Malawi 08: Chintheche on Lake Malawi

Down from the cool cloudy plateau at 1200 m, via Mzuzu, to the warm shores of Lake Malawi at around 500 m above sea level; at its deepest 704 m near Usisya; that is 230 m below sea level.
Here at our comfy hotel the shore is a beach of coarse sand with mango trees growing on the beach in places; behind us, dense rainforest.
Originally occupied by bushman-like people; subsequently by stronger Ngoni warriors - a bloody story to be sure. Read about it.
The red blood cell sickle gene protected them somewhat from malaria, but not from the water-borne bilharzia parasite.
Knowing we would surely be swimming and get bilharzia, we stopped at a pharmacy in Mzuzu and bought a treatment pack of praziquantel. This you can buy cheaply without prescription. Also grabbed a couple of boxes of malaria treatments as well - cheap, no prescription (the doxycycline was not agreeing with me).
Despite the great big mango trees and the lovely lawn merging into the clean sand then the lake, I felt this place missed the chance of African magic and romance. Instead it falls into a grubby charm. The cattle on the beach are quaint, but …; and empty plastic bottles; fluoro spotlights etc! Not like the staff are busy. We appear to be the only guests. The staff were delightful, but I did not enjoy the hustler touting for business while we were dining.
Dinner was interesting: I choose the slow cooked goat stew with nsima, here made from cassava meal (like mielie pap of South Africa). Wonderful flavours and you eat the meal with no utensils. Though, I felt the goat was not as slow cooked as I had hoped. In fact, I think it was the one that I had seen on the road earlier this afternoon (joking haha).
Sleep well. See ya.Read more