Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Lilongwe is its capital and largest city.
The country is slightly smaller than Bulgaria, twice the size of Nova Scotia and practically the same size as the state of Pennsylvania.
The part of Africa known as Malawi was settled around the 10th century by the Akafula, also known as the Abathwa. Later, the Bantu groups came and drove out the Akafula and formed various kingdoms that flourished from the 16th century. The British Empire began to consolidate control of the area following the 1890 British Ultiatium against the Portuguese, who had claimed the area between Angola and Mozambique in 1885. In 1891, the area was designated by the British as the British Central African Protectorate, being renamed Nyasaland in 1907. In 1964, Nyasaland became independent and was renamed Malawi. Two years later, Banda became president by converting the country into a one-party presidential republic. Banda was declared president for life in 1971. Malawi’s first few decades of independence was characterized by Banda’s highly repressive dictatorship. After the introduction of a multi-party system in 1993, Banda lost the 1994 general election, and the country has continued to experience peaceful transitions of power.
Malawi is one of the world’s least developed countries with an economy heavily based on agriculture, with a largely rural and growing population. The country has high infant mortality and HIV/AIDS is highly prevalent. The diverse population includes native peoples, Asians and Europeans. The population is predominantly Christian, and the majority are Protestant.
The flag features three equal horizontal bands of black, red, and green, with a red rising sun centered on the top black stripe representing the indigenous people of Malawi and the African continent; red symbolizing the blood shed by martyrs and freedom fighters during the struggle for independence; green representing the lush, ever-green nature and vegetation of the country and the sun symbolizing the dawn of hope and freedom for the whole of Africa.
Currency: Malawian Kwach MWK – $0.00058 USD; $0.00080 CAD
Gas: 5619 MWK – $12.27 per USD gallon – highest price we’ve ever experienced!
Beer: Castel and Kuche Kuche
License plate:
August 13th, 2026
After our memorable trip to Zambia the past few days, we had a leisurely Friday in Lilongwe in comparison (got a lot done online with the great StarLink connection) and hit the road from Lilongwe just before 8 on Saturday to make our way to Lake Malawi.
It took us nearly 5 hours and the roads started out pretty good but turned to crap after we left the M1. Just before getting off the M1 (which is not a really good road either but in comparison, a dream), we had to pay a 2000 kwacha toll to “help maintain highway infrastructure” – just another example of corruption in this country, as the money is clearly not going to the roads!
Speaking of corruption, when we went through some towns, they would be signs saying “You are entering a corruption free zone”. Another good one was “You are entering a zone of non open defecation” – meaning there were toilets and access to water.
The weather was rather cool when we left Lilongwe and as we passed through the mountainous area it got really cool but once we reached the Lake it had warmed up nicely.
During the drive, we got pulled over by the traffic cops for speeding: doing 63 kmph in a 50 kmph zone. Cost 20,000 MWK which is less than $12 USD; about $16 CAD.
The drive here was interesting; the last 5 km were crappy roads but then when you reach the village, it all sand roads that do not seem like roads at all.
We had booked a room at Thumbi View Lodge right on Lake Malawi in the town of Cape Maclear (sometimes spelled with a “k”). At this lodge, we have a double room with a private bathroom, WiFi, ceiling fan (no AC) with breakfast included. There were two Adirondack chairs outside our room with a lovely view of the lake and Thumbi Island.
After checking in and learning what dinner was that night, we opted to go elsewhere and made a dinner reservation at a restaurant nearby after checking in.
Lake Malawi is located between Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique. It is the third largest lake in Africa and the second deepest. It is the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world by volume as well as the ninth largest overall. Lake Malawi is hThe Mozambique portion of the lake was officially declared a reserve by the Government of Mozambique on June 10, 2011, while in Malawi a portion of the lake is included in Lake Malawi National Park.ome to more species of fish than any other lake in the world, including at least 700 species of cichlids. Many of these have become popular among aquarium owners due to their bright colors.
Lake Malawi is a meromictic lake which means that its water layers do not mix. Lake Malawi is also known as “Calendar Lake” because it is approximately 365 miles long and 52 miles wide (in metric: 588 km long and 84 km wide). The lake has a total surface area of about 29,600 km² / 11,400 mi². The lake is 706 m /2,316’ at its deepest point located in the north-central part. The southern half of the lake is shallower; less than 400 m / 1,300’.
