Mulanje, Blantyre, Lilongwe - and home
takes his up front money and runs off to buy provisions. He returns in less than the 45 minutes he advised, now sporting a windbreaker, a plastic bag and a half-litre bottle of water. The plastic bag apparently contains his provisions for the weekend.
(again, the pictures are here: http://tinyurl.com/mo9x9p - that should be all of them now.)
We head up the slope, on the “Top Skycable Path”, which heads up at a steep angle and becomes steeper still. Its name derives from the cable coming down off Mulanje, which was put there to bring things (particularly timber) off the mountain more easily. It's not currently in use, however. I'm told the engine broke. Two YEARS ago. It's a government engine, and the government seems to have more important things on its mind (can't say I blame it). So the planks are being carried down the way they used to - on the heads of porters.
Which has got to be a darn tough job on this slope. I am glad for my ultralight carbon hiking sticks, letting me do part of the work with my arms and speeding me up the slope. I wonder for a (little) while whether I might have to slow down for my guide, but after realizing that my comfortable speed is what it is, he matches me without apparent concern. I consider that armchair tourists probably don't opt for a mountain hiking tour much, so there's likely an inherent self-selection process involved which means he only gets to guide people who are reasonably fit. It later turns out that the Mulanje Porter Race follows the path which we've decided would be my (our) goal for the rest of today, tomorrow and part of Sunday (with the exception of the peak-bagging excursion up Chambe Peak). And that Vincent ran it. In borrowed running shoes. In 2 h 45 min. Two weeks ago.
So if I decided, for whatever reason, to try running up this hill (with my nearly 12 kg pack, according to my updated Malawi Packlist spreadsheet), Vincent, carrying a small plastic bag in one hand, could have easily matched me while carrying on a commentary of what we were passing by, and continue doing this long after the (very short) distance I'd be able to keep it up before collapsing. I am very, very impressed. The new record for this year, is 2 h 05 min - for a 27.3 km distance with about 1300 m of elevation gain in the first fifth or so and a corresponding loss for the last quarter of that distance. On semi-maintained trails. Ouch.
We get to the top relatively soon. There are moments which feel eerily similar to trudging up Kumotori-san again. Again (as in Lamington, down under), the objective similarity ends with me going uphill. It's broad daylight, it's hot, there's a lot of vegetation around and I'm not even alone.
But the mental state is similar. I zone out, seeing only the next few steps ahead and while I keep taking them, there are always the next few to replace the ones I just took.
I contemplate that there are two sides to this phenomenon. On the one hand it's a loss - it becomes a little treadmill-like, with me being less aware of my surroundings than usual (no snide comments necessary, thank you, I've heard them all) when I've undertaken considerable effort to do this in these particular surroundings. Surroundings, however, which at least partially necessitate this concentration on the immediate. The paths I like are less than entirely flat, less than entirely level and less than entirely even. That means a (not too small) part of my attention is taken up looking at my feet or, rather, where to place them. This necessitates looking down, which means I don't see much else.
But there's a side effect to this. Because the trail is the way it is, I have to adapt every step to it, making this something more than a purely repetitive act, like walking from the hotel to the Reserve Bank, which I feel is merely an act of locomotion (however pleasant the day and interesting the surroundings may be). This requires attention, and effort, and a degree of determination, which makes it an altogether different experience, which is why I believe it deserves a different monicker from “walking” (though yes, I think the observation that “hiking is just walking where it is okay to pee” is funny).
And the effect on my brain is that while part of my attention is fixed on the bit of trail ahead of me, the rest of my mind is free to wander. In reducing external input to the few feet ahead, all the background clutter daily life usually involves is reduced - the many things my brain must filter out to be able to function fall away naturally, allowing my mind, my soul, to expand into the void.
A bit over the top? Perhaps. I don't know. I do know that doing this allows me to stretch my mind, much as it cramps my legs.
And I don't zone out completely. Every once in a while I take my bearings (good excuse for catching my breath and taking a sip of water), and enjoy the scenery stretching out behind me. It looks just as high as my legs feel like they've walked. Not that I've been doing this enough to be able to tell how much elevation gain I've made based purely on how my legs feel - but my legs feel like I've climbed a *lot*, and my vantage point sure is a lot higher than where we started.
We make it to the Chambe Plateau in good time. It's reasonably flat (just rolling enough not to be boring, though my legs wouldn't mind the boredom right now) and the path follows a large firebreak, so it can't be missed. Not that the firebreak seems to have done much - all around us are the sings of the monstrous devastation a huge wildfire three years ago left behind. None of the vegetation comes higher than my hips, and all around us stand the burned trunks of trees like blackened teeth. Combine this with darkness slowly falling as the sun sets behind the mountains surrounding the plateau (though still a good bit over the horizon beyond that) and it creates a hesitant, awed attitude as though entering a majestic mausoleum through which Vincent and I walk in companionable silence.
We make it to the Chambe Hut in 3:45, which is well below the four and a half hours I was told to expect, but my pleasure at this feat is tempered by the knowledge that Vincent must have done this bit in less than an hour only two weeks ago. I'm still happy to arrive before it gets really dark (though I'm well equipped for night hiking - and pretty much any other eventuality that might come up, including sleeping out of doors in temps below freezing).
The hut I'm shown has two rooms, one of them with chairs, tables and a fireplace in it, the other with bunk beds and a handful of rather ratty looking foam mattresses. Vincent takes his leave to go over to the other hut, where the guardsman resides (and, it turns out, the other guides also bed down for the night). It so happens that there are only Germans in the hut tonight - Robert and Oliver, who study political science in Stuttgart, and Christian who studies geography in Tübingen, though currently in an exchange program with Stellenbosch University (South Africa).
