Day 41: Zomba town & tasting crocodile!

16th August:

I wandered into town to meet one of the WHC american girls called Whitney, who I met in Cape Maclear. We had lunch at a cute little local place called Donna Eva where you could get rice, chicken and veg for 700kw! So cheap and so tasty!

After lunch she walked me around town and I realised Zomba is actually quite small, despite being the 4th largest town in Malawi. We stopped off at the famous 'Wonder Bakery' which apparently has amazing bread I can stock up on for Mt Mulanje. We also visited the cafe in 'African Heritage' and bumped into some of the other American girls from Cape Maclear.

  African Heritage cafe

After they left to go back to work, I wandered through town, and two men smiled and said hello to me, and naturally I replied "bobo" (the slang for hey) as I usually do. Then I saw him start to pack up what looked like paintings and increased my walking speed ten fold!

I was right to do so, but it made no difference because sure enough he had caught up with me and was unraveling his paintings to show me. I politely but firmly told him I wasn't interested and despite his impressive determination he eventually gave up. This was completely contrasted when I greeted a friendly local and he asked me name and where I was headed, and when I and answered that I was wandering into the market he said, "k, cool. I am stopping off for some things here. Bye." And he was gone! No lingering, no trying to sell me things, no flirting, he just treated me like a normal human being, not a mazungu.

I wandered around the market, which was really nice, then what do you know... Good old painting seller man was back... I managed to get rid of him firmly and quickly.

I then wandered back through the market and headed to the other side of town to walk through the botanical gardens (literally just a path through some trees, no labels or anything) but it was pretty and there were lots of baboons!

When I came back to Pakachere, who was there but the two Austrian girls from Cape Maclear!!! They asked what I was doing tomorrow and I said I wanted to climb Zomba Plateau and they said they wanted to as well.

Beat a local guy at Bawo... twice! He was not happy, and his friend made fun of him for being beaten by a mazungu. Hehe

I had a lovely fancy dinner with the two American girls, Whitney and Julia, who picked me up in their taxi to head up to Casa Rosa, a nice restaurant just north of Zomba town. I felt bad not having Malawian food, (it's an Italian restaurant if you can't tell!) but there's not much variety in Malawian staples... Rice or nsima, with vegetables or salad, with chicken or fish curry. So I think I've tried it all! I think I was let off the hook by my guilt because I ended up having the most Malawian dish on the menu: Crocodile pasta!!! Actually tasted a bit like chicken but a bit more fishy!