Malawi

This summer, I went with a friend of mine to visit another mutual friend in Malawi.
We flew from Dusseldorf to Paris, from Paris to Nairobi, from Nairobi to Blantyre, Malawi. Our longest flight from Paris to Nairobi was largely done at night. An old propeller plane took us the remaining miles to Blantyre. As we sailed across the flat clouds above Tanzania, we could see one lonely peak poke through, as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti!
We arrived around noon at Blantyre airport. All went smooth, and even our luggage had arrived (Our friend advised us to pack the essential in our carry-on, since there was a risk our luggage would not arrive with us - and indeed there was a long line in front of the lost bagge desk). A taxi waited for us outside and took us to, we assumed our friend's house. But since our friend was working at an other location, we were dropped of at a very nice hotel. Rumour has it that they very often work offsite, since they get allowances for 'business trips'.
That afternoon we drove to our friend's house, settled in, and went to dinner at Casa Rossa, an Italian-like restaurant in Zomba and, apparently, the go-to place for dinner. The restaurant was situated half-way up the hill, and from our table on the porch we had a very nice view, were it not that exactly at six o' clock, everything was pitch black. In a few days we would go on a three-day hiking trip, together with two other girls, up mount Mulanje, so we went to bed early.
The next morning we were gently waked up by our friend blasting the theme from the Lion King from his phone. We picked up one of the girls and went to the market to buy food for the trip. They sold everything at this market. From fruit and vegetables to TVs and whole home entertainment sets! We would spend three days in the mountains, so we would have to buy dinner for two nights and lots of snacks for the trip. Pasta would be the easiest option. Also the carbohydrates would come in handy! For snacks we bought lots of different nuts and berries plastic bags. Especially the salted Macadamian nuts turned out to be a teasty treat. Some protein for the trip! We also bought some avocados and peanut butter and bread for breakfast. We just walked about the market, looking around. I kind of expected that everybody there wanted to talk to us and take pictures of us, at least that happened to me in South East Asia, but the people there kind of minded their own business. I mean, they are really nice when you start talking to them, but they don't throw themselves at you or asking if you want to buy their stuff. I was suprised, but it is kind of relaxed. It is not like in Egypt or Turkey where they even try to pull you into their store and kind of take you hostage till you buy something from them.
After having bought the necessities, we spend the afternoon horse back riding on the Zomba plateau with the three of us. We had a guide who rode with us and three people who guided our horses with a rope. After a while, we were allowed freely and the guide asked us if we wanted to try a little trot. As I had ridden horses before when I was younger, I thought I could do that, but it was actually quite hard and painful! After we got back and I dismounted the horse, walking proved to be really hard and painful too for a while. But it was worth it. The scenery was beautiful! We rode all the way around a resevoir in the hills, surrounded by the jungle. It was also quite chilly there and you could feel a few rain drop. God, how I miss the rains down in Africa!
The next day we would pick up the two girls around 8 in the morning to go to Mulanje and start our hike. But of course it took them a while to get ready. Also the 'road' to Mulanje was very bumby. It took us a long time to get there. After a while, on the tunes of Chariots of Fire and the Breaking of the Fellowship we saw this majestic mountain appear with the peak in the clouds. For the occasian I had improvised a playlist with songs like Eye of the Tiger and, of course, Africa, to lift our spirits before starting our ascend into the mystic.
At the base of the mountain, in a little village called Phalombe, we were welcomed by the forester and some locals. The forester assigned us three porters and one guide. We had two backpacks with us filled with food and clothes. Our daypacks were filled with water and nuts. And so it began.
After about two hours walking uphill, we reached a tiny waterfall and an open space with giant boulders cut by the water. On this kind of flat surface we sat down and had lunch, the bread and peanut butter we brought at the market, some protein bars we still had from our flight and some nuts. We filled our waterbottles in the little stream of clean mountain water. We also had a 5liter bottle water with us just in case. As we went higher, the thickness of the jungle retracted and the views were already amazing. Across we could see another mountain with its peak in the misty clouds. We were surrounded by all these typical African trees, flame trees with red leaves and ferns. It was truly amazing!