I am usually opposed to mixing with other people from home when abroad, feeling that it detracts from absorbing the local colour. Also, this whole “white tourists in one - large - hut, black guides in the other - small - hut” uncomfortably smacks if not of racism, then at least of colonialism. But we all did pay for the privilege of sleeping in this hut (while the guides appear to be exempt), so I guess the sleeping arrangements are part of the service. And I've been mixed up with people speaking nothing but English (or Chichewa) all week, so it actually feels good to express myself in German again. Plus hiking up here has brought Thomas D.'s immortal lyrics back to mind:
“Siehst Du den Horizont?
Direkt über'm Boden fängt der Himmel an,
und wäre ich dort,
so würde ich wetten, dass ich ihn erreichen kann.
Doch hier hat es den Anschein,
bin ich dafür zu klein …
[…]
… und ihr seht mich als Punkt am Horizont verschwinden,
um ein Stück weiter hinten
mich selbst zu finden.”
Not something I can find words for in another language. And yes, they all know the lyrics as well.
It's a comfortable evening around a crackling fire. They share the food they already prepared with me, I share my large bag of salted peanuts which provide the perfect counterpoint for the (atmospherically cooled) beer the hut's keepers provide (in small amounts, at a not inconsiderable premium for having carried it up here).
It's such a well-rounded evening in pleasant company that it's nearly indecent. My compatriots have travelled widely (and sharing experiences from my - business - travels of the past years, it appears I am now perceived to have done so as well) and share stories as well as factual information. I learn that the average life expectancy of a Malawian citizen is below 40 years. I have a very uncomfortable moment as I consider that my guide may not live to reach my age. I then realize that the figure given represents life expectancy at birth, and once you adjust for a high infant mortality rate, the average life expectancy of someone who already survived to his mid-twenties is of course considerably higher. But somehow any positive outlook brought about by a high infant mortality rate fails to console me. But via only slightly less depressing subjects like Bilharzia (Schistosomiasis) and its possible concern for us (or lack thereof), and on from there to intestinal problems and our reaction to various foreign cuisines, we manage to span a broad band of subjects. In fact, the light topics much outshine the gloomier ones tonight, in stark contrast to the dark hut (no lights here) only slightly illuminated in our corner by its small, but welcoming fire.
The night ends with Christian and me standing outside under the stars (the mists part enough to allow Christian to point out the Southern Cross to me again - and explain how to find South with its help, that being not nearly so simple as simply locating it). We spend an hour or so (we've both brought enough warm clothes to stand the chill) quietly sharing various travel-related experiences. The stars shine above, and shower more falling stars than I have wishes for.
After a bit of an experiment at making breakfast (turns out the plastic of the folding dishes I'm testing becomes less flexible in the chill, making it snap apart) I have produced a goodly portion of noodles with a thick, overly salty sauce (that's how the powder came out of the bag). Thinking
about how much sweat I produced yesterday (a lot!), that's probably not bad.
Vincent suggests to leave my pack here with the guardsman - we're coming back past the hut after our excursion to Chambe Peak. So I remove the top lid and hip belt of my pack and create a fanny pack from them - happy that I included this conversion option when I had the pack made. I don't need any more repacking - the first aid kit and most of my money are in the top lid anyway, and the snacks are in the hip belt pockets. Just add a bottle of water, and off we go. “Tiende”, I learn, means “let's go” in Chichewa.
I wave goodbye to the other Germans as we leave. Two of them are rather unhappy with their guide, Sam. They hired him before coming to the Forestry station rather than through the good folks there. While he quoted the going rate for a guide, he demanded it up front in total and started claiming, an hour or so into the hike, that the rate is per person guided, not per guide, and that they should pay him “the other half” at the end. They said they'd check that with the Forestry station, which he tells them is closed today because of the weekend. Both of those statements are lies. They weren't set on a course of action when I left them, but it seemed likely they'd dismiss the guide and return without him. While we agree that the way back down to the forestry station is easy enough to find without a guide, we suspect that a similar scenario may be responsible for the apparent death of the hiker currently being sought.
We take off at a good clip. Vincent is visibly feeling cold (it really is quite cool up here now) and happy for a quick pace. He tells me he only had one blanket in the other hut, so once the fire went out he was freezing. I didn't start off cold, so left my warm clothes behind in anticipation of both me and the day warming up as we go along. I am not mistaken in this belief, and also note the effect of altitude, to which I ascribe how quickly my breath goes.
We pass a sign where our path crosses another path, which says “Chambe Peak” and points the way Vincent is *not* going. When asked about this, he explains that the people who set up the sign made a mistake with the arrow direction. Apparently no one considers himself responsible for changing this.
We quickly approach the (Eastern) cliff face of Chambe Peak, which rises steeply from the plateau. Apparently the West Face of Chambe Peak does so all the way from the plains below, making for the longest rock climb in Africa. By various detours we manage to find a route which leads up the mountain. That is, Vincent knows it, and I just follow along - I would never have found it myself. This route does not require rock climbing of the sort I did at Morro di Urca in Rio (which is good, as there are no ropes securing us) but for a large part of the climb we require our hands to ascend. Vincent assures me that we'll be passing by the same places on the way back down, so I leave my hiking sticks behind when it becomes so steep that they are more of a liability than an asset, and we climb the rest. The way up is hard on my achilles tendons - I rarely get to set down all of my foot, usually it's just the balls of my feet which find placement so I'm tiptoeing up to Chambe Peak. This feels wonderfully adventurous - hard enough to be a challenge, steep enough to be exciting, while just on this side of presenting danger to life or limb.