The lake’s water is alkaline (pH 7.7–8.6) and warm with a typical surface temperature between 24-29C / 75–84F, while deep sections typically are about 22C / 72F.
Swimming in the lake is popular and generally it is clear and warm, but it carries a real risk of contracting schistosomiasis (bilharzia), a parasitic infection spread by freshwater snails. Many travelers swim at popular tourist spots and take a preventative single-dose medication afterward, but risks from wildlife and parasites require caution. Locals get the medication monthly.
We had the hotel find us a tour for tomorrow to go out on a boat on the lake to see the fish and the fish eagles. We had decided we weren’t going to risk snorkeling. We met Fatima and she set us up with a boat for the morning for a trip to Thumbi Island which we could see from the hotel terrace (hence the hotel name!).
We walked over to the place where we ordered dinner, sat down and ordered beer to drink while watching the sunset at 5:15 only to learn their beer was warm! We gave the waitress some money to go fetch two different kinds of beer to try them. She came back with three, none of which we wanted. So someone went off once again and found what we ordered.
The sunset was a bit disappointing due to the layer of clouds/atmosphere.
The Kuche Kuche beer was on the lighter side but not so good; the Castel was better but not great. We had each ordered a different pasta dish. At this point we were told they had no chef but could make Doug’s dinner but not Fran’s so she said, just make two the same. It came shortly after six and it was okay – a little undercooked but it tasted alright.
We returned to our lodge and had a quiet evening in the room. The kids called on a joint WhatsApp video call to wish their dad an early happy 66th birthday for tomorrow.
Saturday morning, Doug went for a run on the dirt tracks of the town and the main paved road. Before breakfast we asked about laundry service and were told it could be done in one day; when Fran went back to get it and gave it to the woman, she said it “should be done” tonight, latest tomorrow morning, so we’ll see how that goes. Breakfast starts at 7:30 but by the time we got it, it was nearly 8 (served on “beach time”) and then headed over for our boat tour.
Fatima had arranged for the boat to pick us up here at the lodge. Before getting on board, there was a fellow was selling souvenirs right at the beach in front of the lodge. We saw something that we liked for our tree but it was not something we could hang. We explained what we wanted and he offered to drill a hole in it and wanted to charge $45 USD! Doug thought he said $5 and when Fran told him what he really said we said, no way. He came down to $20 but we still felt that was high.
We boarded the boat with Fatima and Captain Mario and he took us to the island where he anchored.
They had some bread and that attracted a number of cichlids. At first we saw very few and although we came on this tour prepared to be disappointed, it was worse than expected. Then five minutes later many more showed up as they kept dropping bread in the water and we saw these colourful fish: blue, blue with a red stripe on top, golden ones, white ones as well as brown and black ones.
As we were not in the water ourselves, we took video from above and tried some stills which are hard in moving water – the videos are better.
Mario then took us up the side of the island to find fish eagles. Here are some pics as we round the island which has a good number of baobab trees:
He had some fish that were a sort of sardine and he’d put a piece of the bamboo wood from the boat shade cover in the fish, make fish eagle whistles and check them into the water for the eagles to come fetch them.
Fran should have brought her Nikon camera but forgot about this part of the tour but luckily she did have our waterproof camera and caught a few good videos of the eagles coming to to get the fish on offer:
She took a few photos with the camera as well but the zoom is no where as good as her Nikon:
The tour was supposed to be 2-3 hours but since we weren’t snorkeling, we were good after an hour and they returned us to the lodge. Here are some shots we took on the way back:
(Later we spoke to a young Dutch couple who had done the dive tour and they said they saw a good number of colourful fish but not as much as expected but they did also see a catfish so this solidified our thoughts that snorkeling wouldn’t have been much better and it was safer not to in this water anyway.)
Upon disembarking the boat, the fellow with the expensive souvenir had done as we’d asked and was willing to take $15 instead of $45 and we had our souvenir.
