We heard the elephants in the middle of the night! The staff has been telling us that elephants sometimes walk through the camp at night and we were beginning to think they might be messing with us. The noise we heard was unmistakably the trumpeting of elephants (although Kip can make a very similar sound when he blows his nose in the morning)!
We were served breakfast at 7:30am and we were on the road a little after 8am. We had a 5 hours of driving and another hour stop at the Zambia-Malawi border. When we made it to the Kiboko hotel in Lilongwe we were all anxious to explore the market place right outside. The next couple of hours were spent bartering with the vendors for hand-made souvenirs to bring back home. Hugo and Chifundo were there to help us make sure we were getting the quality we were paying for. Shopping here was a whole new adventure; it was difficult to walk anywhere without 5 or 6 different vendors crowding you or trying to pull you over to their booth. In the end, we were able to get fair deals and very pleased with what we got.
One of the bedrooms at the Kiboko in Lilongwe.
The balcony of the Kiboko that overseas the marketplace.
For dinner we drove to a local pizza place. Mary Beth thought this might be better than the Korean restaurant we were originally going to eat at considering we were going to spend the next two days traveling. Here, Chifundo said his goodbyes and gave us each a wooden hippo sculpture as a reminder of our time together. We were all sad that he was not going to be able to take us to the airport in the morning, but we knew we were in safe hands when he told us that his brother would be driving instead. When we got back to the Kiboko, we were all excited to have nice showers with warm water and large mosquito nets over our beds. Some of us even got to purchase some internet time to catch up on events back home.
Tomorrow we start our long trip back home. Although the travel is something we are not necessarily looking forward to, we are all extremely excited to get back home to share our stories with friends and family!
Love and Blessings,
Manja a Machiritso