Mangochi & Cape Maclear

Cape Maclear

Mangochi

Another amazing lake weekend! For the past 3 months, I have been working on a study database and entering 300 files of data. I finally finished last week and started supervising the second entry process. I was really ready for a nice break, so after sending another friend off back to the US and a Zanzi night on Friday, I headed to the lake with one of my friends. Her friend has a lake house in Mangochi so we attempted to leave bright and early Saturday (aka 11am) to make it for the weekend. For some odd reason I woke up at 6am, probably due to the bright and very hot early morning sun, so I caught up on some tv shows. We spent the day hanging out at the house and waiting for lunch, which we ended up eating at like 4 (and dinner at about 12am), and swimming in the lake.

Cichlids

On Sunday, we headed off to Cape Maclear, a beach in a national park, about 30-40 minutes away. This place is absolutely amazing and since its protected, totally pristine. There are a bunch of lodges amidst the town/village right along the water's edge, so there seems to be a lot to do and very vibrant. Upon arrival, we organized a boat to go snorkeling and grabbed some drinks while we waited. We then headed out to an island off the coast and snorkeled to check out the cichlids. Cichlids are protected fish in these waters. They are really cool looking - they are tiny striped fish (sort of like aquarium fish-sized) but come in a variety of bright colors ranging from black, brown to blue, purple, and yellow. After snorkeling, we saw some big fish-eagles feed, then headed back to shore to chill on the beach for a bit. Finally, we went back to Mangochi for a dinner of chambo, a white fish (tilapia) found in the Lake, guacamole, casserole, and brownies.

sunset on saturday

Today (Monday), we ate breakfast and enjoyed the beach for a couple more hours before heading back to LLW. Overall a fantastic weekend, cant wait to get back. Perhaps I will even be tan come December...