Hiking adventure in Malawi

Well, after a hectic travel experience, my friend Jackie came and collected me and brought me back to her place. The first thing she did was to hand me a plate of rice with chicken and eggplant (pretty incredible considering I had consumed around 1500 calories in the preceding 48 hours). I also got to catch up with my friend Amanda who is also working on Malawi. Then, since one of my tasks was to deliver a dress to Jackie, I promptly put it on and modeled it. She made me take it off and then she went and modeled it (I maintain that it looked better on me).

The morning was a little hectic since the plan was to leave for southern Malawi around 10 am. Fortunately, our ride was a bit late, so I repacked my bags (a.k.a. took that maize sheller out of my bag) got to meet one of Jackie's housemates, the three of us were able to sprint into town for a quick errand, and then I came back and sent off some frantic emails (I held up the car slightly trying to send out a last email). I met Sam, Finn and Kaitlin (our traveling companions) and marveled at the compactness at the car (5 seats with minimal legroom, and we were pretty crowded with hiking gear).

With Sam behind the wheel, we set off in high spirits. I decided to set the tone for the trip with some classic Haddaway (I don't know if they ever wrote another song besides "What Is Love?", which was best known as the song from A Night at the Roxbury on SNL). After that, we sang for the bulk of the car ride. Kaitlin and Finn are a bit of a musical duo, so they sounded a lot better than the rest of us, but they let us sing as loudly and off-key as we pleased.

We didn't encounter any issues with police checkpoints or bad roads (nice paved roads run the length of Malawi). Unfortunately, we learned about halfway there that the car didn't exactly have new tires. At first, we saw that part of the inner tread was coming off (it made a thumping noise on every revolution as it hit the car). We cut it off, exposing the inner fibers and continued on. We knew that this would wear through the tire eventually, and it made it to the next big town (about 50 km) before the tire was officially done for. We threw on the spare, which was a satisfying accomplishment (I was the most experienced tire changer, but I didn't have much experience in using the jack and may have slightly damaged the body--NB apparently, the jack goes on the frame of the car, not the underbelly). Then, rather then continue onto the mountain, we stopped at a lodge in town to rest for the night and finish our journey in the morning.

At the lodge, we caught a bit of the olympics. We were really disappointed when we discovered that they weren't showing whole events. For hockey games, it was a 30 second cut showing all the goals and none of the other action. For 3000 meter speed skating, we saw the last 10 seconds of about a dozen races. Finally, luge came on and they showed the final run for some of the competitors. Not the most satisfying experience, but certainly better than nothing. After that, everyone else went to bed while I stayed up and talked to my sisters for a short while and then sat down for some serious work (the day kept up the pattern of the previous two days of travelling for the bulk of the day and not getting enough sleep).

The next morning, we got an early start and made it to the mountain. Mulanje is at the southern tip of Malawi and is the tallest mountain in the country, and we were excited to conquer it. We arrived in town and collected Amanda and made arrangements for a guide before heading up to the mountain. We paid all of our fees and were getting ready to start on our way up. Then we noticed the imminent thunderstorm gathering on the horizon. We figured it would be a lot safer to postpone our hike until the following day, so we grabbed some chalets (basically, really nice cabins at the base of the hill that were gorgeous and comfortable). We decided to go ask for a refund for the hiking expenses since we weren't going that day, but then they pointed to a small paper on the wall that said "no refunds". We argued long and hard, but to no avail. Hopefully they'll at least be a bit more explicit about the refund policy with future hikers.

We unwound a bit in the afternoon (I was relieved not to be traveling and took a much needed nap) and then played games in the evening. I discovered the shower in the chalet, which were absolutely glorious, and wanted to stay in there the whole evening. Jackie and I did a bit of work at night, but all of us made sure to get a good night's sleep so that we would be fresh for some intense hiking the next day.

Our guide, Peter, showed up at 7:15 AM, but we were going a bit slowly, so we didn't set off until 8. Sam said he was having some stomach problems, so he was going to pass on the hike (really sad, since he was a really entertaining guy), but he took solace, since he had explored a nearby waterfall the day before. The rest of us started our climb.

Peter was patient with us, which was nice because we weren't setting a very good pace. We also sang lots of songs as we climbed. We didn't encounter many other hikers, but there were a lot of Malawians carrying large boards down the hill. I was struggling a lot with the climb, and Jackie pointed out that it was probably partially dehydration (apparently, all my unhealthfulness as I traveled down was catching up with me). I started attacking the water and felt a lot better. We made it to the top of the plateau (sadly, all our delays meant that there wasn't time to summit the mountain) and basked in the unforgettable view. The plateau itself was rather tragic, since it was balding under the weight of deforestation. The signs told us that they were working to reduce pressure from the invasive pine trees (likely brought over during the colonial era without a thought for the consequences of introducing an exotic species), which we could sympathize with, but we also noticed that there weren't any visible signs of reforestation, and speculated about the risks to the environment.

After a rest at the top, complete with peanut butter and honey sandwiches, we began our return trip. We took a longer route, which passed several waterfalls. The waterfalls were definitely my favorite part in all of their magnificence. The paths were rather slippery, and we had some near catastrophes, but we all made it down unscathed. We thanked Peter profusely and found Sam at the bottom reading. We were all pretty worn out from the hiking and the heat, so we relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

The evening became a bit more stressful when Jackie's laptop charger popped. Some kind of circuitry issue in there. I felt her anxiety about needing a power source. It gave us a good excuse to sleep early and a project for the following day.

We woke up early to hit the road, and actually made good time. Finn dropped Amanda off in Mulanje so she could see more of southern Malawi, so I said my good-bye to her. Then Jackie and I got off in Blantyre (one of the biggest cities in Malawi) to resolve the charger issue. We had to visit three stores, which wasn't too bad. After that, we met up with Tombo (a good friend from IDDS in 2008 who lives in Malawi) for lunch before heading back to Lilongwe.

The bus ride to Lilongwe was slow to get started, but it got us there without event. We grabbed a taxi to an Indian restaurant and had a wonderful dinner before heading back to the house to finally relax properly.