The scenery is amazing. Chambe Plateau and bits of other plateaus are visible from here, many of the peaks stand out in stark relief against the bright blue sky, caressed by clouds. The distant plains lie before us like a giant's playground, littered with toy huts and connecting lines (roads) seemingly scratched into the dirt. I am again amazed at the human eyes' ability to filter out the haze (alternatively, disappointed at my camera's inability to do so), as I seem to be able to make out details much further away than the pictures of my camera indicate. Vincent tells me that in late August or September one gets clear days when one can see all the way to Lake Malawi from here. I really feel like coming back one day to check that out. Maybe one or both of my daughters would like to come as well - time enough, I hope.
The morning turns out gloriously. I am happy Vincent strongly suggested leaving as early as he did (6:30 he had said, it was more like seven when I'd sorted my repacking and we actually started walking). We lie in the sun on the peak for maybe half an hour or so, exchaning snacks (crackers, and the raisins I bought here and some leftovers from Australia that were still in my pack) and brief glances into our lives. I learn that Vincent studies to become an electrician when he isn't guiding. Apparently his dad paid his tuition last year, but got sick and died so that he now has to come up with it by himself. So he's been missing classes for the last week to secure the money for the second half of the semester. It's 14,000 MK per semester (secondary schooling, starting after 8th grade, is 5,000 per trimester while primary schooling is free - where it's available).
When asked what I think about his country, I ask for and learn another Chichewa word: “Kukongola” - “beautiful”.
The way back down is steep enough to require leaning back against the rock, though not quite steep enough to require turning around and climbing down backwards (though I realize belatedly that I would have told my daughters to do just that). So it becomes a matter of evenly distributing the friction between the seat of the pants and the balls of the hands, which get roughed up a little. As usual, the way back down is more painful on the quads, and possibly on the knees (though that may just be the accumulated effect of already having had to bear me up there). Our descent is fast enough to have my ears pop halfway down.
Back on the plateau and on our way back to Chambe Hut, Vincent again finds that we made very good time. This is not a stretch even he could have run, so allow myself to feel pleased about that.
Back at the huts, I'm asked whether I require a fire in “my” hut (there's no one else around). It seems stupid to me to cook my lunch here in this hut while Vincent cooks his in the other one, and ask whether we can't both do it in the same place. So Vincent invites me over to the guardsman's hut, which consists of two very small rooms. The back one contains a bed, the front one a hearth and a stool. The guardsman is sitting on the ground peeling pea pods, and assents to my question whether I may enter. He leaves soon thereafter to cut wood outside, and I feel that my presence may have been an unwelcome invasion of privacy. Vincent and I cook our food on the grate over the wood fire in the hearth - I cook my instant noodles in the titanium pot I've been lugging all over te world, Vincent cooks Nsima (maize meal) in the guardsman's pot. He cooks a lot of it, and invites me to share. I do, and make him eat some of my noodles as well. We are both politely, though hesitantly, positive in our evaluations of each other's cuisine. The black herring that goes with his Nsima comes from lake Churia (sp?), I'm told.
As we move off again (“tiende”), I am again happy that we started early in the morning - Chambe Peak is currently an indistinct shadow in the clouds. If we were up there now, visibility would be reduced to a few dozen meters at best. We hike across much of Chambe Plateau (the part we haven't already crossed from the East Face of Chambe to the Hut), through the area known locally, I'm told as “Likhabula area” after the nearest town down below, to the Lichenya Plateau. The weather is changing, though mostly pleasant. Wind and wind direction is a major factor up here - on the lee side of a slope, heat can be sweltering, while the buffeting winds greeting us when cresting the ridge are bracing, if not downright cold. The trail we follow is part of a fire break for a while (couldn't miss this one even in the dark), then continues off and is sometimes less distinct as it clings to the sides of hills, follows nearly dry watercourses - some rock-hopping, some “bridges” made of rotting timbers haphazardly laid across gullies and nailed into place - and is sometimes marked by white arrows painted on the ground in lime. I'm told these were put in place for the benefit of the Mulanje Porter's Race. They are not often, or more exactly rarely, in places where they would be helpful in advising of an apparent choice in routes, and more often painted into the middle of an obvious path without apparent alternatives.
They are anyhow rare, and so cannot deflect my attention from the awe-inspiring beauty I find myself in. I am tempted to stop often, to breathe in the crisp mountain air and revel in the fact that I actually find myself here, on Mulanje Mountain (as the locals call the massif). My wife and I had watched a documentary about Malawi focussing on its natural beauty, which had impressed us so much that when I told her I might be working on a T/A mission in an as-yet unspecified country in southern Africa, she asked: “Not Malawi?”. I am sure many of the images which so impressed us were shot right here. Words fail to describe the majestic wilderness of it, so I resort to repetitions of “kukongolo”.
We spend another quarter hour or so of a rest break sprawled over dry rocks of a water course which trickles along in the background, providing the sound of flowing water as soundtrack to our reverie. Birds call in the background - yet the absence of noises lets the voices of nature join into a sound of silence.
Sun warms us, while intermittent winds cool us, so with another “tiende” we move off. We spend a little more than three and a half hours hiking to Lichenya hut, which Vincent again announces as being “in good time”. He's right - shortly after we've moved into our quarter at Lichenya hut, the clouds envelop it and begin pelting it with rain. It gets rather chilly outside in a hurry, and while I have both warm and rain clothes with me, I am glad Vincent isn't caught in this weather. So, he admits, is he. He also tells me that he would be very happy if I did not sleep in the tent-shaped tarp I set up outside. I am hesitant - I brought it halfway around the globe to test, after all. What wins me over is that sleeping inside means I won't need all of my warm clothes in my sleeping bag, allowing me to loan some to Vincent.
