would be awaiting. The track there was pretty rocky and slippery, but up there we saw old buildings, breathed fresh air and enjoyed the views down to the Lake Malawi.
Road to Livingstonia.
Dry mudtrack is very rideable.
Decent British-style houses in Livingstonia.
Banana seller.
Malawi landscape seen from Livingstonia.
Panorama of Lake Malawi from Livingstonia (click to enlarge)
Lake Malawi reflection.
Too often we get so immersed in our everyday life that we forget to notice the details of the life that surrounds us. Due to the rotation of the Earth we have day and night, due to the variations of the Earth's angle with the Sun we have seasons, the magnetic field works as a protective shield from the lethal radiation, creating at the same time magnificent plays of light on the poles of our home planet.The stellar wind ionizes our atmosphere during the day which heals itself during the night, thanks to the gravitation of the Moon the life on ocean shores is affected by tides, differences in water temperatures in different parts of the globe create currents, distributing energy to places far away from the equator, the friction between the soft air and the hard ground creating a complex circle of life. It is just like a huge cacophony, or maybe quite the opposite, a symphony vibrating in our bodies? All the sensations, the smells, gusts of wing and displays of light, stuffiness and freshness. Like a radio playing the static noise, yet within you can sense a clear tune.
Sometimes our planet can be a paradise. If you just notice the right moment and hook on to it.
Panorama of sunset colours above Lake Malawi (click to enlarge)
Colours of the dawn at play (click to enlarge).
The last beam of light...
A swim in crystal clear Lake Malawi...
Kariina and a local crossing the lake on canoe.
Fisherman on Lake Malawi.
Water and Air...
A lone fisherman...
The very last beam of sunlight...
After-the-rain colours on the rich shores of Lake Malawi...
A drop of water...
A leaf...
The transition zone between a collecting thunderstorm and a fading sunlight...
A mystic cloud above an island seen from Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi...
A reddish flash of thunder inside the cloud reflected from the water during the dusk...
Fishermen on the lake having their last catch...
Fishermen returning home at dusk, just before dark...
From Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi we headed to Malawi's capital - Lilongwe. Just like every other African capital we'd visited so far, it isn't actually a place one must visit. Do you remember us writing much about Djibouti City, Addis Abeba, Nairobi, Kampala, Dodoma? Not much to see there, so I think why people end up there is to have something done. In our case it was the South-African visa - a tricky thing to obtain if you are not resident in a country where you apply.
We went to the South-African high commission together with two Slovenians whom we'd first met during our stay in Nairobi, and later in Nkhata Bay. Vlasta and Dean both ride a Honda Africa Twin and they're headed to Cape Town. Because the overlanding crowd tends to move along more-or-less similar routes in Africa (either up or down!), you inevitably stumble upon familiar faces - in Northern Ethiopia we'd met a German couple - Siggi and Gerdy on two KTM 640 Adventures whom we'd met later on several occasions, and in Nkhata Bay we once again met a Finnish guy Jami on his Yamaha Tenere, whom we were familiar with from Nairobi.
But back to business. Stocked with passports, application forms, photos, application fees, and also copies of our credit cards (the "sufficient funds"), explanation letters (stating the purpose of our intended visit) and invitation letters (big thanks to mr. Welsh!), we went to the high commission. There we were told that even with all that documentation we only have a fifty-percent chance of getting the visa because they only issue visas for non-residents in highly exceptional circumstances. Not very encouraging, I must say.
Four days and numerous phone calls later we did have the visas, the consul reminding us that we might still be turned down on the border for not having a return ticket and that when we proceed to the border we should take with us a heap of supporting documentation including bank statements and invitation letters and so on. Scary.
We got on our way again. Quite unusually for us we rode some 250 kilometers with the Slovenians, until we took separate routes - they wanted to see southern parts of Malawi whereas we wanted to go to the northern part of Mozambique. We would surely meet again.
Dean's and Vlasa's grill-plate - works wonders as a travelling kitchen!
Riding part of Malawi with Dean and Vlasta.
Kariina and Vlasta at Cape Maclear during dusk.
Cape Maclear panorama during dusk (click to enlarge)
That's it for Malawi. Next stop: Mozambique.
Ride safe,
Margus & Kariina
