Livingstonia

Daniel:
Another day and another border crossing, but the crossing from Tanzania to Malawi was even quicker and more efficient than  the crossing between Tanzania and Kenya. The first thing we noticed in Malawi was that there was almost no vehicles on the road, however, there were more bicycles than pedestrians on the road. Everyone seems to be going somewhere on a bicycle. 

Malawi is significantly poorer than Tanzania and that was obvious from the infrastructure. The roads are not as well maintained and the houses look like they were build from cheaper products. But a majority of the houses here were built from bricks, even if some still had thatched roofs. The houses are not concentrated together but spread out for kilometers on end with nothing really inbetween. If there were farmland there before then there is no sign of them now.

Turning off a nice highway for the hair raising
few kilometers to Mushroom Farm

We were on our way to Mushroom Farm for the first night in Malawi. The GPS told us to turn right onto a one lane dirt ruff road that did not look like it would go further than a few kilometers.  The sign said "Livingstonia15km" and the GPS said that we would arive in 4min at Mushroomfarm. 30 minutes, a number of nailbiting steep edges, a very rocky road and 20 hairpin turn later we finally arrived at Mushroomfarm, almost 900m higher.

Every one of the 20 bends are numbered

When we rounded the 5th last bend on our way up, we encountered two young woman with backpacks going up the hill. They were on their way to Livingstonia which were anouther 4 hour hike and no idea where they were going to stay yet. They hitched a ride with us and sqeeeeezed into Rhino's only back seat. When we arrived at Mushroomfarm they decided there and then to also stay.

We originally planned to stay only one night, but because this place is so amazing we decided to book another night. The view from up here is spectacular.  We can see the shoreline of lake Malawi and in the far distance the outline of the mountains on the Mozambiquan side. There is no wall in the bathroom between you and the valley.  It it something you really have to see to appreciate.

A room with a view

The only down side about mushroom farm is their "temperamental" internet, as they put it. We were not able to  upload anything onto the blog. Other travelers told us to go look for an Internet cafe in Nkata Bay.

Thursday morning we made our way up the road to visit Livingstonia.  Livingstonia was build as a mission station away from Lake Malawi in an attempt to get away from the deadly Malaria mosquitoes.  A beautiful church and hospital was built to minister to the local people. All the buildings are now being used by the Livingstonia university. 

The stain glass window in the back of the Livingstonia church

The spent the afternoon lying around and reading while enjoying the incredible view.

Life is good in Malawi