Emma's perspective on Malawi
Trip Start
Apr 21, 2003
1
13
34
Trip End
May 07, 2004
Lilongwe,
Malawi
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
We leave Malawi for Mozambique tomorrow, and we'll be quite sorry to go. Malawi has been our favourite country so far. It's relentlessly beautiful, very cheap, tons of fun and the people here are just so friendly.
We'd heard all this about Malawi, from other travellers, before we came here, so we were excited to finally cross the border from Tanzania. On our very first minibus ride from the border - just to confound our expectations - we were ripped off. The woman collecting money on the minibus refused to give us our change, having suddenly upped the price once we were on board. The amount in question wasn't very much, but it gets a bit tiring to be constantly taken advantage of simply because you are the only white faces in a crowd, so we yelled and moaned and whined and generally made nuisances of ourselves until she shoved a few crumpled notes at us, just to shut us up. It felt like a small victory, but didn't especially create a favourable first impression of Malawi and Malawians.
We stayed our first night in a little town in the middle of nowhere, and set off the next morning in the direction of Lake Malawi. We were so used to being swarmed any time we went near a bus station, that we were quite taken aback to be largely ignored as we tried to find a bus to take us to the small town of Chitimba. We actually had to approach buses and find out for ourselves where they were going and how much they were. The minibus fares seemed a little expensive, so we sat down, feeling sure that if we acted unconcerned, the prices would soon drop dramatically. We'd sat there for a little while, with our money burning a hole in our pockets, when eventually someone did what they were supposed to do and offered us a lower price for a ride in his truck.
The deal he offered was so good it hardly seemed worth the effort of bargaining, so we hopped in the back of his pick up truck and made ourselves comfortable. Not for long. We were soon joined by a multitude of people, baskets, livestock, sacks of food. We set off, squished, but it's hard to feel hard done by when you're flying through stunning scenery with the wind whipping your hair and the sun on your face.
The truck dropped us by the side of the road in Chitimba, where we wanted to get another ride to a small town called Livingstonia - an ex-missionary town perched at the top of a little mountain. Theoretically you can walk up there, but it's 20km up a steep switchback road and we really didn't fancy it with our packs on. So we waited by the side of the road, with an ominously large crowd of people who were also waiting to get up to Livingstonia. A couple of trucks came by during the course of the day, but it was strictly first come, first served - even if you did have money burning a hole in your pocket - and we weren't first come. So we sat by the side of the road, musing over the fact that thus far, Malawians didn't seem to be motivated by the idea of trying to get as much money as possible from us, even when we were itching to spend it (we were willing to pay more than the going rate to get a ride).
We gave up as the sun started setting and walked up the road to a nearby campsite. Next morning, we were up early and back by the side of the road. By about 2 p.m. we were about to call it quits and simply head on to the next town, when a truck pulled up. We rushed over, and managed to secure ourselves a ride. Apparently the law states that you can only tackle that road with a maximum of six people in the back of a pick-up, so with only 12 people in the back of the truck for our ride up the mountain we should have been a lot more comfortable. The road, however, was a killer - steep, crumbling, rutted, swerving - we held on for dear life.
We eventually arrived in Livingstonia, and after a brief stop at the missionary hospital to get the dressing on Jo's leg changed, we set off for the hostel. The hostel is called the Stone House, and used to be the home of the doctor that helped establish the hospital and the town itself. As we walked up the path to the Stone House, we were met with the most effusive welcome I've ever had. A little old man came bounding down the front steps, bellowing "HELLO! HELLO! WELCOME! WELCOME TO THE STONE HOUSE! HELLO! COME IN!"
This greeting would set the tone for our whole stay in Livingstonia, which is possibly the friendliest place on the face of the earth. It's impossible to walk down the street without exchanging pleasantries with everyone you meet. The few staff at the Stone House acted as if they were welcoming long-lost family members back into their home. The house itself is a beautiful old Victorian pile, with wooden floors, high ceilings, and still all the original Victorian furniture. Appropriately enough in this strange old house, the only other guests were Gunther, a wild-haired, pipe-smoking, one-legged German pastor, and his wife, Heidrun. And the town of Livingstonia is a perfect little place; everyone lives in pristine little red brick houses, which are dotted on either side of wide, tree-lined avenues. It's a weird little utopia, without so much as a sniff of filth or poverty or swindle.
