Falls, a Lake and 5 Days on a Bus

We're writing this post on a very hot, muggy Christmas Day in Lusaka, Zambia.  Colleen and I are singing Christmas Carols and we made eggnog, it was pretty good.  Colleen and Olivia just put some Christmas cookies into the oven, they smell good. 
Anyways, we've been out of South Africa for two weeks now and had some great adventures.  We started out flying to Livingstone, Zambia where we stayed at a really cool backpacker's lodge called Jollyboys.  You could pick mangos off the tree or sit in the cool sunken pillow lounge and chill.  We went to Victoria Falls with a friend we made from Colombia.  The falls were amazing, this is the dry season so they weren't at their full volume but we were kind of glad they weren't because we hear that when it is at full strength you just get soaked and can't even take pictures because of the mist and spray from the falls.  After looking at the falls we went around behind them and walked around in the riverbed above the falls.  That evening we took a sunset dinner cruise aka booze cruise but thankfully there were only 4 other people on the boat and it was mellow and sober crowd.  The cruise was 3 hours long and we saw many hippos and crocodiles and watched the sun set over the Zambezi River.
The next day we took a bus to Lusaka to meet up with COLLEEN!  The bus took about 6 hours.  We basically went to sleep and got up the next morning at 3:45am to catch the bus to Lilongwe, Malawi.  This bus took 13 hours.  The bus was crowded and the aisles were full of bags and boxes, a suitcase fell on Colleen's head, there was no bathroom on the bus...they did give us a coke and cookies though.  The bus stopped about 5 times for people to go to the bathroom, but usually there wasn't a bathroom to go to... We got to Lilongwe and slept at a backpacker's lodge there then woke up early the next morning again to catch a bus up to Nkhata Bay, a town on Lake Malawi.  This bus took 7 hours, it was full, people were standing in the aisles and sitting on each other and it stopped every kilometer it seemed to pick up more people...and chickens. By the end of this trip I was saying to myself that this place had better be worth all these bus rides and I'd look at Olivia and Colleen and just shake my head miserably. 
Well, we arrived and let me tell you, it was definitely worth it.  We stayed at a backpacker's lodge called Mayoka Village (everyone should go there because it's AWESOME!).  We had a little stone and bamboo hut right on the shore looking out at the beautiful lake.  The water was warm and full of tropical fish, yellow ones, blue ones, orange ones, purple ones, red ones.  Lake Malawi is apparently one of the best places to freshwater snorkel/dive in the world and we agree!  The place provided us with free snorkeling equipment and there was a floating dock in the middle of the bay that you could swim out to and lay out on.  The food at the lodge was amazing, every day we'd wake up excited to see what the special for the day was.  They had pizza night twice and this made Olivia very happy.  They also had giant amazing pancakes with honey and lemon...so good.  Pretty much we spent a week swimming, snorkeling, eating, reading and playing Monopoly Deal (the best card game ever).  Lake Malawi also has a very interesting secret.  One day we were siting on the floating dock and we saw a dark cloud moving over the water's surface.  Colleen and Olivia thought it was smoke, but a boat would have had to explode to create that much smoke.  I remember having seen on Planet Earth about huge clouds of Lake Flies on Lake Malawi so I asked a local man in a passing canoe and he told me yes, they were flies...billions and billions of tiny flies.  There is a picture below.  Apparently a couple of fisherman have died, caught in a swarm of the flies and suffocated. 
Now we are back in Lusaka after two more days of lovely bus rides: 8.5 hours and 11 hours.  When we arrived in Lusaka they were unloading the bags from under the bus and in one of the compartments there was just a goat sitting there.  The man who owned it said it was Christmas dinner...shame.
In a couple of days we're heading to Cape Town with Colleen then back to Zonke for a month.  We've enjoyed seeing other parts of Africa, Zambia and Malawi are very different from South Africa.
Love,
The Wandering Two

Victoria Falls

Hippos on the Zambezi

Lake Malawi, the view from our room

Our room...and Colleen

Traditional Malawian dugout canoes, there were many on the lake every day

Just sitting in the water, watching the fishies

Lake Flies, found only in Malawi

Olivia and Colleen on the dock

Me peeking out from the outdoor shower

We spent a lot of time here.