We then got into our car to drive over to the national park gate to see about going to Otter Point for a look and to see the former missionary graveyard. Turned both of these are inside the park boundaries and we felt the fee was rather high for what we would see, so we skipped it and returned to our room.
Doug went off to make balloon animals for an hour or so and Fran got a bit more website work done. Then we spent a chill afternoon by the pool reading and viewing the lake – also having a couple of beers to celebrate Doug’s birthday. We had ordered dinner here and while Doug was out Fran went to the desk to ask if they could make a special dessert for him that night (the meals here are one course only). Sunset that night:
So after a pretty good chicken pot pie for dinner, she kept waiting for it to come out. After sitting nearly a half hour, we got up to leave and it was brought out. Some sort of coconut cake with a hot custard sauce. Happy birthday Doug!
Fran hasn’t been sleeping well and this night was especially bad. She woke up quite sleepy. Doug went for an early walk that morning and managed to access the colonial historical graveyard in the park before the park opened:
We left the lodge after breakfast (which again, was cold!) and made our way out of town and headed south. We encountered baboons on the way to the paved section of road (if you can call it that!):
Our next major destination is Majete Wildlife Reserve but it’s a long way and who knows how bad the roads are so we’d planned for this drive to take two days. Fran found a place about half way to spend a night. The road out of Cape Maclear was bad, once you got past the turnoff where we’d come from Lilongwe, it was long bad sections followed by long good ones and the speed limit was actually 100 kmph / 60 mph. However, on these roads with pedestrians, goats and bicycles with wide loads, doing that speed was a bit foolish so Doug stuck to around 80 kmph / 50 mph.
We did take a dirt road off the highway to get another peek at the Lake in a different location. We’re sure many of the local people here rarely saw cars or white people and when we asked questions, no one spoke English.
We pulled off the highway after our turn off to the accommodation in order to see if we could find a few coke zeros and other things in the city. The road into the city of Liwonde had some of the worst potholes we’d experienced – it was horrendous. Once you get into the town, they roads are all dirt and actually smoother. We had no luck and turned back down the terrible pavement to get to Villa Liwonde Cottage on the River Shire. This river comes out of Lake Malawi and actually runs down into the Zambezi in Mozambique but enroute it runs through the Majete Reserve where we’re heading tomorrow.
The hotel was quite dated but clean but had a lovely seating area right on the river.
We were given a “superior” room with a queen bed, a small desk and a love seat and coffee table. We had a private bathroom and there as a ceiling fan and AC, but we experienced many power outages during our stay here so we didn’t even try the AC. Luckily our room got no afternoon sun and it was relatively comfortable.
We put our things in the room and went to sit on the river bank to see if we could see hippos – which were all on the other side of the river but it was a lovely view. The hotel does offer river rides but we passed as we’d heard they were not that great.
Doug went to scout our a jogging route for the morning, Fran got online. Now there is WiFi here they said, but we could never connect to do anything. It would show connected, some apps would open but most not. Oh well,…..
We went out to the river at sunset with a beer/cider and we were facing east but the light was pretty.
That night we ordered a chicken dinner and Noreen made us each a quarter chicken, with African sweet potatoes and some sort of green boiled vegetables that looked like chopped lettuce with onions. The chicken was pretty good, the sweet potatoes tasted like real potatoes but Fran thought the green “stuff” was gross (but we all know that Fran is picky!).
We returned to our room for the evening and the power went out for the third and fourth times but was on before bed. Fran slept great that night – finally! And didn’t even wake up when Doug went out to run. Doug wanted a shower but because the power was out again, the caretaker/chef/manager, Noreen, boiled him up some water for a bucket shower in the next room. That poor woman seems to do everything: reception, chef, cleaning lady, and whatever else needs doing. There is a security guard who mans the gate.
After a sort of sad breakfast, we left Liwonde and began the journey south to Majete Wildlife Reserve – hoping to see the Big Five. We had to pass through Liwonde again so here are some pics as we drove over the bridge over the Shire River:
this is the road on the other side: mostly dirt with bikes and pedestrians each trying to navigate the best part of the road:
The first part of the road was awful then as we approached the small city of Zomba it got much better with more traffic. We stopped for a pee break at a petrol station and then we noticed that a few of the next stations had long lines. Seems many had no petrol. We were glad we had ¾ of a tank.
