I have been asked by someone whether Lilongwe is a worthwhile stopover point on a return journey between Europe and South Africa. The idea is easy access to Lake Malawi from Kamuzu International airport in Lilongwe.

I’d rather not give a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer to that question as the truth sometimes requires a bit of work. Surely the truth and nuances are friends? As this same potential visitor did say to me, sometimes when you dig a bit, you strike gold. Furthermore, why give one person a lengthy enough answer to do justice to the question when one can write something roughly similar for a blog post and therefore benefit a wider audience.

Let’s start off with some assumptions with regard to the situation of the potential stop-over visitor. The assumptions are as follows: 1/ the visitor has some inkling of the magic of the Lake of Stars, probably the best Lake in the world, 2/ the visitor has four nights to spare, 3/ they are interested in a backpacker style,...

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I have been asked by someone whether Lilongwe is a worthwhile stopover point on a return journey between Europe and South Africa. The idea is easy access to Lake Malawi from Kamuzu International airport in Lilongwe.

I’d rather not give a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer to that question as the truth sometimes requires a bit of work. Surely the truth and nuances are friends? As this same potential visitor did say to me, sometimes when you dig a bit, you strike gold. Furthermore, why give one person a lengthy enough answer to do justice to the question when one can write something roughly similar for a blog post and therefore benefit a wider audience.

Let’s start off with some assumptions with regard to the situation of the potential stop-over visitor. The assumptions are as follows: 1/ the visitor has some inkling of the magic of the Lake of Stars, probably the best Lake in the world, 2/ the visitor has four nights to spare, 3/ they are interested in a backpacker style,...

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A few years ago a friend of mine told me that we were going to buy some land together by a National Park. We would have elephants on the lawn. There would be plenty of room for us to have seperate houses or cottages and all the necessary privacy.

 

He's the kind of guy who thinks, 'Look at this opportunity, I [or we] am [are] doing it.' When I ask him a question he always has a quick and clear answer, this is a useful trait for a friend to have.

I remember someone used to do impressions of me for a group of mutual friends. Eventually he was persuaded to allow me appreciate the same show. The impression involved a very long silence with someone contorting themselves into various poses all with something of 'The Thinker' air about them. Finally, with a Churchillian flourish I (or my impersonator), would deliver the kind of look that precedes a moment of momentous oratory.  Then finally I would deliver a grand total of one word: 'Yes' or 'No'.

Of course, he was...

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Zomba is a lot of people's favourite town in Malawi.

Now, I have written a lot of blog posts about Malawi, almost all on my previous blog. Now that I my work is not unrelated to helping people visit and enjoy Malawi, it makes sense to blog about matters somehow connected to this. Although that means that there is now another angle behind what I write, I should emphasise that this in no way changes my intention to write honestly and hopefully positively, about Malawi. I will never use my blog to promote or sell something in Malawi that I do not believe in. That should be easy enough as I am my own boss and I only want to work with people and organisations that I think are doing a good job, especially if it is something I find interesting.

So, now that I have that disclaimer / explanation out of the way, let's get on with the blog.

I have been fourtunate enough to have been visiting Zomba since I was eleven months old. So, although I might be biased, I hope that I...

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This is an old blog post from I think June 2011. I see that some of my opinions have changed since then. However, the beauty and attraction of Zomba Plateau remains. I hope that you can appreciate the truthfullness of that claim despite the fact that we now offer road transfers with a driver to Zomba, among other places. So, of course I am biased when I say that you should visit Zomba...

Anyway - here is the old post

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Knowing and remembering a lot of the details from the CCAP cottage gave me some confidence in the accuracy of my memory of Zomba Plateau. That is relevant because a number of other things were puzzling for me. Quite a lot of things on Zomba Plateau would have me staring at them for a long time while I scratched my head. The first change that an old timer to Zomba Plateau notices is the road up. The road up to the plateau is NOT the Up Road. Instead, after the sawmill and a...

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