The hut is large, it even has a form of loft. On a warm night, that's where I would sleep - the loft has a window which, on a clear day, would give a fabulous view. Given that it is neither clear nor warm, we strategically choose the smaller of the rooms in possession of a fireplace. Since having shared lunch with me, Vincent seems to accept that we are travelling as a team, and as we have the hut to ourselves (though it is the largest on Mulanje, even featuring electric lighting fed by solar cells) we decide that he'll sleep directly in front of the fireplace, while I set up my quarters on the other side. When he goes to ask the guardsman for a blanket, I ask that he also ask for a blanket for me. Which I don't need, of course, but with two blankets, my pile vest and balaclava I hope Vincent won't have to freeze tonight, though it's likely to get colder in here once the fire burns out than it ever did at Chambe Hut. I worry for a little while - the additional blanket has to come from somewhere, and the one or two families I saw who occupy one or more of the smaller straw-thatched huts around Lichenya hut with their inadequately clothed small children are not people whom I would wish to deprive of warmth. But this is, as I've been told, the largest of the huts, so it stands to reason that many people with many guides sometimes overnight here, so I assume the blanket came from a store for such purposes. Anyway, a family can move together for warmth, while notions of privacy and intimacy keep us apart in scenarios short of life-threatening cold.
We eat heartily (Nsima, black herring with tomato, and an instant pasta meal again) and bed down for the night, after I've inspected my tarp outside. It remains dry inside, the wind is no problem, I am certain I would have slept quite well in it.
The night passes without incident (we had spotted the leaky bits of roof early on and positioned ourselves so we weren't rained on at night). The guardsman comes in at 6:30 as promised to light our fire. I had initially denied the need to do so when asked, before asking Vincent whether he might like to cook something in the morning. Which he admitted that yes, he would.
Nsima and noodle soup again. Then I take down my tarp (leaving a diamond-shaped bit of dryness behind on the otherwise sodden ground), pack up my things and - “tiende”. We backtrack just a bit. The grasses we found neatly laid out to dry yesterday are still lying where they were, though dry is not something they will be for a while. It is chilly this morning, and stays so for a while. I've let Vincent continue to wear the pile vest for a while and loaned him my softshell pants for a bit. We are both in good spirits as we move off.
After a km or so of terrain we passed through yesterday, we turn off towards Likhabula. It's a long descent, with stunning views. After two hours or so, we sit for a while on an inviting rock in the sun, drink our last bits of water eat a few raisins. It's peaceful here. Further down, we spot monkeys in the trees and even meet hikers going up, twice. We've also met several search groups during the day, though there appears to be no trace of the hiker. I'm thinking that if he was ill prepared, a single night like the last one might have done him in, certainly if he was already malnourished (and there were no indications that he travelled with a week's worth of provisions). No one is admitting that they are looking for a corpse, however.
Vincent is carrying two brooms (made of the grasses they cut for that purpose up on the plateau), which he got at Lichenya hut. He tells me he is bringing them home. One of them, however, it turns out goes to the person who loaned him the windbreaker he was wearing. We meet this person (and many others) at the bottom of our descent, in the village of Likhabula. Residences generally consist of the now-familiar one-room brick houses, thatched with straw or sometimes - probably a sign of affluence - covered with metal sheeting. Some of them are falling down, others are going up. The largest building under construction, easily the size of four to five of these dwellings, is going to be a church. I am again given to wonder to what degree the resources put into religious pursuits result in a useful kickback for the society affording them. Is enough gained in the way of charity, solidarity and prevention of social friction to make this an efficient use of resources?
Vincent and I exchange emails (how he manages to get email access here when it's been darn hard - and expensive - for me to get a connection, and a spotty, low-bandwidth one at that, remains a mystery for now). My tip is larger than his remaining payment (he's putting me on a truck which will get me to where a minibus will get me to Blantyre, so I think I can reinvest some of the return trip money saved) and I hand it over with the exhortation to go back to school. He indicates that he will do just that. As he also told me that he slept quite well with the Balaclava (and I can't stand it while sleeping), I let him keep that as well. As the body loses most of its heat via the body, what with an entire artery heating the skin around the skull to keep the brain warm and cozy, I guess that's the best ease-of-carrying to warmth difference I can make in his wardrobe. It can be stuffed in a pocket of his shorts on hot days and still come along, whereas the pile vest would very nearly necessitate a backpack. Plus, I still need the vest and use it regularly, not like the Balaclava. This exchange happens underneath a sign proclaiming that Unicef is paying for the school construction project going on in the background, which I think is laying it on a little thick. But this isn't a movie ending, so we still have to wait (lounging in the half-shadow of a stunted little tree) for a while before a truck passing through consents to take me along to the tarmac road in Mulanje town.
The central area of Mulanje town, following the paved overland route through the town, is packed with people. This is market, central bus station, hangout and probably a number of other things, not easily identified at a glance, at once. The ubiquitous white Toyota Hi-Ace minibuses line one side of the street, coming and leaving without apparent rhyme or reason. But saying “Blantyre” is all I need to do, and yes, it will be 400 MK, like I was led to expect. Only it will actually go to Limbe, which is right next to Blantyre (in fact, the delineation escaped me when going from one to the other).