The drive south brought us to more mountainous landscape and the road from there to Blantyre was pretty good and we stopped in this, the second largest city in Malawi, hoping to find Coke Zero, some ice and get some more cash.
Also we’d not encountered any coins as yet so we needed to see if we could break a bill at a bank to bring home coin for our grandkids and nieces. We accomplished the latter two but no luck on Zero nor ice. We knew we’d have a fridge in our room at the lodge, so it wasn’t a big deal not to get ice, but I guess like in Madagascar, we’re going to be low on caffeine in the afternoons.
We left Blantyre with more mountains around us and began to descend on decent but not perfect roads and upon reaching a point after Chikwawa, the road became dirt but not full of pot holes or large dips.
We arrived at Ng’ona Lodge on the Shire River around one o’clock and met the owner, Monika, (from Austria) (later we met her husband, Rauri, who is from Scotland). She gave us a choice of upgraded rooms. Apparently the day before, part of the roof over the bar/restaurant area began to lean the wrong way when two poles began to lean over! The power has been cut off to that side of the lodgings (which also means no StarLink as the dish was on this roof).
Both cabins were very nice and we chose the one with a river view. There is a large infinity pool that felt a bit cool and the while the weather is quite pleasant, it’s not hot enough that we feel we need to jump in a pool.
We have a king bed (with separate twin bedding as you often find in Europe), a desk, large private bathroom, a fridge, kettle and drinking water – first time since Mauritius we’ve gotten that.
The lodgings include breakfast and there is a menu for lunch and dinner. They do not have their own safari vehicle but Monika booked a tour for us tomorrow morning in the park. We must pay at the gate: $30 each for park fee and $37 each for the drive. If we choose to do a night drive, we do not have to repay the park entrance fee. Now they do have the Big Five here but so far two people have told us that rhino is hard to spot as are lions and cheetahs. So we’ll see how the first drive goes, will probably do a second that day but opted not to do one tonight and probably not on Wednesday.
We decided to have a light lunch at the bar/restaurant and ordered some samosas and a fruit salad which were both very good. The bar has Savanna cider so Fran was happy to have that over ice.
After lunch we sat and read on our patio until we both felt a bit sleepy.
Its a bummer the WiFi is not working but at least we have cell service to do basic stuff. We had a lovely dinner up at the bar/restaurant and made it an early night as tomorrow’s morning game drive starts at 5:30!
We managed to gulp down a quick cup of coffee/tea in our rooms before leaving in the morning and drove the 2km to the park entrance. We paid the fee and boarded the rig for our drive that ran until 9 am.
The UNESCO-listed Majete Wildlife Reserve achieved public acclaim after it successfully reintroduced wildlife, including lions and cheetahs. With the lions, it became Malawi’s first Big Five (lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo) wildlife park following the decimation of the area’s wildlife population due to decades of poaching.
Samuel, our guide, got us and another couple from Belgium for a different camp loaded up and we picked up a couple from the park’s campground (maybe Italian?) to join us.
We did not see a lot; the third couple was interested in birds so we stopped several times for birds which were so tiny! We did see several types of buck: impala, bush buck, water buck, kudu and Nyala – which we’d never encountered before.
A few female waterbuck in the early morning light
Impala butts: 
a lone baboon: 
several more waterbuck: 
a hippo peeks out: 
a female nyala 
a big male nyala:
an African darter:
we could barely see the croc: 
a palm nut vulture: 
vultures and crows: 
a grey hornbill
brown snake eagle:
The entire time we were driving, Samuel was looking for lions and at one point saw giraffe tracks and lion tracks but neither appeared for us. We saw lots a couple of batches of rhino dung, a few cape buffalo ones and lots of piles of elephant dung.
Samuel pointed out some porcupine dung and then he found some quills, but no animal – they are mostly nocturnal anyway.
He did point out a elephant rubbing tree covered in mud. In order to remove ticks and bugs, they coat themselves in mud and then rub a tree to remove the mud, and the bugs along with it!
About 15 minutes before returning the main gate, we finally saw 3 elephants, one in the bush and two quite further back and in the shade in front were 4 zebras.
