After Camp Sky ended, most of us headed to Cape Mac for a couple days. Cape Maclear is located along Lake Malawi, southeast of Lilongwe. To access it you have to drive about 10km on a dirt road before the road becomes paved again. After about ten more minutes you start to see signs and lodgings.
We stayed at the Funky Cichlid, a nice little place at the end of the road with private rooms and dorms, a decent bathroom, and a little bar and restaurant with good food and decent prices. You are only a few meters from the water. Here is a view of the lake from the beach:
We stayed at the Funky Cichlid, a nice little place at the end of the road with private rooms and dorms, a decent bathroom, and a little bar and restaurant with good food and decent prices. You are only a few meters from the water. Here is a view of the lake from the beach:
And here I am getting ready to go swimming. Because it is the lake so it is hot. I'm wearing my favorite chitenje.
Similar to Senga Bay, the lodgings are located in a village, so as you
walk to a restaurant for dinner you might see a goat amble by, and you
will pass mud brick houses with a thatched roofs. As you swim in the water, you might look over and see a woman washing her clothes or her dishes in the lake. It's kind of strange because in the village a woman would never wear shorts (and even trousers are kind of a big deal), but here you go swimming in a bathing suit in full view of the villagers. Weird.
The beach was a bit gravelly, so it wasn't very nice to walk on, but the water was clear and warm to a girl used to the Pacific Ocean. You could hire a boat to take you to the island to go snorkeling, or go jet-skiing or tubing. The costs are steep for a PCV, but for a tourist it is affordable.
Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to enjoy the water. The first night I started to feel odd during dinner, and by the next morning I knew I was sick. I spent the rest of the day either on the toilet (yes, an actual toilet!) or lying in bed, suffering from stomach pains, fever and body aches. I slept most of the day, and tried to drink a lot of water since I was dehydrated and it was very hot. The
next day I felt a lot better, but more people from my group were sick. We decided it was probably the stomach flu because so many of us got ill at different times, and we had all eaten different things.
Despite the stomach bug, I had fun at Cape Mac, and I would like to go
back. It was kind of a pain to get to, but once you are there it is
really nice.
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