Nkhata Bay

This past week we went to Nkhata Bay and stayed at Njaya Lodge. There was some pretty delicious food there. I was able to have whole Butterfish. It was really tasty! Also, they had thick crepes with sugar and piece of a lemon that you could squeeze the juices onto the crepe. It was so good! The sugar here is not as fine as sugar in America and I really like it. I like the crunch of the sugar particles here, it's really satisfying.

The view from the eating area of the Njaya Lodge

Also, it rained for the first time this season! It rained for the first time that I've been in Africa! It was so exciting! The rain started our first night in Njaya and poured down on our metal roof, so it was incredibly loud. It was pretty cool though. I got to relax and enjoy the freshness and smell of the rain while reading a book that I brought. It was really nice.
We ended up going on our kayaking trip on Friday to Saturday. It was really nice to get out and do something as enjoyable as the rain was. It rained Friday morning, but stopped at around lunch time, so that's when we headed out. I was the person in the back of the two person kayak. My job was not only to follow the person in front with their paddling, but I was supposed to pedal with both of my feet to direct us. Sometimes I would get caught up in paddling and my timing and I would forget that I had my right foot almost all the way down on the pedal so we would start veering off away from the shore where the waves get bigger. It was pretty funny though. I started getting the hang of it after a bit. After a while I realized that I felt like I was Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon with Toothless! It was the greatest realization ever! The pedals were metal and I just envisioned myself on a dragon sometimes. It was pretty exciting.

Paddling along!

We were able to go cliff jumping. It wasn't too high though. Probably about 20 feet, maybe 25 feet if that. I ended up being the first to jump. It was great! I was really nervous, but I don't think that I would say that I was scared. I knew I would be fine if I jumped and I wouldn't get hurt, but heights are just pretty nerve racking!
Then we continued kayaking and then snorkeled around a small island. There were so many beautiful fish! So many different colors. Sometimes when I looked towards the darkness between rocks, I started to scare myself as to what could come out, but nothing ever did. It was a really fun time. Then we got to the beach and had a nice mashed potato dinner cooked over a fire with some vegetables and some seasoned chicken. It was so good. The best and most seasoning I have had all summer!
We slept on the beach, which ended up being rather uncomfortable, but we got as much sleep as we could manage.

Made it to the beach for the night.

We haven't changed yet, so it's a bit chilly still.

Some kids on the beach with us before nightfall.

We all woke up and ate breakfast (toast with baked beans) and then packed up to kayak back. Kayaking back seemed to go so much faster for some reason. Maybe our muscles were more used to the paddling motion. Again, I was the back paddle and pedal person. After a while of paddling, Emily mentioned to Khumbu (our main guide) that there was a lot of water in the kayak. He came over and opened my skirt covering to see how much we had. He said that it was actually a lot and that no wonder we were slowing down, haha. So he grabbed a cup and started scooping the water out. Khumbu commented on the fact that the water was warm. Haha, I was laughing so hard and saying that I promised I didn't go to the bathroom in the kayak. I wasn't expecting him to say that at all! He told us also that we were more likely to flip over because the water would be swishing back and forth to make us less balanced. After Khumbu got a ton of the water out, he tried to pull my skirt covering back on. We were both still on our kayaks in the water, so it was pretty difficult. He kept floating away and I just kept laughing about it all. So then he started laughing and while laughing told me to stop making him laugh. Haha, it was great! It probably all looked really funny, and we were finally able to get the skirt covering back on. Then Khumbu showed us another cliff jumping spot. It was so incredibly high! It had to have been 50 feet or around there! He told us that he has jumped off of it before, so we asked him to show us. He actually did! It was crazy and so awesome!

Wearing our skirt coverings! 

We had some lunch and found out that our kayak had a small whole in it. So that's why our kayak was full of water! We had some delicious papaya and bananas with rolls and avocados, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, onions, groundnuts, and oranges. So tasty!

We got back to the Lodge and found out that if the waves had been any bigger that day, we would not have been able to kayak back. They had gotten pretty big because it rained earlier that morning and was still cloudy. It was a great couple days!

On Sunday we were able to see a forest of rubber trees! They are so cool! One of the men around came over and scraped on part of the tree and sure enough white ooze came out of where he scraped and came down following the ledge of scrape on the tree and down on a spout that led to a pail to collect the rubber. It was so neat to see firsthand! After it dries it becomes more beige and stretchy! A lot of the people around collect the dried parts on the tree and make rubber band balls and sell them on the side of the road. I am amazed at how cool these trees are!

Also, before we left, I ended up seeing the lake flies! There were lots of big swarms of them! I remembered seeing them on Planet Earth one night as we watched in Provo! It was crazy to see the swarms above the water! I didn't see any close up, but I saw them fly towards the beach nearby and then continue onto the land. I'm glad they didn't fly at me! It was so cool though! The swarm was so dark above the water and at first I had no clue what it was, and then some of the men nearby told me they were lake flies! So crazy!

The lake flies are the dark cloud above the water if you can see it!

We drove back to SAFI on Monday and today we are getting together odds and ends and leaving to go to Lilongwe today after lunch. As I have been organizing, I found some things that would be nice for Adam to have since he is extending his stay for his research, so Emily, Renee, and I gathered them together in one of Adam's large baskets that he bought and I ended up carrying it on my head over to him from our hostel to his. It's not too far, but it was still a challenge. It was really fun to walk with it on my head though. Kevin and Aida and some of the other workers loved seeing me do that. They got a kick out of it and were saying that I was becoming a Malawian woman! It was so fun to see their reactions. They love seeing people try. It was a blast!

Canoes that are usually used. If worked on Monday through Friday all day, it will take about 3-4 weeks to finish. Definitely harder to balance in. I can only imagine.

My chaco tan lines...yeah...

Cool sand on the beach!