chipata&bikes

special warm thoughts for daria and jason on this occasion!!! :)

i wanted to post some more photos, but it takes so long, that i just give up... enjoy these...

road from malawian border to chipata, zambia. bikes everywhere

luangwe bike plant in chipata. unfortunatelly, now the bikes are out of stock and the plant is closed. but they say they should have some bikes again in june 2010. they are only an assembling plant, the parts are produced in india. still, if we do the bike courriers project again next year in lusaka, we can have bikes from chipata!! :)

chipata is great. lively, but not too busy. lots of bikes and bike taxis. lots of good people. beautiful market and crowds of people going out of the mosque after friday prayer, passing on their way groups of old ladies in church outfits that are going to some church meeting. tomorrow to lusaka.

just a couple more words about malawi, cause it seems to me like i haven't written anything at all. it's been only a week, but feels much longer (naturally). so, malawi highlights:

- permaculture garden in nyika plateau. wonderful wonderful wonderful!! i then met it's owner on the bus and we've chatted quite a lot. he and his wife run some amazing projects to promote permaculture in malawi. they even have curriculums for schools on establishing school garderns and learninig from it.

- meeting two alexes (one malawian - a helpful immigration officer, one polish - a friend's friend :))

- walking up to livingstonia, one of the first missions here + some waterfalls with tiwongo and josiah, two local boys. great guys, great time together (sharing frisbee and chocolate :))

- scuba diving in nyasa lake with johnny and seeing all the beautiful fish, like from 'darwin's lake' (though i think the book is about tanganyika)

- watching all the beautiful sceneries of malawi

- hanging out in liliongwe with some friendly canadians, sharing malawian food, polish/canadian music and card tricks :)

- exploring lilongwe which is quite a strange city, i must say...

- getting a zambian visa, even though i have no more pages left in my passport. fortunatelly, it's only a stamp, not the whole page like in some other countries...

well, that's for now! hugs for the reader :)