Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi 21st June

21^st June. Mufasa Camping, Monkey Bay Lake Malawi

We were of two minds whether to come up to Lake Malawi. Three years ago we had spent a fair time on the western part of the lake as we made our way down but Cape Maclear and Monkey Bay were meant to be something again. Where we are now has no power, no cold drinks but an idyllic situation with us parked a few metres from the waters edge while the ‘African Queen’ swings gently on its moorings 20 metres out.

The drive from the national park was uneventful with us being stopped by police only the twice, as we now had the correct papers there was no problem. Our problem now is that there is no diesel in the country. It appears the president sacked an excellent finance minister a couple of years back because he was too popular and put an accountant in his place. The original bloke was an economist and had helped the country considerably. Since the new bloke the country had taken a bad turn for the worse. There is no money to pay for the essentials like fuel. We queued at a diesel pump for 1½ hours yesterday but only to have the pump run out a few cars ahead of us. Distribution was a laugh with no restriction on what could be taken and people were coming in with 44gallon drums on the back of their bakkie. We stopped at another pump here at Monkey Bay where we were told could have some but they had run out ½ hr before. We have enough to get to the border if we drive slowly but restricts what we want to do.

The monkeys have been a nuisance at some of the places we have stayed but at Liwonde they were bad: I had gone away for a while and Joan talked a short distance to the tap, when she came back one of them had got into the van, found the biscuit container that was hidden under clothing and was off up to the top of the nearest tree where he casually opened it up and got stuck into them. Meanwhile all his mates had seen what was happening and swung into action. There were monkeys everywhere but after they had scoffed al the biscuits they left the container in the top branches. Joan was resigned to buying a new one but one of the staff climbed up and retrieved it. It was a thorn tree as well