There's one young man whose job it appears to be to hunt down people who want to go in their direction (though, all of the buses on this side of the street are going there), while another, older gentleman sits behind the wheel and honks every once in a while. We leave when the minibus is full - that is, every seat is taken, so we have a dozen people aboard. I was told in Chambe Hut that in Mozambique they aim for at least twenty people (in the same kind of car, but on roads so bad that they'd be likely to break down even if not hopelessly overloaded). This trip is a piece of cake. I still have the legs zipped off my convertible pants, and the very small girl on the lap of the young woman next to me seems to find the hairs on the pale skin endlessly fascinating. As much as I find her attentions cute, I am annoyed by the young hustler on the other side also occasionally touching my leg and saying “money”. I tell him that I'll pay when I'm there, but he keeps trying every quarter of an hour or so.
While driving is nominally on the left, it's really more in the center. What the rule does establish is that the default direction in which to dodge oncoming traffic is left, which helps. We reach Limbe after an hour and a half or so, driving down a street which, along with its parallel streets, features several dozen nearly identical-looking vehicles in a chaotic hellhole of sputtering engines and honking horns, which the locals appear to easily make sense of. I pay the young man and indicate to the next random person around me that I'd like to go to Blantyre. I'm rapidly put into another minibus, which also fills up over the time. Just before it's full, a fellow Mzungu (white person) is set down next to me. She's apparently just come from Mozambique to renew her Mozambican visa, after having sailed a dhow from Zanzibar down to the Mozambican coast. She was told that “Doogle's” would be a good place to stay for backpackers in Blantyre, and left with no more information than that (in fact, asking me whether I knew its spelling). And here I thought I was being adventurous.
I get off at a sign indicating the hotel in which I stayed the past week, pay the agreed upon 50 MK (prices for transportation seem to relate to the ease of attaining it much more than to the actual distance travelled) and walk the rest on foot. I manage to get to the lodge I booked for this night without incident. It's just over a third of the price of the one the Bank booked, and while looking a little dodgy by western standards, the shower is far better - it produces hot water instantly and when turning on the tab marked with a red spot. Who says you have to die to be reborn?
I am picked up by a friendly gentleman from the RBM at 5:45, half an hour before the agreed time (I'm all packed, so I'm ready to go in less than five minutes) and sped to Chileka International Airport. There ensues a short nervous waiting time before the check-in desk opens - I've had no email access for three days (I tried after my arrival, but the lodge didn't have internet access, the pay-as-you-go WiFi hotspot where I took my lunch refused to talk to my laptop, and the internet cafés were all closed) and worry whether a purely electronic ticket made in DC will actually get me aboard a plane in Blantyre. To my relief, it works without a hitch.
Shortly thereafter I am told by the young lady from Zimbabwe sitting next to me on the flight (and continuing on to Jo'burg) that she's had a very similar moment yesterday, with the exact opposite result. I feel that I'm going through a weird bit of post-event jitters as she recounts how she had already been on a bus to Lilongwe for an hour in order to catch a flight from there, when she was called to tell her that the flight from Lilongwe was already fully booked. My remark that these sorts of events at least should meet with the understanding of the employer is countered with “not if you're your own employer” and I allow that customers might be less understanding.
We have an interesting discussion, mostly about religion, of all things, in the course of which I also learn that she is a Mugabe supporter. I hadn't thought educated, smart and Mugabe-supporter were traits that could be combined in a single person. Live and learn. She says what with the past experiences of civil war, there's a large majority that just doesn't want to rock the boat and get on with their lives. And I guess if I'd grown up in a system like that, I would have tried to arrange myself with it as well.
Lilongwe's Kamuzu International Airport is a much grander affair than Blantyre's Chileka airport, sporting a longish building with two stories. My baggage is early on the conveyor belt and I take a taxi to Annie's lodge (recommended for mid-range stays by the - 2001 - Lonely Planet guide), hoping to get a room, even though I never received a response to my inquiring email. On the road, I again notice the signs from the traffic authority, and also, here, from the tax authority which have some sort of exhortation (“drive to arrive” and “sustain the fertilizer subsidy - pay taxes”) on one half and the other half taken up by a giant picture of His Excellency Mutharika, President of Malawi. It appears that here, too, the rulers used state money to help their reelection (the last election was only two months ago).
It turns out that yes, they have a room - actually reserved for me, they'd seen the email, but were unable to respond due to network issues. Ah. It also turns out that the power is down, so no recharging for my laptop and no WiFi either, as the outage appears to affect the entire neighbourhood and therefore also takes out the WiFi router.
I still have a few hours before my interview. I think for a moment of the fact that the lady from Zimbabwe had told me “if you have that much time, Lake Malawi is only an hour away” which I had countered with “lead me not into temptation”. I decide to have a nap - probably a good preparation for my interview, given that I've had to get up so early, and a time in which I won't be building up nerves. I awake to the lights in the room coming on, and actually manage to chat with my wife via Skype for a bit (the usual 30 minute-cards for online access are the same here as in Blantyre) while getting dressed.
I take a taxi to the World Bank office to avoid arriving sweaty (and just possibly getting lost), am well before the appointed time and spend a bit of time waiting. Everything seems to go smoothly enough and it feels as though I've hardly been there when I find myself back on the street again. To decompress, I decide to walk back. The streets all look the same, but a young man I ask for directions is headed roughly in the same direction and so I join the people (not a few of them also in suits) whose preferred (or more likely, only) means of transport is also on foot.
The next day I fly back. I'm at the airport way too early (better than late) and spend an hour sitting in a tree outside of the airport, before the check-in desk opens. The business lounge at Kamuzu has snacks and drinks (that's good), but WiFi again has to be purchased (and I have no cash left - that was intentional this time).