The higher you got, the harder it gets! The climb became steeper, we now had to crawl over rocks and boulders and it became muddy and slippery. Occasionally we had to stop, not because we were tired, which we also were, but because we would run into little fires people made illegally to make charcoal. I thought it a miracle that the fires didn't spread and burned down the whole mountain. Apparently the beatiful trees growing on the slope of the mountain make excellent charcoal, but of course they are protected. So our guide and porters felt te obligation to put out those fires, naturally. Whenever we approached a fire we saw people running away.
We had to get a move on before it got dark, and we still had a lot of ground to cover. After a few ours we reached a mountain vale at an altitude of 2080m! There our hut was situated at the base of another peak. From te porch of our hut we could see the peak we were planning on climbing the next day. It was a small wooden cabin straight out of horror movies. There was one fire place, a cabinet with some cutlery, plates, and cups (we also brought a can with instant coffee). There were also some camping matresses to sleep on. We only had our sleeping bags with us. Outside the hut there were two out-houses and two other stalls for bathing. After having rested for a bit and freshend up, we started on our dinner. In a mountain vale there is usually a river, but I did not see it anywhere. But somehow, there was water, so we started boiling the pasta on the fire place. We cut the vegatables, tomatos and carrots and some soja thingies with our Swiss army knifes. Also the berries we bought were really smashed, so we decided to make jam out of it for breakfast and boil it too.
The next day we woke up rather early to go to the peak of the mountain. We had breakfast on the porch with our destination in the background. The morning started out to be clear and summy, but as soon as we began our hike we could see clouds literally rolling in. It gave the vale an eerie look!
Luckily we escaped the clouds, for now. The climb to the top was nothing compared to the hike to our hut. It was very steep and the 'path' was riddled with giant boulders. Near the top, when we rested, it was still very clear and the view was amazing! But I also noticed that I became a little afraid of the height. It was really steep, small, and slippery, and you could really gaze into the abyss and the abyss gazed back into you...
But when we reached the top everybody was with his head in the clouds! Qiute litterally also, for out of nowhere we were surrounded by a mass of water particles in the air. It was really quiet there and it allowed you to really unwind. The only thing you heared where the whispers of some quiet conversation.
There was nothing much to see on the top, so we did not spend a lot of time there. Also, the ascend took quite a while, so we kind of were on a tight schedule to reach our hut before dark.
But before we started our descend, one of the girls really needed to cut here toenails, for some reason. Why suddenly there? Nobody had scissors or a clipper. But she kept insisting she had to clip here toenails. The only thing we had were our Swiss army knifes. So I gave her my knife and she started cutting. I do not know how, because there were no scissors in them and a turned my head, because I was kind of grossed out. Back at the hut, I cleaned the knife three times with hand sanitiser and boiled it for half an hour before using it to cut vegetables for dinner again.
On our way down from the mountain I slipped a few times, even though I had good hiking shoes. Our porter was walking and climbing like it was nothing on slippers! So at the end of the whole trip, I decided to donate my shoes to the local community there, not that I think anybody there has my shoe size but you'll never know.
It already went dark when we were almost back at the hut. Luckily we had our torches. Also we could see light at the hut, which meant that there were other people. But the hut was already so small!
At the hut there was a British family with two little children who walked up the same route we did the previous day, only they did it much faster and didn't seem all that tired. Also they brought their own stretchers and slept outside, under the stars. It was kind of confronting to see little children who could walk up the mountain faster than us, and also sleeping outside like a Bear Grylls.
We all freshend up in turns, at the little cabins outside the hut, where our guide put bowls of hot water to wash ourselves with. After dinner we all fell sound asleep. The next bright morning we had breakfast outside the hut. The jam we made earlier was rather tasty. When we left the vale we noticed that we were actually above te clouds! I had never seen anaything like that before, except from the window of a plane. Through the clouds you could see into Mosambique. I did not realize we were so close to the border! You feel like you are on top of the world, but at the same time you feel very small in the grand scheme of nature! Before walking down we stood there a while in total awe.
Around noon we were back at the car. I donated my shoes and we were on our way. At a busstation we dropped of the girl and continued our way to Thyolo where we would stay at a colonial tea plantation. We arrived there in the afternoon. It was truely a big fancy colonial villa. Everywhere in the house were old pictures of the British family that owned the plantation and old maps of colonial Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi). Very controversial wooden statues of black servants decorated the hallway. It felt like Tintin in Africa. But the owner now had left everything in its original state, but in fact it was now a fairtrade tea estate (they used to grow tabacco there).
