The embassy has a cottage about 5 hours South of Lilongwe in a town called Zomba. It's a self-catering place, meaning you bring everything. Even salt. Mistake number 1, we forgot COFFEE!! The horror! We tried to pick up some in Zomba town before we drove up the mountain, but we were not able to find any. We arrived on a Thursday, late afternoon, and went COLD TURKEY without coffee until Monday morning. Lesson #1 learned.
Lesson #2; Malawian police have radar guns (thank you UK). There are two speed limits in Malawi; 50 kph in towns and 80 kph on "highways" (hah, highway, right). This translates to 30 miles an hour and 50 miles an hour. Can you even imagine taking a 5 hour road trip and you can only go 50 miles an hour. And you can only do 50 miles an hour for about 2 minutes before you either hit a town (and have to slow to 30) or get behind a "vehicle" going about 15 miles an hour, or find yourself having to slow down for a goat family crossing. Zomba is about 200 miles away and it took 5 hours to get there. Good times!
Back to the cottage: so years ago the Embassy acquired this cottage. I think we pay like $10 USD a year or something crazy like that. It is on top of a mountain (plateau) and is a truly beautiful place. It is hotter than hot here right now and in the evenings the cool breezes that came in were most welcome.
The kids (and Margo) enjoyed hiking on trails that we found. Eating "yellow berries" which are fantastic yellow raspberry like fruits, and watching the baboons come into the yard to look for food.
Without question, the highlight of Zomba is the Plateau Stables. The stable is 3 doors down from the cottage. We met the owner, Maggie, when we arrived in Malawi, as she used to work as a nurse at the Embassy and now fills in when needed. We visited the stable every night and Maggie's staff was kind enough to let the kids help feed the horses.
Our last morning, William and Sophia got to do some riding. They have not stopped talking about it yet!
2 comments:
Your kids are having the life of a lifetime (: One beautiful adventure after another... The horseback riding looks like so much fun! Did you get to join in?
Ha! I love the Christmas card pic!!!!!!
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