Organising a holiday to have it delayed not once, but twice
is no fun. Malawi’s been a bit uncertain during the month of May with a lot of
palaver concerning the elections. There were cases of rigging votes, the
possibility of a recount and even some violence in some of the big cities. The
night before we were due to leave for holiday on our third attempt, the
president was announced at 11pm and we went to bed uncertain as to whether we’d
have to delay it for the third time.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I had pulled my leg muscle badly
and was hobbling like a pregnant lady and David had a very nasty infection on
his back:- Dr Lois Smith and Dr BJ Hampson had to step in and poke around with
a sterile needle!
Monday 26th May, we woke up and got the all clear
to go on holiday, but, (we should’ve been used to it by now) troubles galore..
Ben was very ill. Despite his sickness, he was pretty determined that we should
carry on and so we took the 7hour journey to Blantyre (the driver said it would
take 2.5 hours- what a joke!) with him throwing up into see-through sandwich
bags. I had the joy of tying them up, poking my head out of the bus window and
flinging them out whilst also checking out for cyclists- I didn’t want the bag
to land on their head!
Blantyre was our first stop: Malawis old capital city. The
bus depo was a pretty scary place with swarms of men calling “sista, sista” or
“my friend, my friend” trying to entice us into their bus. The contrast between
wealth and poverty struck me in Blantyre. In the centre of town was a big,
swish KFC with comfy seats and an automatic hand dryer in the toilets (a big
luxury for us!) but then outside, begging and children in rags. Even writing
about it makes me feel uncomfortable and very sad. It is very sad.
Had another bit of trouble in Blantyre with our hire car.
With mix ups on booking, we didn’t get the Land Cruiser we’d booked and had to
wait 7 hours in the office. However, we were greeted by a big, white, beasty
Toyota Fortuner and we named him Gus. Gus was a joy to have during our trip and
took us safely from A to B, even when we made a wrong turn and had to drive
down an incredibly bumpy, pot-holey dirt track. Lois did some great driving
(and us licence holders had a cheeky little go down a dirt track too) and our
‘Mulanje Playlist’ was blasting out the tunes.
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| Gus, the beast |
After Blantyre, Gus took us south to Zomba Plateau where we
had the luxury of strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries by a dam with
beautiful, mountainous views.
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| the lovely zomba plateau |
With a little trouble finding it, we came to our
cottage which was tucked away in the trees. The CCAP Cottage was beautiful with
wooden furniture, a big fireplace and a fully stocked kitchen, and the view out
of the porch was stunning. The troubles of the past few days (and weeks) were
dissolving away. But, oho, guess what? There was a knock on the door… a double
booking! Huzzah! At this point I was honestly pretty disheartened: nothing was
going to plan (and I was still hobbling slightly). Why can’t everything just go
smoothly??
I can however say that I was proved wrong. I was a massive
pessimist, and we had a very blessed time with the American couple that turned
up at our door. They were very grateful that we let them share with us (the six
of us slept in the four-bed room) and they were so hospitable. The wife, Beth,
baked us a delicious raspberry sponge pudding and they gave us chocolate for
our climb too. It was very nice to have them stay with us and the whole
experience taught me that in life things aren’t going to go according to plan,
in fact, it hardly ever does, and that adapting to these changes with a joyful
attitude is far better than wallowing.
On Tuesday 3rd we visited Makoka Coffee Estate
where we were given a tour of the plantation and were given a tasting sesh. We
placed a hefty order and now our suitcases smell incredible of ground coffee
beans. This is possibly my favourite smell (although it’s a tossup between
that, freshly baked bread and the smell of dry swimming costumes after they’ve
been in chlorinated water).
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| the incredible smelling beans |
Then, the main focus of the trip... MULANJE! Here’s a breakdown
of our three day trip up Malawi’s highest mountain…
DAY 1:- very steep, very sweaty, very beautiful
Day one of climbing was tough, very tough and it was harder
to spot dry areas to our t-shirts than it was to find sweat soaked patches.