In Jo'burg there is a desk for Business and First Class passengers of South African Airlines with a prominent “Star Alliance” sign (of which Lufthansa is a member). So I hope to be able to check in there. After waiting for a while for the person in front of me to finish his business (it seems complicated) I am told that no, if I'm on the Lufthansa flight (there's a South African one leaving an hour later), I have to go to the Lufthansa desk. Of which there is only one. I have to wait 45 minutes at the transfer desk for them to check maybe a dozen people through - the reasons for this escape me. The layover time, which seemed ample, now is just sufficient to make my connection without running. I still stop by the business lounge really quickly in order to connect with home - but they, too, *sell* WiFi and have only a single computer for customer access, which is of course in use. And here I thought I'd be back in civilization... ;-)
The flight back is uneventful. Upon arrival, I contemplate that if I get my bag *right* away, I might even catch the train at 6:09 (if my recollection of the train departures at Frankfurt Airport is correct). In fact, it seems to me that having the train departure schedule for the Airport train terminal would be good information to provide on board. But I wait for my baggage until the sign says that offloading for my flight is finished. While I talk to the lady at baggage tracing, she receives a call informing her that a suitcase for a Mr. Corterier, supposedly on the LH flight, was just offloaded from the South African flight - in the next building. I run over there, get my suitcase, run to the train station (taking care not to run in the immediate vicinity of customs) and just make the 7:09 train. I'm back. Yay.
(again, the pictures are here: http://tinyurl.com/mo9x9p - that should be all of them now.)
We head up the slope, on the “Top Skycable Path”, which heads up at a steep angle and becomes steeper still. Its name derives from the cable coming down off Mulanje, which was put there to bring things (particularly timber) off the mountain more easily. It's not currently in use, however. I'm told the engine broke. Two YEARS ago. It's a government engine, and the government seems to have more important things on its mind (can't say I blame it). So the planks are being carried down the way they used to - on the heads of porters.
Which has got to be a darn tough job on this slope. I am glad for my ultralight carbon hiking sticks, letting me do part of the work with my arms and speeding me up the slope. I wonder for a (little) while whether I might have to slow down for my guide, but after realizing that my comfortable speed is what it is, he matches me without apparent concern. I consider that armchair tourists probably don't opt for a mountain hiking tour much, so there's likely an inherent self-selection process involved which means he only gets to guide people who are reasonably fit. It later turns out that the Mulanje Porter Race follows the path which we've decided would be my (our) goal for the rest of today, tomorrow and part of Sunday (with the exception of the peak-bagging excursion up Chambe Peak). And that Vincent ran it. In borrowed running shoes. In 2 h 45 min. Two weeks ago.
So if I decided, for whatever reason, to try running up this hill (with my nearly 12 kg pack, according to my updated Malawi Packlist spreadsheet), Vincent, carrying a small plastic bag in one hand, could have easily matched me while carrying on a commentary of what we were passing by, and continue doing this long after the (very short) distance I'd be able to keep it up before collapsing. I am very, very impressed. The new record for this year, is 2 h 05 min - for a 27.3 km distance with about 1300 m of elevation gain in the first fifth or so and a corresponding loss for the last quarter of that distance. On semi-maintained trails. Ouch.
We get to the top relatively soon. There are moments which feel eerily similar to trudging up Kumotori-san again. Again (as in Lamington, down under), the objective similarity ends with me going uphill. It's broad daylight, it's hot, there's a lot of vegetation around and I'm not even alone.
But the mental state is similar. I zone out, seeing only the next few steps ahead and while I keep taking them, there are always the next few to replace the ones I just took.
I contemplate that there are two sides to this phenomenon. On the one hand it's a loss - it becomes a little treadmill-like, with me being less aware of my surroundings than usual (no snide comments necessary, thank you, I've heard them all) when I've undertaken considerable effort to do this in these particular surroundings. Surroundings, however, which at least partially necessitate this concentration on the immediate. The paths I like are less than entirely flat, less than entirely level and less than entirely even. That means a (not too small) part of my attention is taken up looking at my feet or, rather, where to place them. This necessitates looking down, which means I don't see much else.
But there's a side effect to this. Because the trail is the way it is, I have to adapt every step to it, making this something more than a purely repetitive act, like walking from the hotel to the Reserve Bank, which I feel is merely an act of locomotion (however pleasant the day and interesting the surroundings may be). This requires attention, and effort, and a degree of determination, which makes it an altogether different experience, which is why I believe it deserves a different monicker from “walking” (though yes, I think the observation that “hiking is just walking where it is okay to pee” is funny).
And the effect on my brain is that while part of my attention is fixed on the bit of trail ahead of me, the rest of my mind is free to wander. In reducing external input to the few feet ahead, all the background clutter daily life usually involves is reduced - the many things my brain must filter out to be able to function fall away naturally, allowing my mind, my soul, to expand into the void.
A bit over the top? Perhaps. I don't know. I do know that doing this allows me to stretch my mind, much as it cramps my legs.
And I don't zone out completely. Every once in a while I take my bearings (good excuse for catching my breath and taking a sip of water), and enjoy the scenery stretching out behind me. It looks just as high as my legs feel like they've walked. Not that I've been doing this enough to be able to tell how much elevation gain I've made based purely on how my legs feel - but my legs feel like I've climbed a *lot*, and my vantage point sure is a lot higher than where we started.
We make it to the Chambe Plateau in good time. It's reasonably flat (just rolling enough not to be boring, though my legs wouldn't mind the boredom right now) and the path follows a large firebreak, so it can't be missed. Not that the firebreak seems to have done much - all around us are the sings of the monstrous devastation a huge wildfire three years ago left behind. None of the vegetation comes higher than my hips, and all around us stand the burned trunks of trees like blackened teeth. Combine this with darkness slowly falling as the sun sets behind the mountains surrounding the plateau (though still a good bit over the horizon beyond that) and it creates a hesitant, awed attitude as though entering a majestic mausoleum through which Vincent and I walk in companionable silence.