We had been prepared to not compare this with our wonderful drives in Zambia, but you can’t help but do that. So we opted not to do the guided afternoon game drive but instead, paid the $5 to bring our own vehicle in and drive ourselves – we just have to be out by 6pm – game drives stay till 7.
We returned to the lodge, had a wonderful made to order breakfast and chilled until we wanted to head back into the park.
We had planned to visit the Kapichira Waterfalls nearby the park and our lodge but in 2024 a cyclone came through and did major damage to the dam so all access except to construction vehicles has been denied. Doug did go for a walk as close as he could and got these shots:
the dam in the distance:
a spillway
Just before 3pm we made our way back into the reserve with no issues getting in. We stayed till just before six. We again only saw one of the Big Five – elephant – but a lot more of them than this morning.
We saw plenty of buck, a number of hippos and crocs and a brown mongoose of some sort ran across the road in front of us and at the end of the visit again, we found 5 zebras including a little one who wouldn’t turn around and look at us!
a male waterbuck
We came around a corner to this:
Then saw his buddy in the bushes:
We saw a mongoose cross the road that looked like this:
A lone female kudu:
A huge croc on the shore:
An African Darter in the river: 
We found a “hide” and went inside but saw nothing: 
This was one brave waterbuck!
Then we came across 5 zebras with a few impala before leaving the park just before six o’clock:
We had another good dinner at the restaurant, chatted with the owners a bit and it was back to our room for the last night here.
After a reasonably good sleep, we were up at breakfast by 7:30, chatted with Monika a bit more and paid our bill. Doug drove the car over to the room’s door, we packed it all back in and hit the road.
The next two days were just about getting back to Lilongwe to catch our flight back to Johannesburg where we have a second flight that same day on to Maputo in Mozamique. Monika and Rauri had recommended that we backtrack to Blantyre and take the M1 north all the way back – it’s longer than the route our phone said but time-wise, it’s shorter. We did stop in Blantyre for some groceries now that we knew what the name of the big grocery store chain was – Chipiku but still no Coke Zero or Pepsi Zero.
We also needed petrol and when we’d come through here a few days again, many stations were empty. Today at the fifth station we were able to fill up – otherwise, we’d been spending the night in the car as we had about an 1/8 of a tank left! That game drive we took last night took more petrol than we thought it would.
There are not many towns with hotels in between Majete adn Lilongwe but Fran found a place about ¾ of the way with a decently rate hotel on Google. It took us till about 3pm to reach Dedza and our mapping app took us on a terrible road to reach the hotel about 1.5 km off the M1. Doug managed to get himself another speeding ticket on the drive:
Dedza Pottery Lodge was better than expected. It’s at a higher altitude than we’ve been at the past few days and there was a bit a chill in the air by dusk.
The room had a double bed and a single, a fridge, kettle, heater (no AC but a fan), a desk and a private bathroom as well as an outside sitting area. The price also included breakfast and the restaurant serves dinner. Also, the restaurant was the only place to get Wi-Fi. While we did not visit the pottery museum, we did see these lovely table tops:
First order of business was to get online and get out visas for Mozambique. It was called an ETA and we’d read to do it 48 hours before arriving. Well, an ETA in our minds was a quick document for entry but NO, it was very involved and uploading the requested documents (photo, passport, proof of accommodation and proof of financial stability) took ages on the lodge’s internet! Fran ended up doing it on her phone using data but wasn’t sure the payment had gone through for the multi entry visa we needed. The message said “wait two hours for an email if your payment went through”. WTH? Well, what do you know, two hours later she got a message advising payment had been processed and that in a few days she’d get the visa. Mmmmhhh not fast enough for our arrival but 30 minutes after that she had the visa.
Doug pushed through on his laptop on the WiFi and after two calls with the help desk, got it all uploaded. His payment definitely didn’t go through and he waited almost the two hours and tried again. Nope, that didn’t work either. In the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep and tried again and then it worked finally. He got his visa very shortly afterwards too.
We had a light snacky dinner in our room that night using the heater for warmth as it was quite chilly. We turned off the heat about an hour before bed and it was comfy for sleeping.
