Cruising In Style

The MV Mangunda!

One more dip in the lake and we're back in the Landie headed south toward Mangochi & Liwonde once again. Tonight we'll spend the night on the MV Mangunda – an overnight river cruise safari on the Shire River in Liwonde National Park. Running on Africa time, we drop off the Rasta and arrive a bit tardy. No worries – the beer is freezing cold and lunch is ready! Delicious and served on the observation deck. What a gorgeous boat – on the bottom deck there are cabins, second level is a kitchen and dining area, and on the top a shaded game viewing deck. We spend the day meandering along the river watching for croc, hippo, kingfisher, goliath heron, squacko heron, blue heron, black craic, african skimmer, open bill stork, little egret, great white egret, cattle egret, elephant, fish eagle, bee eaters, Africa jicana, weavers, warthogs, albino hippo, fishermen, waterbok... and more. For sunset we hop into a smaller boat with our sundowners and go exploring among the reeds. Crocs and hippos galore. On top of all that, it's a full moon – what luck. It's tough to steal away from moonlit game viewing, but real bed #3 awaits... Being rocked to sleep was delightful, but breakfast and game viewing await at sun up. We cherish every last minute on the boat, but by 10am we're back ashore and the dream has vanished. Guess we have to go back to Lake Malawi to recover :)

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