The warm heart of Africa

We love extraordinary travel destinations, and of course Malawi is one of those. At the world best travel exhibition ITB 2017 we became aware of this great unique place on earth in the heart of Africa. After we heard so many great things about Malawi, we started to plan a large journey throughout Africa. Malawi is one of the poorest countries and especially for the Africa lovers out there, it is in fact one the best kept secrets on the whole continent. Tourism is still only starting to take off. Malawi only has a small choice of accommodation but all of them are very special and unique. The country offers a panorama of untouched nature, such as a great combination of mountain areas and landscape far away from mass tourism. Malawi has a lot of interesting things to explore, be it awesome beaches at Malawi lake or just mountainous steppe, it is safe to say we explored quite a lot on our 10 day journey throughout the country.

A big adventure was waiting for us and normally we always had luck on our journeys. However this time it started to be a little bit chaotic…

Let me expand on that. Well, normally we do our research at home and always book a local guide in advance and up until now it always worked out very well. However this time we had an uncomfortable gut feeling and it turned out we were right this time.

The first impression or mistake: Yes, he was on time but the nice greeting we were hoping for … no chance! In addition to this his car was full of various things and we had to rearrange all his things for our luggage. Not the best start!

“Money money, I want the money”

Oh crumbs, our bad gut feeling was confirmed. What should we do now? The first words he spurted out to us were, “give me the money”! Despite this we struck  an agreement with him and we just paid half of the amount in advance. In light of his behavior we decided we would not continue the tour with this guide. To make a long story short we arrived at our first accommodation, the Kumbali Lodge. We created a great new route for 10 days. The route had a strict agenda for this short time frame but it was great ,,We want to thank the whole team for helping us so much to plan a new route “.

We started in Lilongwe. Here we just visited the city, but we can highly recommend this great lodge. The family which is managing the lodge were very competent and extremely helpful. The price for the lodge is fair and offers anything you need. There is no air conditioning and the electricity is switched off after 10 pm.. although to be honest you do not need it at all and everything else is just great.

We started our roundtrip the next day with our new Guide Eston, who was organized by the lodge.

You can find more information about Eston in our info box below.

We highly recommend a driver who knows the driving conditions, because the roads are not the best. Furthermore you should never drive when it is dark as the streets are not lit and there are a lot of children, people as well as animals crossing the street all the time.

Malawi Lake

We spent two days at the Mgoza Lodge directly on Malawi Lake. They do not have an aircon but at least there is a good fan, for the day as  there is no power during the night. Most of the accommodation generate their electricity by diesel generator, as there are not many hotels connected to the electricity supply network. Honestly it was quite hot but we drank a lot of cold drinks. 😉

Mgoza Lodge – direkt am Malawisee

little boy <3

At lunch we always could observe lake life as it unfolded before our eyes. The locals were washing up their dishes, brushing their teeth and cleaning their clothes in the lake. The kids were playing football and other people were jogging as well.  By the way, the water is very clean in the lake.

The kids had fun with us

For a lot of people the lake is famous for the variety of bass and a gigantic variety of ornamental fish. The lake contains more than 600 different exotic species of fish in the approximately 700 meter deep water. So to make a long story short it is a huge aquarium in the middle of Africa.

To discover the underwater world, there are a lot of diving schools with a large range of offers. We don’t have a license for diving, so we had to dive with a teacher. Before we could start our diving trip we got a short briefing and after that we started immediately.

Just the three of us started our trip on a boat with the full range of equipment, we were driving until we found the right spot. We started with a short repetition exercise regarding the right hand signals. After we put the masks in the right position, we were jumping backwards into the water. Our teacher took our hands and he was diving down with us. Unfortunately we could not see many fish. Only a small group of ornamental fishes swam by. Too bad, we thought we would see more fish.  Anyhow it was a great experience.

Liwonde National Park

Woooow – we are so happy that we could explore such a great place – this adventure was just amazing, we are stoked!

The Liwonde National Park has the biggest animal population in the whole country. Here you can find all kinds of animals like crocodiles ,hippos, elephants and huge buffalos. We were really more than thrilled to get off to a whole new adventure from a nature perspective through simple observation of the wild life. In order to reach the Mvuu Lodge you have to cross a river. Despite that it was quite easy, as the lodge sent us a river taxi to cross.

River Taxi

While we were crossing the water we saw a hippo which was starting to run into the water. It was extremely fast and it was so close to us, that we had no time to take a good photo, we believe you need a lot of luck or you have to watch animal documentaries. So this was just the start, now we will delve into our tale about our gorgeous Lodge.

