A great ride to Sangilo Sanctuary

As we left Mzoozoozoo this morning we pulled into the Total garage around the corner and couldn’t believe our eyes as we stopped next to the pump and filled our tanks with petrol – NO queues today! So we were very lucky! We filled up and should now be okay until we get into Tanzania. The weather was cool and overcast which made riding very easy today. It was interesting to note as we progressed further into the Northern parts of Malawi that there are less people here so villages look almost strangely empty. There are also more brick houses and this time “Diversion” was spelt correctly with an “r” in the middle. They even went as far as changing the usual sign “Men working ahead” (when there are road works ahead) to “Machine working ahead” which was quite sophisticated I thought!

The road from Mzuzu to Chitimba side was beautiful and we fully enjoyed riding through a mountain pass with the most little bends and twists that I have ever ridden before. I wish I had counted them so that you could see what I mean.

On the other side of the pass were the most beautiful views over Lake Malawi. We also stopped for a quick snack… Francois’ lunch consisted of a piece of bread with Malawi hot sauce and mine with some Golden Syrup yum!

We decided to go and explore the road to Livingstonia, which is a 15km very rocky gravel road that goes up a mountain all the way to a little town on top of the mountain. It was very steep with loads of rocks and bends and after we tried it out for about 3km we decided to give it a rest and not push the bikes any further – we still have a far way to go to Cairo :o) Here you can see one of the steep rocky bends…

It was good fun, but we didn’t want to mess up our tyres on the rocks too much. We’ll leave this for next time when we come to Malawi! I’m glad we didn’t push it any further as we later heard that the beginning was the easy part of it!

We arrived at Sangilo Sanctuary Lodge at lunch time. On the Long Way Down series Charley and Ewan met up with Eve here at this lodge so that it quite cool. We are enjoying our last swim in Lake Malawi now and tomorrow we will be crossing our next border into Tanzania.

Here Francois is enjoying the private beach – it’s a tough life I know!

We have really been relaxing out here in Malawi which is still Africa for beginners we realise :o) We have the whole place to ourselves again and we are wondering where all the tourists are feeling a bit lonely? I suppose the fuel crises and warnings against riots have really hit the tourism industry hard – such a shame as Malawi is beautiful and so easy to travel through. My wildest expectations have been exceeded and we will definitely come back to Malawi again!