Africycle and the Zomba Plateau

This last leg of our journey has been a lot of fun. We left Lilongwe with a couple of people on Friday and got dropped off at a very busy bus station in Blantyre. And by bus station, I don't mean a Greyhound station like Bloor and Dundas, I mean mini-buses everywhere and muddy roads, and people selling phone minutes for cell phones and we made it through that to Doogle's Lodge, where all the travellers supposedely come on their way through the city. We were able to drop off our larger packs here (I say here because that is where I am right now) for the weekend and head to Zomba. Oh, Zomba. What a paradise of Malawi! I was so impressed by the little town. We took a crazy minibus there with only 23 people in a Westphalia style VW van and both Andrea and I sent a specific prayer up a few times that we wouldn't tip over on the corners at 100 kmph.

And there was Africyle on the left hand side of the road, just a few kms before reaching Zomba. We has such a great time visiting their site. We met Innocent 'the ladies man' first and he showed us around the place, the tools they used, what they needed most (mountain bikes and kids bikes have been a hit) and where they store the bikes that are about to get fixed. They've been officially running since August and have sold about 350 bikes since then, which is wonderful considering the competitive prices they are selling them at. Edward the welder wanted to show us his welding job on the side of the container and wanted us to show it to his best friend Ted back in Canada. Philip showed up and gave us a more administrative tour of the place.

We stayed at a guest house for the night and ate some wonderful food at a local Indian/Burgers restaurant called Tasty Bites (I had a few for sure). The next morning we headed to the plateau to the north of Zomba. What a great time. Next post...