We make it to the Chambe Hut in 3:45, which is well below the four and a half hours I was told to expect, but my pleasure at this feat is tempered by the knowledge that Vincent must have done this bit in less than an hour only two weeks ago. I'm still happy to arrive before it gets really dark (though I'm well equipped for night hiking - and pretty much any other eventuality that might come up, including sleeping out of doors in temps below freezing).
The hut I'm shown has two rooms, one of them with chairs, tables and a fireplace in it, the other with bunk beds and a handful of rather ratty looking foam mattresses. Vincent takes his leave to go over to the other hut, where the guardsman resides (and, it turns out, the other guides also bed down for the night). It so happens that there are only Germans in the hut tonight - Robert and Oliver, who study political science in Stuttgart, and Christian who studies geography in Tübingen, though currently in an exchange program with Stellenbosch University (South Africa).
I am usually opposed to mixing with other people from home when abroad, feeling that it detracts from absorbing the local colour. Also, this whole “white tourists in one - large - hut, black guides in the other - small - hut” uncomfortably smacks if not of racism, then at least of colonialism. But we all did pay for the privilege of sleeping in this hut (while the guides appear to be exempt), so I guess the sleeping arrangements are part of the service. And I've been mixed up with people speaking nothing but English (or Chichewa) all week, so it actually feels good to express myself in German again. Plus hiking up here has brought Thomas D.'s immortal lyrics back to mind:
“Siehst Du den Horizont?
Direkt über'm Boden fängt der Himmel an,
und wäre ich dort,
so würde ich wetten, dass ich ihn erreichen kann.
Doch hier hat es den Anschein,
bin ich dafür zu klein …
[…]
… und ihr seht mich als Punkt am Horizont verschwinden,
um ein Stück weiter hinten
mich selbst zu finden.”
Not something I can find words for in another language. And yes, they all know the lyrics as well.
It's a comfortable evening around a crackling fire. They share the food they already prepared with me, I share my large bag of salted peanuts which provide the perfect counterpoint for the (atmospherically cooled) beer the hut's keepers provide (in small amounts, at a not inconsiderable premium for having carried it up here).
It's such a well-rounded evening in pleasant company that it's nearly indecent. My compatriots have travelled widely (and sharing experiences from my - business - travels of the past years, it appears I am now perceived to have done so as well) and share stories as well as factual information. I learn that the average life expectancy of a Malawian citizen is below 40 years. I have a very uncomfortable moment as I consider that my guide may not live to reach my age. I then realize that the figure given represents life expectancy at birth, and once you adjust for a high infant mortality rate, the average life expectancy of someone who already survived to his mid-twenties is of course considerably higher. But somehow any positive outlook brought about by a high infant mortality rate fails to console me. But via only slightly less depressing subjects like Bilharzia (Schistosomiasis) and its possible concern for us (or lack thereof), and on from there to intestinal problems and our reaction to various foreign cuisines, we manage to span a broad band of subjects. In fact, the light topics much outshine the gloomier ones tonight, in stark contrast to the dark hut (no lights here) only slightly illuminated in our corner by its small, but welcoming fire.
The night ends with Christian and me standing outside under the stars (the mists part enough to allow Christian to point out the Southern Cross to me again - and explain how to find South with its help, that being not nearly so simple as simply locating it). We spend an hour or so (we've both brought enough warm clothes to stand the chill) quietly sharing various travel-related experiences. The stars shine above, and shower more falling stars than I have wishes for.
After a bit of an experiment at making breakfast (turns out the plastic of the folding dishes I'm testing becomes less flexible in the chill, making it snap apart) I have produced a goodly portion of noodles with a thick, overly salty sauce (that's how the powder came out of the bag). Thinking
about how much sweat I produced yesterday (a lot!), that's probably not bad.
Vincent suggests to leave my pack here with the guardsman - we're coming back past the hut after our excursion to Chambe Peak. So I remove the top lid and hip belt of my pack and create a fanny pack from them - happy that I included this conversion option when I had the pack made. I don't need any more repacking - the first aid kit and most of my money are in the top lid anyway, and the snacks are in the hip belt pockets. Just add a bottle of water, and off we go. “Tiende”, I learn, means “let's go” in Chichewa.
I wave goodbye to the other Germans as we leave. Two of them are rather unhappy with their guide, Sam. They hired him before coming to the Forestry station rather than through the good folks there. While he quoted the going rate for a guide, he demanded it up front in total and started claiming, an hour or so into the hike, that the rate is per person guided, not per guide, and that they should pay him “the other half” at the end. They said they'd check that with the Forestry station, which he tells them is closed today because of the weekend. Both of those statements are lies. They weren't set on a course of action when I left them, but it seemed likely they'd dismiss the guide and return without him. While we agree that the way back down to the forestry station is easy enough to find without a guide, we suspect that a similar scenario may be responsible for the apparent death of the hiker currently being sought.
We take off at a good clip. Vincent is visibly feeling cold (it really is quite cool up here now) and happy for a quick pace. He tells me he only had one blanket in the other hut, so once the fire went out he was freezing. I didn't start off cold, so left my warm clothes behind in anticipation of both me and the day warming up as we go along. I am not mistaken in this belief, and also note the effect of altitude, to which I ascribe how quickly my breath goes.