Before dinner, we walked a bit around in the purple light of twilight. Then the three of us had a romantic candlelight three-course dinner in the library there. We were the only ones having dinner in this big living room with this old book shelve in the corner with this ladder attached to it. It was a magnificent experience. Because it was kind of expensive, we stayed there only one night to relax from our hike. The next day we played a bit of croquet on the lawn there as a bunch of champagne socialists. After visiting the tea plantation and having a tea tasting, we were on our way to Liwonde National Park to have a boat safari.
In the evening we a arrived at Liwonde National Park, as it turns out the only accomodation were we stayed that was run by local people. The rest was all run by foreigners. It was already dark and we were first served dinner there. After dinner we were escorted to our room. We were not allowed to walk by ourselves in the dark, because of the animals. We were supposed to sleep in dorm with other people, but because nobody else was staying there, we got an upgrade to a tree house, which was super cool. It was a small, basic hut which was half open. At night I woke up a few times from a very loud noice, which later turned out to be either hippos (they are really loud) or a female lion. In the morning at the first light, while the rest still slept, I looked out the hut and saw my first wildlife there! Just outside the hut two Greater Kudu's stared at me. I woke up the rest, but they were already gone.
Unsure if we were allowed to walk to the main building ourselves, it was already light, we walked back ourselves, taking our luggage with us because we would leave immediately after the boat safari. After breakfast and our morning coffee, which took to another tree house with an amazing view over the river, we were picked up by a jeep and were dropped of at the side of the river were we changed to a small motor boat. We would only sail up and down the river, but in the end we saw so much wildlife! Only up the river we already saw so many hippos and crocodiles. At the river banks we saw a lot of beautiful water birds. I tried to name them all in my photo album looking them up on the internet, but I'm not an expert on birds. On our way up the river I spoted one elephant on the river bank in between the trees. I had never seen an elephant in the wild before! Then we would turn back and go downstream to where we started. I thought 'Too bad I only saw one elephant.' But on our way back all the elephants decided to go for a drink on the west bank! We saw so many elephants drinking, including very small ones. It was amazing! We also could sail very close to them. Also every elephant still had its tusk!
Next stop was Cape MaClear on the beach of Lake Malawi. We spend two days there to relax. We slept in a small hut on the beach. Even though we brought our swimsuits, we didn't dare swim in the bilharsia-infested lake. Apparently it is fine if you jump in only in the middle of the lake, but still we wouldn't risk it. Rumour had it that even from a shower you could pick it up, but that was a risk we were willing to take. We just ended up laying in the sun and reading our books. Two days was more then enough since I got a bit bored.
Next on our itinerary was Dedza Pottery Lodge, but first we made a stop at the Kungoni Cultural Museum. I was under the impression that the museum would be about the different tribes living in Malawi and their cultural heritage. The museum was devided into three rooms, but we only saw two. The first room was dedicated to the history of the country. I was really amazed by the fact that the history only in 1871 with the coming of David Livingstone. The rest of the history was also only dedicated to the spread of christianity. Of course it could be that before David Livingstone, nothing had been documented, but it still felt strange to me. The second room was dedicated to the indiginous beliefsystem, which was really interesting. After we visited the two rooms, there would be a cultural exchange with refugee children organized by the UNHCR. All the children from different parts of Africa would performe their local dance and at the end local dances of Malawi where performed by two dancing crews. It was really nice to see. At the end we were asked to also say something, so my friend gave a little speech. In the museum shop we bought some souvenirs and continued our way to Dedza Pottery Lodge. Here we would only spend the night on our way to South-Luangwa National Park in Zambia.
Also here we picked up some souvenirs before we drove off. Soon our car started to make a strange noice. The base plate of the car was coming of, probably due to all the bumps in the road. We stoped and tried to unscrew the baseplate, but it didn't work. Fortunatly the local community came to the rescue. We tossed the base plate in the trunk and continued our was. We only stopped again in Liwonde for lunch and then we reached the border with Zambia...