Steps Campsite and Chitombi Beach: By Lake Malawi
by Rusket
There are lots of beautiful camping sites along Lake Malawi. We spent five nights in two different ones, Steps Campsite in the southern end and Chitombi Beach in the northern. We were literally camping on the beach! Beaches were lovely and the water clean and refreshing, with no dangerous animals to be afraid of. This little guy visited us often in the first camp.
The first night I woke up of a strange noice, it took me a while to realize it was raining. As usual we had left the covers of the top "windows" of the tent open to let the air in and to be able to admire the stars above. I ran outside to close the covers, but the tent was already flooded! And as we were tenting on the beach, it was already full of sand. So what do you do in the middle of the night when your tent is full of water and wet sand? The simple answer is: Nothing. You just say the old indian serenity prayer:
"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
The ground was slightly tilted, thus there was a small corner a little less wet than the rest. I just curled up in that corner and slept through the rest of the night.
The second night we chose to sleep inside Froggy, since all our stuff was still wet.Not that it was much better, poor Froggy was full of water, too.
There were fences around the camp sites, the locals were not allowed in. But my son got befriended with some kids of his own age and a little older on the beach of the second camp, and helped them selling home made souvernirs to our group and other camping guests. He was a good salesman indeed, and as a reward he was given necklaces enough to give away to all his friends back home :-)