Laptop Was Stolen

You are gonna have to give me a couple of days.

But so far, it'll at least be a very colorful blog post.

Steven

Backdated-Pt2

Disclaimer: For those who know me, this is in my top three craziest trips, definitely.

For a finale to my latest stretch in Africa, my friends, Everett, Noah and I had planned to try to make it to the DRC overland from Malawi. If you are looking at a map, we had considered several routes: Lilongwe-Lusaka-Lubumbashi. But that was going to take too long and we could spare just over a week from work. The Lilongwe-Lusaka-Lake Mweru route looked promising for while until we learned our hiking path was still “littered with land mines.” We finally settled on Lilongwe-Karonga-Nakonde-Mpulungu-Up the Coast of Lake Tanganyika. It looked doable.

We budgeted 8 days. 2 travel to Mpulungu, 3 days hiking along the coast, 3 days back to Lilongwe.

It began well on the first day as we left early in the morning to make the 8-9 hour drive north to just outside of Karonga. We stayed at a wonderful spot owned by an American friend. Although we hit a minor snag. After dropping our stuff to get a beer and go for a swim, I came back to find my tent slashed (although nothing was stolen). Luckily, they had extra tents, although it added considerable girth compared to my ultralight tent. Rest of the night was enjoyable however, as we ate fish and drank beers before heading off into the unknown.

We woke at 5, and made good time northbound by minibus for two hours and then switched to a cramped sedan (at one time, they put eight people in a five-seater). Making it to the border after a mere five and half hours of vehicle travel. Gladly, we walked to Malawi immigration and for 2 kilometers, filled out our departing paperwork and to their surprise, decided to walk the four kilometers of no-man’s land to the Zambia border where we hoped to catch a bus. But when we got there and checked in, it was clear from the location and the Zambian immigration official’s blankness at our questions that there would be no bus for a while. So we decided to start hiking up the road, 13k to the next village. Dry, remote and hot. We made it past that village, with still no sign of a car and so we decided to keep walking. We had made it about another 6 or 7k, before we saw the oncoming storm and villagers started racing past us on foot. In true, ignoramus arrogance, we kept walking until the last minute, when the rain started pelting down on the deserted road like a firestorm. Desperately we ran to the first settlement we could find and huddled into a dark, long hut packed with close to 50 Zambians. Tough to say what exactly it was: my guess would either be church or bottlestore (local version of a bar, but much rowdier, with the regional moonshine as the drink of choice). After about 30 minutes of everyone laughing at us for stomping in from the storm and being incredibly uncomfortable and soaked, they started to bust out the drinks and we bought a couple of Fantas while peering out into the muddy road, hoping for a passing car. Just when I was figuring out how we would settle in for the night, Everett jumped to the door, the fastest I’ve ever seen him move, and was outside hailing down a passing truck. Quickly we negotiated in the pouring rain with the driver to take us to the closest town with an inn and the three of us crammed into the filthy, covered back of the pick-up next to an enormous blue tank. As we took off, I suddenly put two and two together, and figured out we were in the back of a pickup with a septic tank perched precariously on cinderblocks. However, after taking off this was the least of our worries.

To accurately describe the road we were on is kind of like describing driving along the bottom of a river: you never knew what bouncing you would take and it was wet as hell. For five terrible hours we were bumped and bruised in the back of this truck, as this lunatic driver played pothole hopscotch. To top it off, the rain didn’t let up, and then it got dark (as in pitch black, rural-Africa-new-moon-no-lights-dark). Already we were breaking one of my cardinal rules of travel in Africa: don’t be out at night travelling unless its local.

Finally we made the main road, where the driver was passing willy-nilly on a possibly even more pot-holed tarmac road, this time without the comfort of not running into any person or vehicle as tractor-trailer’s rumbled past. But we made it, somehow, in one piece. Not to our destination, Nakonde, but another town, Isoka. The scene was pretty grim, still pouring, we navigated some dirty, scruffy looking, urban slum buildings to find our quarters: one queen size bed for three people (the option of sleeping on the floor was pretty much out of the question as the bed took up almost the entire room). The guy showing us the room actually giggled as he left. At least when we got there, we were able to secure a meal (our first in 28 hours) of chicken, nsima (corn maize porridge) and the greatest beer I’ve ever tasted. Went to bed soundly to the sound of Everett’s snores 16 inches away and Noah’s music echoing from his headphones another 2 feet beyond that.

After waking the next morning in a terrible fright next to two bearded, filthy guys, we were ready to hit the road again by 5 and got a good look in the daylight at the creature cave that we had inhabited. Think basically the scene of any depressing brothel or gang hideout from the gold rush era, except dirtier and you stand out like you glow in the dark. But we quickly negotiated a ride with a man who assured us that he, and not the man clearly drunk at 6 AM with a full one in his hand, was the driver. After we had negotiated an immediate departure we messed around town for four hours (this is the most frustrating part about group travel in Sub-Sahara) loading up the tiny sedan with as much crap on the top of the cab and people in the trunk that we could and then took off.

Another disgustingly long trip got us to our original destination of Nakonde before noon as we searched for yet another ride to our next destination, Mpulungu at the bottom of Lake Tanganyika. On maps, the road between these two places is clearly outlined, indicating it would be of good quality. In reality, only a supply truck and a sedan would be taking off for Mpulungu that day. We negotiated extensively with the drivers of both and were almost left behind, by a particularly rude lackey, but finally the three large white guys jammed into another trunk of a sedan with seven people occupying the usual five-person area. This trip also did not start well. In fact, it was a bit like a Wiley Coyote adventure as we tried to avoid “traffic” by taking a back route the driver didn’t know and getting lost, having to do a three-point-turn on the edge of a cliff, getting out, pushing and then watching the car slide down a muddy hill in the rain, miraculously breaking before going over a bridge made of sticks (not logs, sticks). Finally, the sedan got stuck on train tracks and we decided we were destined for yet another terrible trip. The rest of it only took 10 hours. Cramped in the back of a sedan, most of the time in the rain. Bouncing on a terrible dirt road. 

But finally, we got to Mpulungu by 1:30 AM. We befriended a local, David, in the car and he first brought us to one resthouse/bar to stay the night, which was utterly packed with drunk prostitutes and patrons, we were glad to hear they didn’t have any vacancy as we were groped from all angles. And after checking two other places and angering everyone else in the sedan extensively, we found a place, picked two VERY basic rooms and collapsed. Welcome to Mpulungu.

Three days, three meals, 54 of 72 hours in transit. A good start.

Next segment: By Sea, then Land,

Steve

Backdated-Pt 1

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 6^th 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

I'm back in Africa.

Back to Blogging!!!!

Came over on the most turbulent airplane ride of my life, and they lost my bag, and my car was broken when I got here. Typical.

Posts coming up this week.

Steven