Karonga to Chinteche

From Karonga we headed back south, making a detour to the missionary town of Livingstonia.  The Livingstonia Mission was originally founded in 1875 by Robert Laws in the honor of Dr. Livingstone, and its primary objective was to use Christianity and commerce to combat the slave trade in the Lake Malawi region.  Originally situated on the lake shore in Cape Maclear and then Bandawe, there was too much malaria and he moved it to the village of Khondowe, 900 M above the lakeshore.  After playing an instrumental role in abolishing the slave trade in the region, the Scottish missionaries continued to play a role in Malawi, providing education to many Malawians involved in the nationalist movement (including Banda, who ruled as a dictator from 1964-1994).  

To get there we drove up the side of a mountain on a road that included 22 hairpin turns.  The guidebook recommends not attempting this road in your own vehicle, but despite some white knuckles the pint-sized Rav4 once again managed beautifully!

Unfortunately it was slightly hazy so we didn't see the amazing views "to the end of the horizon" that have been written about Livingstonia, but we did visit the mission church and hiked to the Manchewe Falls, which crash down 125 meters to the Rift Valley Escarpment. 

The drive out was less exciting since we took a longer, more gradual descent, but just as beautiful.

After descending through the hills we took a break from the hot, dusty drive at a market area where the dirt road met the tarmac.  We lunched on chips and goat from a roadside chip stand and washed it down with ice cold coca-colas - it doesn't get much better than that! Chip stands are in every market area.  They are iron tables with a shallow depression filled with oil and a shelf for a fire underneath.  Potatoes are sliced and fried in the bubbling oil and served with salt, chili (optional), and sometimes a cabbage salad on top.  In the northern region where a lot of cassava is grown a lot of the chip stands substituted cassava for potato.  Sometimes the vendor has cubes of meat (usually goat or pig) or pieces of chicken.  This is a cheap and satisfying meal!