Day 35 - THUR - 18/10/12 - Kande Beach, Malawi : Chipata, Zambia
It was a fairly substantial driving day of 450km today as we were heading for Zambia. The day started fabously with getting to watch the orange ball of sunrise whilst doing yoga sun salutations. It was so peacefulwith water lapping gently on the shore of the lake.
On the way to way to Chipata the road was quite poor and it was quite hot. I noticed along the way that many frontyards were dug up as brick pits with red dirt bricks that had been formed and were now laying in the sun to dry. From there they are built into rectangular ovens with 4 step pyramids pulled out from the bottom to light fires underneath to use as ovens but also to fire the bricks to set them. Once set they cover the whole stack with dung or mud to keep them dry and set until they use them to build a house. We had a short stop in Lilongwe to get snacks and water. Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi.
We crossed the border of Mchinji, Malawi to Mwami, Zambia where we switched some money into Zambian Kwacha. A few facts and bits about about Zambia. Zambia is home to Victoria Falls, discovered by Dr. Livingstone in 1855 and named in honour of the Queen at the time - Queen Victoria. Zambia was also called North Rodesia at the timesw with a bigcopper minimg industry in 1890. In 1953 Zambia the the North Rodesia joined with Zimbabwe the then Southern Rhodesia, which were being opressed by Briatain. Independance was driven by Zambia and in 1964 it was achieved. in 1972 the constitution was changed to a one party state. The coutry was hit hard by copper prices dropping because of difficult world financial timesin the 70s 80s and 90s. In 1991 Zambia again had the constitution changed to become a multiparty state due to pressure from the people of Zambia. Witrh the relatively late changes to government and the price of copper only recovering in recent years and being a finite resource, Zambia's economy is still struggling as a whole.
That night we stayed at Mama Rula's Camp which had a great outdoor area which was concreted in a sandy colour and had a huge fire pit in the middle and green grass for the tents!