Sorry, grim, but true. The route we took had thick, jungle-like greenery,
waterfalls and natural pools with views of giant peaks around and above us. By
lunch time we were so hot and were grateful to strip down and take a dip in a
very cold water pool.
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| beautiful streams, pools and waterfalls were all along our day 1 route |
A very sad side to day one was when Ben’s iPhone dove head first
into the pool too. The phone, like us, must’ve been feeling the heat of the day
and just couldn’t take it anymore. Sorry, I shouldn’t joke about this. The
iPhone is currently undergoing intense methods of resurrection- I believe it’s
currently lying in a bed of dry rice.
After lunch we reached the top of the ascent and journeyed
along the open plateau. It was a very different experience and felt like we
were walking the Welsh or Scottish countryside.
The lodge which we stayed the night at was a big wooden hut
we had to ourselves. The housekeeper boiled water over an open fire so that we
could each have a warm bucket shower in a shack. The shack had an opening from
the shoulders upwards so that we were facing an incredible mountain view whilst
showering- not bad at all!
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| the view from our lodge |
Our toilets were a hole in the ground in an outdoor
wooden shack and we all felt proud of ourselves after our first ever longdrop
poo experience. Very emosh times.
The stars that evening were incredible, especially when we
did a midnight loo dash. We all slept on mattress’ on the floor and had to
cocoon up in the sleeping bag as it was pretty chilly.
DAY 2: strolling the valleys
Day two was much more leisurely (thank goodness!) as we
walked across the open plateau. Our guide Wesley told us about how there had
been a huge bushfire around 6 years ago which spread across the huge plateau
and burnt down all the pine trees. They currently have a tree nursery full of
pine trees and hope to replant this summer. We arrived our next lodge (equally as
lovely) around 1pm and after a supernoodle lunch we walked an incredibly steep
descent to a natural pool which was numbingly cold. The evening was very cold
too and I was wrapped in a blanket before the fire with three pairs of socks on
my feet.
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| so cold but so worth it |
Another British guy shared our lodge and it was very nice to
share food with him, he shared his coffee with us and we had chats about
religion, world affairs, politics etc (David was thoroughly entertained).
DAY 3: toe bashing and soaking in the killer views
Day three we descended Mulanje
taking a different route to that on day one. It was very steep and so it was
pretty harsh on the poor feet, but the incredible views were such a distraction
that it didn’t really bother us at all. On arriving the bottom 5 hours after
setting off, we took a cold refreshing swim in a nearby pool and pulled off the
boots and slipped the blistered feed into a pair of comfy flippies.
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| climb complete! here we are with our excellent guide and two porters |
So there you have it. That’s an outline of our trip. And
what a trip it was. Amazes me to look back on everything that I was concerned
about, everything I thought was going wrong.
My leg muscle was healed and gave me no grief whilst
walking, David was able to walk up the mountain with the porter carrying his
day sack, Ben’s sickness only lasted that one day on route to Blantyre and
although Laurie was unwell whilst climbing Mulanje, she showed her stomach
who’s boss and ploughed on. What seemed like disruptions with unexpected guests
meant not only fellowship but also pudding and coffee! We were protected on the
roads and had no injuries on the mountain. It was God moments to the max up
Mulanje looking at His incredible creation, and team bonding was top notch with
banter galore. We feel so blessed and refreshed after our holiday.
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Now we are back in Salima. Sadly, Lois leaves us on Saturday
and we’re going to miss her big time! For the rest of us, we have 3 weeks left
working with AGREDS and we’re busy putting together a month plan so that we can
do as much as possible during our time here.
We do have some prayer points and would really appreciate
your support in praying for these things:-
- The healing of Davids back – David is visiting the nearby district hospital twice a day and is on antibiotics. Please pray for a speedy recovery and protection against further infection.
- Lois – for a safe journey back to the UK on Saturday and also as she starts her teacher training with Teacher First
- Ben’s iPhone – no explanation needed
- Motivation during our remaining time here
Much love to you blog followers
Nia and the team x
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| please take a moment to appreciate this great, great picture of Ben |
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