theboonedoggle

Hi All. We have now been staying in Myoka Village in Nkhata Bay , Malawi , close to a week. This is by far the longest Todd and I have stayed in any one place during our trips over the last 6 years and its our first proper vacation. The lodge is built into a side of a hill and has direct access to the bright blue and clear Lake Malawi . Our new friends, Nick and Clare - we met them in Tanzania - arrived a few nights after us and over the last few days we have spent countless hours swimming, reading and relaxing. The country is pretty poor and while we both feel bad about not spending more money we are doing a good job staying in budget (and making up for Tanzania where we spent more than expected). Yesterday was the first somewhat eventful day. Todd took a carving lesson from one of the local artists and we spent a long afternoon with his family hanging out outside of their house and learning to play bao . Here in Nkhata Bay most of the roads are not paved and we had to u...

Finally! Our transit into Malawi was the kind of adventure that we will save to share with you over several beers when we get back. It took us three days longer than we anticipated, as a result of what we'll call 'extenuating circumstances'. Suffice it to say we are alive and well, and that the rest we are getting this week in Nkhata Bay is well-deserved (and quite necessary). :) Malawi is beautiful! The people are extremely friendly, and it is quite evident why so many expats choose this place of all of Africa to migrate. We are staying this week at a small resort, where for $10 a day Tatyana and I are free to swim, snorkel, and lounge endlessly in hammocks on the beach of Lake Malawi. We hope our friends, Nick and Clare (Brits!) will join us this evening for a proper meal and several "greens" (Carlsberg beer). If they don't make it today, it will be more peanut butter and banana sandwiches for us. :)!! More later

Hey guys! So, it took a few more days to get to an internet connection than we hoped, so I'll back up a bit and round out our travels through Tanzania (we're now in Malawi). Kilimanjaro was a success... seven days, some hard work, and a ton of fun, and we made it to the top. Hakuna Matata! -which actually DOES mean "no problem" in Swahili. The view was amazing from the top, but as always (and I think like everyone else) we only spent ten minutes on top to enjoy it. I don't know why we do that -spend seven days hiking up a mountain, only to spend a brief moment enjoying our success. Maybe it was because our water had frozen and we were tired and just plain ready to sleep a little. The night of our return to Arusha, one of our guides, Arnold (mambo vipi, kaka?!) had us over to his home for a traditional meal of ugali, kuku (chicken) and pumpkin leaf.... very good! We spent another day in Arusha setting up tickets to Mbeya, and having dinner one last time and Khan...

Hey gang, a quick note to report that we made it to the top -Kilimanjaro was beautiful, and our team was amazing (all 12 of them!). We are going to recover on a 14 hour bus ride to the malawi border tomorrow, and with any luck, I'll find enough time and a connection to write more about our 'climb'. Best to all... T&T

Greetings from Zanzibar... After a rough start in Dar Es Salaam we made our escape to Zanzibar, an island about 2 hrs away by boat, where we found a quaint little beach (Paje beach) on the east coast with white sand and deep green water. Paje is a small fishing village and we spent our days swimming in the Indian Ocean and our afternoons lounging with cold drinks as we watched families help the fisherman unload their boats. This was a perfect way to shake the last few years of work. Life here in Tanzania, is much slower than back home and we were both quick to adopt the phrase "hakuna matata" , meaning no problem or its ok. After Paje we made our way back to Stone town (the main town/port of Zanzibar) on the daladala - a bus or more like a truck with a roof over its bed. We thought we were getting great seats when we climbed to the little bench parallel to the cabin, but little did we know that in Tanzania there is room in the daladala for everyone. Within about 10 minut...

A quick note. We're waiting for takeoff at SFO. A shout-out to Emily and Terry for the last minute late night "hookup"... Big help! T

A WU. Tomorrow morning we're outtie, and we finally got it together... well, mostly.  We still need to pick up backpackers insurance -I'll get to that between beers in Zanzibar .  We successfully packed up the apartment and cleared out.  Despite selling "most" of our furniture on Craigslist , I was really very surprised and a bit disappointed to measure the amount of junk we managed to accumulate in such a small apartment over the last five years. What I thought would be a few small boxes of treasured items for storage at our parents' turned into several car loads....  Stuff. I expect our next post will be around Thursday, from Tanzania .  Between now and then we've got about 20 hours of air time and a whole lot of travel chess to get started on.  I'll post a proper gear list and a few more topics of interest before we head to Kilimanjaro . Stay tuned. TB