Where the Malawi are we?

Well we're two weeks into our trip, and we're taking a breather for 3 days on the shores of Lake Malawi, finding ourselves with a bit of time and a computer, what a treat! So thought we owed our blog and our dedicated readers a quick update!

First up was our 3 day Masai Mara trip in Kenya, which is in its 2nd year of drought, and the carcasses of cows, and herds of skin-and-bones cows being herded by tall Masai in red blankets with sticks on the roadside was so sad to see.

As you know we were so excited to be in Africa again, but unfortunately Africa did not seem all that excited to see us, because after a fantastic day game viewing in the park, seeing the most amazing things (our best leopard sighting ever, rivers packed with crocs, and the still impressive dregs of the annual wildebeest migration back down to the Serengeti), we had the very nasty (and I must say, terrifying) experience of an armed robbery in our tent in the middle of the night when a Masai (or a con Masai) sliced a new door into our tent with a machete, stole 2 bags, and sliced Steven on the neck in the chaos (a papercut, Steven says). Nothing valuable was stolen, and we got both bags back within a few days, with nothing at all missing. We have been well aware of God giving us a hand and sorting things out for us this whole trip, and this was another time when we felt that He was looking after us because it could have been so much worse (we heard when we returned to Nairobi that another 3, similar, some much worse, incidents had occured in the same area in the past month...). After some serious deliberation about whether we felt like continuing, and a sleep after which we felt better, we decided to push on and to try not to let it ruin our trip.

Next was Tanzania and the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater...absolutely beautiful. Rains poured down on a parched land as we drove into our bush camp in the middle of the Serengeti, with no fences around...fantastic. The abundance of game is amazing - highlights were a leopard dragging his kill up a tree, two cheetah feeding on the remains of their kill and then chasing away a Serval cat who was sniffing around, and a lion kill - a zebra with her unborn baby inside, being fed on and played on, by 3 cubs...such a contrast of cruel and cute you aren't quite sure what to think.

We then made our way to the tropical island of Zanzibar (pic above) which despite being our 2nd visit, did not disappoint, still LOVE the place! We even treated ourselves to a night in Stone Town at Africa House Hotel, which was well worth it.

After that it was down into Malawi, to spend 5 nights along the beautiful lake, which is where we are now (Kande beach to be precise). This afternoon we'll be taking a boat trip to a nearby island for some freshwater snorkelling.

We've really been enjoying the trip, despite the bad start, we've got into the swing of things (put up tent, take down tent, and doing our duties sich as 'cook's help', 'security' (which is basically cleaning and lockup of the truck), 'dog's bodies' (this is Steven's permanent job, renamed by him as Dogs Balls, so now we have finally found the true meaning to his most favourite saying of all "dog balled'... and it involves setting up chairs and tables etc), and 'dishes' which is by far the worst...and we're with a fantastic bunch of people...so basically having a whale of a time!

Looking forward to being home in a week! Yeeehiiii!