The ferry from Zanzibar back to Dar es Saalam was awful. It was supossed to be an hour long journey, (which was pretty enjoyable when we were doing the reverse trip out to Zanzibar) but this time, the waters of the Indian Ocean were really rough, and it took over 2.5 hours to get back to Dar.

The waves were throwing the ferry all over the place and it felt like I was going over the first big hump of the Magnum at Cedar Point every 15 seconds for the whole trip. I've never had any kind of motion or sea sickness and I actually really like roller coasters, but this was wayyy too much for me (and almost everyone else on the ferry). I had gone out to the back of the boat hoping the fresh air would make me feel better, but no such luck. After the first half hour of feeling incredibly nautious, I spent the rest of the ride MORE than making up for the fact that I didn't get sick on the 7 day Kili hike. It was awful awful awful. I couldn't get off that boat fast enough.

Then we drove for 2 straight days to get to Lake Malawi. It didn't look that far on the map, but apparantly, Africa is a pretty big continent! :)

Malawi is a tiny little country, about 900 km long and between 80 and 150 km wide. Its biggest attraction is Lake Malawi which is about a fifth of the whole area of Malawi. Our campsite was right on the lake, on Chitimba Beach. The lake was pretty, but I wasn't about to swim in it, seeing as it has the highest percentage of Bilharzia (not sure if i'm spelling that right) of anywhere in Africa. Bilharzia is contracted by little worms that seep into your skin and attach to your bladder and does nasty things to you when you go to the bathroom. No thanks, I'll pass on the Bilharzia.

I opted instead to do the day hike to Livingstonia. The routes to Livingstonia were the slightly upward sloping 25km trail, or the really steep 6 km trail. We chose the 6 km trail, which ended up taking about 4 hours and was really REALLY steep.

The most famous explorer to come to Malawi was David Livingstone of Scotland who first arrived in the 1800s and made several trips back and forth to Britain trying to stop the trade of slaves and promoting Christianity. His final trip to Malawi was in search of the source of the Nile when during his search, he met Henry Stanley who greeted him with the famous words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" (ohhh, so THATS where that comes from!). Livingstone died during this journey and his death started a wave or missionaries returning to Malawi to continue what Livingstone had started. In 1876, a group of missionaries from Scotland returned to Malawi and built a new mission called Livingstonia. This is the little town that we hiked to. On the way we passed a beautiful waterfall called Manchewe Falls. Behind the falls were some caves that people used to hide in to escape from the slave traders.

At Livingstonia, we got some good pictures of Lake Malawi, and visited the hospital in town, where the doctor showed us around and gave us a little history of the place. Apparantly the most common things that bring people to the hospital are Malaria and HIV/AIDS. Which also means the hospital has a really high death rate. There was a chalkboard on the wall that kept the daily statistics of how many admitted, discharged and deaths. There were 4 discharged, 3 admitted and no deaths on that day. We also wandered around town giving pencils and empty water bottles to the children so they'd have something to carry their water in. I took a picture of the kids and showed it to them on the LCD screen and they looked pretty confused. I think that some of them have never seen themselves before. What a strange thought.

On the way back to the campsite, I bought 3 wooden chairs with African animals hand carved into the seatbacks. I've been avoiding souviners because I don't want to carry them around, but apparantly its pretty cheap to mail stuff home from Victoria Falls, where I'll be in a week. I just couldn't resist. They are really beautifully made and seeing as Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, they were dirt cheap - $10 USD each! Mom/Dad - clear the front porch for the mailman!