We took a break and went to Liwonde National Park last weekend (about 2 hours north of us) with another American family who is also adopting a child from Malawi. We had a great time.
The weather was perfect and we saw LOTS of animals. We saw elephants, monkey monkey (as Mphatso says), water buck, warthogs, impalas and hippos. The park does have lions and crocodiles but we did not see either of those animals. The animals are only enclosed by the fence or the river so they are free to roam as they choose. You are not allowed out of your car unless you have an armed escort. You can be fined K2,000 per person if they find you out of your vehicle or the safari vehicles.
We took a boat ride in an all wooden boat (would not meet US safety standards) and saw lots and lots of hippos. We actually got closer than I was comfortable with but the guides apparently knew what they were doing.
We also did a night safari in open truck. It has seating in the back of the truck so it was easy to see the animals. We were VERY close to elephants and hippos at night. It was a great time and the kids loved it.
When we returned from the night safari, there were 2 elephants about 15 feet in front of our car parked in the lot. There was probably 40 feet between us and the elephants. An armed guard came out to assist us into the lodge. While we were sleeping (or attempting to sleep) elephants were outside our window tearing up trees and they don’t chew with their mouths closed. They were so close you could hear them breathe. I kept looking out the window to see if I could see something but I never did. But we could sure hear them. One of them trumpted and it scared me. Mphatso was asleep when we got back to the room so she missed the elephants in the parking lot and the elephants outside our room.
The baobob trees in Malawi are huge. The elephants either eat the bark or tear it off so many of the baobob trees have no bark about ½ way down. Yes, Ray is standing in front of the tree and yes, we could have been fined K2,000 each for being out of the car. We had our friends watch for wild animals while we took the pic.
One of the best things about this trip was that even though the lodge had no electricity, they did have hot water and we were thrilled to take a hot shower. This was Mphatso’s second shower she has ever taken (the other one was a cold shower at our house). She had to do the “hot water shower dance” in the shower. It was cute.
We hope to be able to do this again and the next time someone comes to visit us, plan on making a trip to Liwonde.
Adoption update: We found out on Friday that the court in Blantyre had decided to take a recess the rest of August and all of September so now we don’t know when our court date will be - probably October.
