Sometimes you READ a lot of awful and bad things.... And sometimes you SEE wonderful people and places.... What you make of it... is totally up to YOU.

Alex and I... Well, we did not have a lot of money at that time, but we wanted to see Lake Malawi, and there is only one way to save money - camping in the bush and travelling by bus. And it is indeed is possible to survive with 2,- or 3,- USD per day. The reason for being short on money has been, that is quite difficult to get money on credit card in Malawi. (Well it is difficult to get money transfered anyway) Travelling by public bus in Africa is a quite exciting experience, especially in Malawi. For example: In the bus we found an American guy suffering from Malaria. HE was in a very bad condition and asked for help. He has already been to the hospital and took his medicine, but he was still looking more dead than alive, and so we made the offer to join us on our way to Lake Malawi. After 5 hours we arrived at a small village in the middle of nowhere. We had to change the vehicle. The roads are in such a bad condition that we had to take a 4x4 Pickup. After 3 more hours we arrived at Lake Malawi. 3 white people in the heart of black Africa. Everybody has been looking at us, everybody has been curious and nosy. Surrounded by a large crowd we went to the beach, where we bought some fresh fish from fishermen for our inner and prepared the tent for the night. We put on a nice little fire and barbecued our fish. We have been in such a wonderful mood.

Unfortunately also criminals scented their chance. A group of approx. 15 youngsters tried to get protection money or otherwise they wanted to kill us during the night. Alex and I fought against being blackmailed and so we organized our private team of bodyguards within a hour, who protected us during the night. ...And it worked ...We are still alive.

One day later we met some girls from Netherlands. Boy oh boy, they have been unbelievable stupid and had no idea what they should do or not. BLOND girls in Africa, who have been flirting with the local youngsters! We tried to explain to them, that it is dangerous to do that, and to be a little more decent. They did not believe us, and I think it is not necessary to explain what happened the next day. ...They learned their lessons the hard way. Hopefully without having the souvenir HIV.

AIDS is a big problem in a lot of southern parts of Africa. (Well, nowadays AIDS is a big problem almost everywhere). Even as a man you have to take care with whom you get in contact. One day in Lilongwe - which is the capital of Malawi - a group of about 7 prostitutes tried to get in sexual contact with Alex and me. We could shake them off. On the next evening they were waiting again, but now there were about 10 girls. Some of them really strong and it was not so easy to shake them off this time. They grabbed between our legs and after the situation escalated we decided to use a bit more force. We had a big fight with the ladies but finally we could escape. Well, it is not that those Ladies just wanted to have sex. They just wanted to get out from a poor living. In general Lake Malawi is only qualified for Africa proofed people. There are many crocodiles and hippos on the beach so you really have to be careful.

During the second day, we completely ran out of money and we had to go back to Lilongwe. We wanted to get money from the bank with our credit card. As I mentioned before - that is quite difficult in Malawi. At the bank they took our passport and credit card and after waiting for about 8 hours the bank closed. We had no chance to get some money on this day. On the next morning same situation. They could NOT tell us when we get our money, passport and credit card. So we became more and more annoyed with every minute, and in the afternoon the situation became really bad. Alex really got angry. ...And it is never good when Alex gets angry. TARGET: stupid arrogant assholes. Since we haven't been the only ones who wanted some money, everybody else in the bank joined us in our fight, and when Alex got into his top condition the real revolt started. After apx. 30 minutes we got our passport, credit card and money.

After suffering for almost three days without drinking or having food we finally could buy something to eat.