For Everett’s (our newest recruit) first two weekends, we
really stacked up the activities and Africa beat down on him pretty bad for it.
First, we ventured north to beloved Nkhata Bay for a weekend of relaxing, scuba
diving and good eats. Highlights definitely included the owner of the
establishment at which we stay not remembering me (this is the 6th
time we have been introduced, I also did their books one quarter) and during
introductions confusing Everett’s name for “Marvin.”
We got in two scuba dives in beautiful Lake Malawi (see
Planet Earth for details). A day dive where we saw a sweet mouth-breeding fish
collect all its babies like Jonah the Whale and a night dive with the Dolphin
Fish, who sleeked around us barracuda-like in the night. It was a very relaxing
weekend indeed.
After a week of serious work and catching up, we headed to
Blantyre for some meetings before pressing on to Mount Mulanje, one of the
tallest mountains in Africa. To get there, you head about an hour and a half
south of Blantyre through gorgeous tea estates. The mountain (or really a
series of peaks on top of a plateau) is massive both in height and girth. We
got there around midafternoon and immediately dove into the hike, trying to
hike 4 tough hours the first day to get up to one of the cabins on top of the
escarpment, about 1.2 miles up. Because of the size of the mountain, you are
encouraged to hire guides, porters or both. For three people we hired two
porters to carry one of our bags and the other the food and sleeping bags we
brought. The person who had been in Malawi the shortest ended up with one
porter carrying his bag and the other two of us carried our bags—it takes some
time to learn how to pack and generally be filthy.
Our porters, Rabson and Edmond, struggled to keep up with
us on the first day, but were fine afterwards. Mulanje is a massive green and
granite plateau expanding out into northern Mozambique like the Misty
Mountains. Rising up the side of the plateau, it is dusty and craggily: rocks
jut out of the side of the mountain and the makeshift paths wind through them
often at a steeper pitch than 45 degrees. But once you reach the beginning of
the plateau, the landscape changes into a beautiful set of rolling plains, like
undulating green waves interrupted intermittently by great round granite ice
cream scoops. Beautiful.
The first night we were all pretty exhausted when we
arrived at our sleep spot. The forestry service of Malawi first put these
cabins up to monitor the mountain’s extensive logging operations, but now there
are a number of very basic log cabins, which have the look and feel of a
Manifest-Destiny-pioneer-adventure and although we bought a good amount of food
before the trip, we hadn’t planned extensively for a range of meals. So for
most meals we choose between peanut butter and smooshed bread or the lengthy
process of preparing dry beans and rice. It was rice and beans: and LOTS of
water the first night as Noah, our porters and I packed in as much food as we
could to prepare for the long day, while Everett (who was suffering from
blisters, altitude sickness and exhaustion) slept. We all passed out rather
early to rise for a traverse from one plateau peak to another the next day.
The next day was easier and filled with beautiful views as
we crossed a section of the great Mulanje Plateau, passing underneath its
highest peak, through valleys of controlled burning, black and white with ash
and reaching edges of the plateau looking out over the dusky Malawian plains or
at the prehistoric buttresses of the mountain. We reached our second location
and in the afternoon, Noah and I attempted to reach another peak of the
mountain, sprinting up the damp jungle-like sides of the mountain. We ended the
day with another lengthily-prepared meal of rice and beans and passed out.
On our final day, we woke before dawn to begin the trip
down in hopes of arriving at the base in time to get all the way back to
Lilongwe that day. We took off down the mountain at full-tilt, resting
occasionally to let the porters catch up. From the top the landscapes we
encountered changed from green plains and damp air to boulder fields and sharp,
rocky declines to an autumn-like forest in New England. On the final part of
the descent, as we rested by a little creek I was stung by a bee. It hurt a
little, but nothing too bad.
Once we reached the bottom, we tried to arrange a ride
into town to catch a minibus back to Blantyre and a bus to Lilongwe after that.
But, as with most plans in Malawi, we had to abandon it within a couple hours
as our ride never arrived so we hopped on the back of bicycles to take us into
town, then our minibus took nearly twice as long to take us back to Blantyre as
we would’ve expected. So we spent the night in Blantyre. The next morning, I
woke with Everett still feeling tremendously sick and the bee bite on my arm
swelled up to the size of a tennis ball. I went to a clinic for an opinion on it and after the
doctor drained it and gave me some steroids to treat it, he finally told me it
was a “killer bee bite.” I felt dizzy for a couple of days, but survived the
killer bee.
Glad to be back, it’s raining like crazy here, and for
some reason the running water is out. Feels like the Fourth World.
Steven
