South Africa
Southern Africa
UK
Campsites (Africa)
One abiding memory of Malawi is the huge number of people in towns, villages and along the roadside. Apart from in the National Parks I don't think we ever drove more than a kilometre without encountering people walking or cycling along the road. In villages you have to drive very carefully as there are so many people milling about. Even in the countryside there were always people about. The guy on the left is cutting grass beside the road. Bikes are the most common form of transport in Malawi and we saw all sorts being carried on the back of them -people, wood, huge bags of charcoal, live chickens in cages, sugar-cane, goats, pigs etc etc A pig tied to the luggage rack - we couldn't tell lf it was alive or dead. Women carrying babies on their backs were often to be seen on the back of bikes. Dedza After entering Malawi we drove to Lilongwe, the capital, where we got provisions from a well stocked Shoprite supermarket and then visited some of the areas in the southern part of the country. Our first stop was at Dedza (S14 22.291 E34 18.135) which has a well-known pottery which makes all sorts of hand-made items and has a campsite, rooms and a cafe. The pottery had some lovely tiles as well as lots of jars, mugs etc We bought a set of 16 picture tiles and a couple of mugs which they packed up carefully for us. We would have bought some more items but were limited by space and the thought that we would be travelling on some rather rough roads!. Mphunzi Mountain Rock Art. One of the reasons for stopping at Dedza was to visit some of the Chongoni Rock Art sites, which is a World Heritage Site. The guide book suggested that Mphunzi Mountain offered the best panels and by following the directions in the book (Mphunzi wasn't on our map or GPS) we arrived at the 'car park' are were greeted by a couple of locals who offered to show us the sites. The rock art site was disappointing as the images were so badly worn (so perhaps some of the others sites have better images) but it was interesting to talk to the 2 local guys who took us around the site and we did get a great view of the surrounding countryside. Dedza Pottery & Mphunzi Mountain. Southern Lakeside - Monkey Bay, Cape Maclear & Senga Bay. Zomba Plateau & Mulanje Massif. Nyika National Park & Vzawa Marsh Wildlife Reserve. Northern Lakeside - Chintheche & Mkondowe. Diary (Word document). This was the best bit of rock art that we saw.
Dedza Pottery & Mphunzi Mountain
