Malawi, Mozambique, & South Africa

Today we are in Cape Town, South Africa. This city is easily one of the nicest cities we've been to so far. The weather is perfect and there's tons to do, so I 'm going to try not to waste too much time here on the computer. Since we left Mom and Dad in Tanzania we've been doing our own amazing race through southern Africa. It stinks because half of our time has been spent on buses and semi trucks, but it's been fun.

In Malawi we met up with Tommy, a friend of mine from Georgia, who is volunteering with the Peace Corps there. Peace Corps is a program funded by the American government that places American volunteers in countries that could use the help. They stay for two years!, most of them living by themselves in small villages with no electricity (which means no cold drinks, among other things) and no running water. Respek. We spent a week with Tommy and two of his friends, Colin and Melissa, checking out their homesites, eating dried soya pieces, lighting candles and pumping well water, and hiking in Nyika National Park.

We got stopped by these guys at a checkpoint just across the Tanzania-Malawi border. They went through every inch of our packs and asked way too many questions. I think they were just having fun. The guy in the cammo couldn't figure out what our Flintstones vitamins were, so he made me chew one up and eat it. Then he dumped the entire bottle into his hands and picked out one of each color for himself.

On the way to Nyika NP

This is the back of a pickup, still on the way to Nyika

Nyika National Park

Poachers burn the fields here so they can see the animals better. Way to go guys.

Roan Antelope. These were all over Nyika.

Tommy, me, Kyle

Andrew runs the Nyika-Vwaza Trust, a nonprofit organization in the park. He put us up in his house for a couple nights which was huge. He may or may not be related to Bill the Butcher.

These kids protected us from the ornery bulls that took some runs at us in this village near Nyika NP. Thanks boys.

Warm Fanta to celebrate

One more thing I've got to add here about Malawi. This was all Colin so I can't take any credit for it, but I thought it was hilarious. When Malawians try to speak English, for some odd reason they always reverse R's and L's. Larry would be pronounced 'railly' for example. By and large Malawians are pretty talkative, and they're especially eager to figure out what a white man was doing there. Sometimes, when he was in the mood, Colin would respond to "What's your name?" with 'Rob Still'.


We ran into another Peace Corps buddy in Mozambique, Mark Goldfarb. Mark has been a friend of ours since we were little kids, so it was pretty neat to see him in Africa. His group of eighty new volunteers had just finished up their two-month training course and happened to be celebrating with a weekend on the beach in Bilene. Great time. Family fun. It's nice to know that while we're running around enjoying the world we've got some friends trying to save it. Check out Mark's blog (A Goldfarb in Gaza) to see how he's going about it.

We had a long overnight bus ride to Bilene

Kyle and Mark

Maputo, Mozambique

In South Africa we spent a day in Johannesburg and four in Cape Town. These cities are the closest we've been to home since we left. Cold milk and cereal for breakfast! America!! And it's fun to ask for directions here because they call traffic lights 'robots'.

Jo'burg

Hiking/Climing Table Mountain in Cape Town

Camps Bay, near Cape Town

Cape of Good Hope



Here at Cape Point, the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. Whatever that means.

Quite possibly the best seafood we've ever had.
Mr. Jack Irvin with the recommendation.

It's been a great journey through Africa these past six weeks. Thanks again to everyone who made it possible. Special thank you to the Peace Corps volunteers for all your good deeds, including showing us a good time.

-Ryan