But eventually we had to leave, and we were lucky enough to fix ourselves up with a ride all the way to our next town of Mzuzu, with a travelling team of telephone repairmen. We had to leave at 5 a.m. and ride in the back with assorted tools and coils of wire, but it was better than sitting at the side of the road for two days again. In theory. The mountain air can be cool at the best of times, so we'd dressed warmly, but we hadn't really figured on the rain, which poured down for almost the entire ride. We sat hunched and shivering in the back for about two hours, as the water whipped into us at 100km an hour - but, hey, free ride!
At Mzuzu, we quickly picked up a minibus to our next destination of Nkhata Bay - a backpacker mecca. We made fools of ourselves when trying to board a minibus by laughing derisively at the quoted price and rolling our eyes (our usual trick to show that we're not conned by their inflated prices). The guy selling the tickets shrugged apologetically and said, "sorry, that's the price". We watched a handful of Malawians get on and pay that exact price before sloping back a little shamed and asking to get on his bus. We were still getting used to the fact that in Malawi, not everyone is trying to make a dollar off you.
We had an excellent time in Nkhata - we'd only meant to stay a few days but ended up staying 10. We were practically locals by the time we left... we even had our own Malawian names. We met up with an Australian guy named Glen (Gren - according to local pronunciation) who was staying with a few of the local guys. These guys all had extraordinary names that they'd given themselves. On our first night we met Easy Tiger and a couple of Slim Shady's, which we thought were pretty good names, until we met Starter Motor the following evening.
He didn't think that Emma, Joanna and Becky (the girl we'd been travelling with since Tanzania) were exciting enough names so he renamed us Flash Gordon, Easy Go and Splash On respectively. Glen was given the name 'Fantastic'. So it was that Flash Gordon, Easy Go and Splash On spent the week hanging out with the likes of Starter Motor, Fantastic, Brown Bread, Slim Shady, Ricardo and Mr Punctuation.
All good things must come to an end, and eventually Nkhata Bay took its toll. We bid a sad goodbye to Becky as she headed back to Tanzania and we headed off to the capital, Lilongwe.
Lilongwe is a filthy hole and we stayed in some filthy brothel hovel and then left pronto, the next morning, on our way to Cape Maclear. Cape Maclear was a nice enough beach town, but it paled in comparison with Nkhata Bay, so we didn't hang around too long.
Our next challenge was to climb Mount Mulanje in Southern Malawi. It's a difficult climb, but nothing compared to Kiliminjaro - either in terms of the difficulty or the money... it costs about $7 a day each to climb compared to about $100 on Kili.
It's a beautiful but strenuous climb, up through pretty woodlands dotted with waterfalls, eventually emerging into a grassy plateau filled with wild flowers. As we puffed and panted on the way up, we were put to shame by the African women sauntering by with vast piles of firewood balance on their heads and a baby or two strapped to their backs. It's hard to overstate how little Joanna enjoyed the first day's walk. It didn't bode well that half an hour into the six hour climb, she was asking our guide how much longer we had to go. It speaks volumes for her moral fortitude that despite her difficulties she managed to carry two raw eggs up the mountain in the pocket of her jacket without breaking them (we were woefully if unsurprisingly ill-equipped for spending two days on a mountain).
We did eventually make it to the top, emerging at a small hut where we were to camp for the night. It was very basic, with just a couple of beds and a fire on which to cook our food (all we had was rice so we didn't really need anything more complicated than that). We could see our breath in the freezing mountain air, as we climbed, exhausted, into bed - wearing every bit of clothing we had carried with us.
The next day was a much more pleasant walk - across the plateau and deep into fragrant pine forests before making the slippery and seemingly endless descent to the bottom.
Now we're in Blantyre, where we seem to be meeting up with everyone that we've met elsewhere in Malawi. We've also met up with a nice Israeli guy who is giving us a ride down to Southern Mozambique for the cost of gas.
So, that's next. Will tell more from Mozambique.
love to all,
J & Em