So Thursday morning after breakfast at 6:30, we made our way back to Lilongwe in very good time (we had planned to stop to see the Rock Art site near Dedza but Fran read you need a guide, that the road there is horrific and not well marked and the hike starts with a 25 minute climb which she couldn’t get back down from with the state of her knees). While we’ve been driving in this country like in Madagascar, we saw many places where locals were making bricks for building homes. Here is a poor photo of what the brick ovens look like:
We arrived in Lilongwe by 8:30 in the morning and Fran had arranged with the AirBNB host where we’d stayed the previous two nights here, that we could check in that early with no problem.
Fran worked on our website with the fast StarLink Wi-Fi while Doug went for a few walks and got some banking done. We had purchased microwave popcorn for dinner and had that with our last two beers for dinner.
He saw this in a nearby mall:
We were up super early the next morning as we had to drop off our rental car at the Lilongwe airport around 6am as our flight was just after 8am. The check in apparently only starts 90 minutes before the flight here not three hours like most of the rest of the world, however, this is a small airport for a capital city.
The flight more or less left on time and landed by 11:35 with an unexpected stop in Blantyre – no where on our ticket was this mentioned. We arrived in Joburg with our bags and began the long wait before we could check in for our flight to Maputo. When we booked this flight, it was supposed to leave at 4:30; we were advised a few weeks later, it had been changed to 7:30pm and two weeks ago it was changed again to 8:20.
We found a cafe with plugs and sat having a few Coke Zero’s and getting online until around 3. Doug has asked the security outside the check in counters what time, we could check in for this flight with Air Mozambique and he said 3:30. We got inside the check in side and found out it was 4:30 not 3:30 so we sat there waiting.
We finally got checked in, dropped our bags and went through security and immigration with no issues. However, the number of times we were asked to show our passports and boarding passes was ridiculous.
We found a lounge to sit in and have some lunch/dinner to kill time. We went to the gate at 7:30 as the boarding pass said and after 15 minutes, someone came out and said the plane had not arrived and we would leave 45 minutes late. Then another 15 minutes went by and we were advised of a gate change and the departure boards showed another delay of 30 minutes, then it was another 30 minutes and we finally took off after 10 pm. We were so tired as we’d been up since before 5 this morning.
Including our drive into Zambia, we drove a total of 1670 km / 1038 miles on our rental car in Malawi.
Notes on Malawi –
- It is very, very poor with a large population; it’s rare to go a kilometre without seeing people on the roads and small villages.
- The infrastructure is incredibly lacking.
- It’s not really a pretty country; the game parks are not great either.
- Malawi currency struggles and even whites deal with corruption running businesses.
- It’s not really a country we’d recommend visiting.
- There is so much pollution in the air due to constant burning and the water is not much better and this is all destroying the environment with cutting down trees for coal and burning fields
Fun Facts about Malawi:
- During the mid-nineteenth century Scottish explorer, missionary and anti-slavery campaigner David Livingstone first traveled through the region, paving the way for further European influence.
- Founded in 1876, Blantyre is Malawi’s second-largest city and is named after David Livingstone’s Scottish birthplace.
- Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa, accounts for more than one-fifth of the country’s total area.
- The name Malawi is commonly said to mean “flames”, often linked to the fiery appearance of the sun over Lake Malawi.
- Popstar Madonna famously adopted four Malawian children. She drew criticism for receiving a special exemption from laws restricting non-residents from taking children abroad and for exaggerating her charity work in the country.
- In 2013, Malawi’s President Joyce Banda sold the luxury presidential jet for $15 million to raise cash for the struggling economy. She also cut her salary by 30%, pledged to sell off 35 Mercedes Benz cars used by her cabinet and introduced a host of austerity measures to boost Malawi’s economy.
- In 1968, Malawi became the only country outside of Denmark to have a factory for brewing Carlsberg beer.
- Malawi is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, with about 224 people per square kilometer of land area.
- Malawi has featured on the world stage eight times! Unfortunately, Malawi is yet to win a medal.
- However, at Rio 2016 two sisters born in Malawi won gold in the 4x100m relay freestyle. Sadly, for Malawi, they were representing Australia. Having lived there since they were young.
