Day 142: Liwonde NP – Zomba (Casa Rossa)

We go "around the mountain" again – beautiful, but really nothing to see except trees, bushes, and grassland...

We leave the park and have already decided to skip the other large park in Malawi (Machete / also managed by African Parks).

Zomba is about 70 km south and has a Chipiku supermarket that's exceptionally well-stocked by local standards. We'll have to stock up a bit, because we won't be able to get much for the two days in Mozambique and the first two days in Zimbabwe.

Our campsite for today is Casa Rossa. It's supposed to have good Italian food :-)

We need to think about our cash reserves today.

We've still got enough for here (camping and food). Tomorrow we'll have a service at Toyota in Blantyre, which will be surprisingly expensive; we'll have to buy expensive engine oil. And we still need to fill up before we cross Mozambique.

We can still get rid of some remaining Zambian money at our accommodation for the next few days (African Wild Truck on the edge of the Mulanje Mountains / we know Stefano from Lusaka).

But we don't want to keep any Kwacha left over, for which we might get a very bad exchange rate. We also don't want to pay with a Visa card or use the ATM, because we can get almost twice as much on the black market.

So now we have to negotiate an exchange rate with the black market dealer in Blantyre (depending on the exchange currency and the size of the banknotes) and a meeting point. Pfff...

In between, we take a short drive up to the Zomba Plateau. Quite nice views, but in no way comparable to the Nyika Plateau.