Hey everyone, my name is Darryl Triebner and I’m from Toronto, Canada. Back in the summer of 2003 was the best and first vacation of my life! We left Pearson International Airport, flew to London, England, spent the day touring there, and then we left for Rome, Italy (by way of Air Ethiopian) and we landed in Addis Ababa for a few hours. Then we hopped back on and left for Lilongwe, Malawi. Flying over Africa was astonishing. We saw the Nile River, the Sahara desert, Mount Kilimanjaro, and 100% pure African wilderness. Landing in Lilongwe was beautiful. Beside the runway was little grass huts where people lived, and only separated by a chain link fence! So much for security!
We met up with my mom’s friend and we left for a four hour drive north into the mountains to a town called Mzuzu. It was great. The next couple of days we spent exploring Mzuzu and its colourful markets, a school full of AIDS children and even went to the beach in Chinteche, a beautiful resort awaited us on Lake Malawi, with azure oceans and white sand. The grass was a little tricky to walk on as there were very sharp and poisonous leaves scattered about, but it was just one of the things that we adjusted to, like the insanely bumpy roads with hot, choking, red dust that coated everything we brought and stained them with a deep red. We also visited the Vwaza Marsh Game Reserve where we got a little too close to hippopotamuses, as they brushed by our huts at night. I also had a one-on-one with a strange spiky caterpillar that left quills in your hand when you touched it.
A few days of lazing about in Mzuzu because of a tropical storm, we headed further north to Nyika National Park. The elevation was very high and it was very tiring to hike, but definitely well worth it. The endless rolling hills of the plateau gave way to grazing zebra, antelope, gnu, cervals and fantastic lakes where fish were sparse, but very tasty if you caught one!
After much exploration and a few bribes to get out of the country (involving having an Uzi sub-machine gun being pointed at my chest while our taxi was being searched) we left Malawi and said goodbye to a wonderful adventure. Would I go back? In a second!