Mvuu means “Hippo” in English: The lodge was inspired by the animals so they named it after the animal known as the Hippo in their local lingo. The Mvuu Lodge offers very nice luxury tents and you have a great river view. During the night we could hear crickets through the grass and we could sometimes also hear the noises of the hippos.

This adventure is sensational and for every africa lover and adrenaline junkie it is absolutely worth it  to travel there. We have never been so close to such dangerous animals. On our boat trip we could nearly pet the Hippos and we could look into the huge jaws of the crocodiles.

“Beware of Hippos and other wild animals”

We cannot put into words how great this memorable moment was.

Just mind blowingly awesome …..

For the person who really wants to make an extraordinary experience far away from the mass tourism should do such a tour once in a lifetime.

Other activities:

• Observing the wild life during day or night time
• Bird watching
• hikes through the bush

A couple of pictures from our private safari trip

Family bath day

African Buffalo

Antilopen

Elephant Baby <3

Primary School Dwangla 

It was one of our wishes during our journey through Africa to visit a school and support them with school material like pencils, pens and notepads. Beforehand we visited a supermarket to buy pens, books, crayon and pads. The whole trunk of the car was full to the brim.

As we reached the school the headteacher of the school simply could not believe his eyes, as he gets little support from outside. Unfortunately it was not possible to support the whole school, but a little bit is better than nothing. Education is very important. We know for sure that our help is just a drop in the ocean, but anyhow we think it was a good thing to do and we were not aware before doing that we would get so many negative comments. A couple of people were saying we wanted to get special attention, but anyway we think it was a good thing to do.

“better to donate something than nothing”

The Unicef Organisation is very strong in Malawi and supports a lot of projects in the country overall.

Cherinda Camp

Unfortunately we did not have much time. We needed six hours to reach the Cherinda Camp. The road was quite hard, because the roads are not the best (unpaved, full of potholes). However it was worth it!! The landscape was similar to  an Alpine scene in Germany.

At the lodge the staff were already expecting us in earnestly and they showed us directly to our room. For us it was a little bit funny that in front of the house there was fire wood, we asked ourselves what for, it’ is hot!’. Naturally our assumption was wrong as during the night it got quite cold.

The most romantic Safari we ever had 

Our two guides were waiting for us very wistfully and we had to hurry up, because the sun was going down soon. The best thing was we had the whole area just for us. We could not see so many animals but it was great so see zebras, reindeers and rabbits. The feeling was just great. Unbeknownst to us while we were taking a few pictures on the hill, the guides parked the car in the right position, served us a table with tea and cookies to enjoy the wonderful sunset.

A country with so many surprises

Malawi is still building up tourism but it is so unique and for Africa-Lovers we can highly recommend it. For sure they could improve a couple of things like the electricity supply. Most of the places do not have electricity, but a generator and during the night they do not have power. The majority of the rooms do not have an air con.

All of the hotels and lodges we stayed at during our trip we can 100% recommend. They have great rooms, the food was always remarkable and the organization was simply outstanding. A big shout out to the team at the Kumbali Lodge- They changed our old tour and planned a new great tour with us and organized us the best ever Guide known as  Eston!.

* We paid for the journey on our own and have just conveyed our personal  experience in the article above.

Sharing is caring, we will be quite grateful if you could possibly share our article, whilst also supporting tourism in Malawi.

Infobox

Hotel:

• Kumbali Lodge
• Mgoza Lodge
• Mvuu Lodge
• Ngala Beach Lodge
• Cherinda Camp

Visa:

You need a permission for your visa.

You have to send you passport four weeks before you start your trip to the embassy.

Currency:

Malawi Kwacha MWK

The current course you can look up at Oanda

Language:

English

Chichewa

Local time:

You can read the local times here

High Season:

The best time for Malawi here

Health:

Malaria:
You should looking for a doctor and tell him, which country you visit in the next time.
Malariaprophylaxe is very expensive but the health insurance will pay for it.

Yellow fever:
Yellow fever is very important. Even this will be paid by the health insurance.
Please tell them the situation.
Vaccination card must be available for the entry

Hepatitis:
Check your vaccination card from the doctor. The health insurance will pay for that.

Safety:

You can find all entry requirements at listed embassies

Driver information

Name:

Eston

Language:

English

Contakt:

Whats App: +265 999 92 22 09

About Eston

Eston Nickname….AKA…. ,,Karl Dall,, the eternal driver. He loved driving for hours without stopping. A very kind and nice guide who always made us smile. It is advisable to rent a car with a driver, and we think Eston is one of the best. He made every wish come true and he was extremely patient. He is a great driver and was driving us safely through his lovely country. He did a great job and was showing us the best places.

Thank you Eston, so much for the best time we could ever have had in Malawi!!!!