We pass a sign where our path crosses another path, which says “Chambe Peak” and points the way Vincent is *not* going. When asked about this, he explains that the people who set up the sign made a mistake with the arrow direction. Apparently no one considers himself responsible for changing this.
We quickly approach the (Eastern) cliff face of Chambe Peak, which rises steeply from the plateau. Apparently the West Face of Chambe Peak does so all the way from the plains below, making for the longest rock climb in Africa. By various detours we manage to find a route which leads up the mountain. That is, Vincent knows it, and I just follow along - I would never have found it myself. This route does not require rock climbing of the sort I did at Morro di Urca in Rio (which is good, as there are no ropes securing us) but for a large part of the climb we require our hands to ascend. Vincent assures me that we'll be passing by the same places on the way back down, so I leave my hiking sticks behind when it becomes so steep that they are more of a liability than an asset, and we climb the rest. The way up is hard on my achilles tendons - I rarely get to set down all of my foot, usually it's just the balls of my feet which find placement so I'm tiptoeing up to Chambe Peak. This feels wonderfully adventurous - hard enough to be a challenge, steep enough to be exciting, while just on this side of presenting danger to life or limb.
The scenery is amazing. Chambe Plateau and bits of other plateaus are visible from here, many of the peaks stand out in stark relief against the bright blue sky, caressed by clouds. The distant plains lie before us like a giant's playground, littered with toy huts and connecting lines (roads) seemingly scratched into the dirt. I am again amazed at the human eyes' ability to filter out the haze (alternatively, disappointed at my camera's inability to do so), as I seem to be able to make out details much further away than the pictures of my camera indicate. Vincent tells me that in late August or September one gets clear days when one can see all the way to Lake Malawi from here. I really feel like coming back one day to check that out. Maybe one or both of my daughters would like to come as well - time enough, I hope.
The morning turns out gloriously. I am happy Vincent strongly suggested leaving as early as he did (6:30 he had said, it was more like seven when I'd sorted my repacking and we actually started walking). We lie in the sun on the peak for maybe half an hour or so, exchaning snacks (crackers, and the raisins I bought here and some leftovers from Australia that were still in my pack) and brief glances into our lives. I learn that Vincent studies to become an electrician when he isn't guiding. Apparently his dad paid his tuition last year, but got sick and died so that he now has to come up with it by himself. So he's been missing classes for the last week to secure the money for the second half of the semester. It's 14,000 MK per semester (secondary schooling, starting after 8th grade, is 5,000 per trimester while primary schooling is free - where it's available).
When asked what I think about his country, I ask for and learn another Chichewa word: “Kukongola” - “beautiful”.
The way back down is steep enough to require leaning back against the rock, though not quite steep enough to require turning around and climbing down backwards (though I realize belatedly that I would have told my daughters to do just that). So it becomes a matter of evenly distributing the friction between the seat of the pants and the balls of the hands, which get roughed up a little. As usual, the way back down is more painful on the quads, and possibly on the knees (though that may just be the accumulated effect of already having had to bear me up there). Our descent is fast enough to have my ears pop halfway down.
Back on the plateau and on our way back to Chambe Hut, Vincent again finds that we made very good time. This is not a stretch even he could have run, so allow myself to feel pleased about that.
Back at the huts, I'm asked whether I require a fire in “my” hut (there's no one else around). It seems stupid to me to cook my lunch here in this hut while Vincent cooks his in the other one, and ask whether we can't both do it in the same place. So Vincent invites me over to the guardsman's hut, which consists of two very small rooms. The back one contains a bed, the front one a hearth and a stool. The guardsman is sitting on the ground peeling pea pods, and assents to my question whether I may enter. He leaves soon thereafter to cut wood outside, and I feel that my presence may have been an unwelcome invasion of privacy. Vincent and I cook our food on the grate over the wood fire in the hearth - I cook my instant noodles in the titanium pot I've been lugging all over te world, Vincent cooks Nsima (maize meal) in the guardsman's pot. He cooks a lot of it, and invites me to share. I do, and make him eat some of my noodles as well. We are both politely, though hesitantly, positive in our evaluations of each other's cuisine. The black herring that goes with his Nsima comes from lake Churia (sp?), I'm told.
As we move off again (“tiende”), I am again happy that we started early in the morning - Chambe Peak is currently an indistinct shadow in the clouds. If we were up there now, visibility would be reduced to a few dozen meters at best. We hike across much of Chambe Plateau (the part we haven't already crossed from the East Face of Chambe to the Hut), through the area known locally, I'm told as “Likhabula area” after the nearest town down below, to the Lichenya Plateau. The weather is changing, though mostly pleasant. Wind and wind direction is a major factor up here - on the lee side of a slope, heat can be sweltering, while the buffeting winds greeting us when cresting the ridge are bracing, if not downright cold. The trail we follow is part of a fire break for a while (couldn't miss this one even in the dark), then continues off and is sometimes less distinct as it clings to the sides of hills, follows nearly dry watercourses - some rock-hopping, some “bridges” made of rotting timbers haphazardly laid across gullies and nailed into place - and is sometimes marked by white arrows painted on the ground in lime. I'm told these were put in place for the benefit of the Mulanje Porter's Race. They are not often, or more exactly rarely, in places where they would be helpful in advising of an apparent choice in routes, and more often painted into the middle of an obvious path without apparent alternatives.
They are anyhow rare, and so cannot deflect my attention from the awe-inspiring beauty I find myself in. I am tempted to stop often, to breathe in the crisp mountain air and revel in the fact that I actually find myself here, on Mulanje Mountain (as the locals call the massif). My wife and I had watched a documentary about Malawi focussing on its natural beauty, which had impressed us so much that when I told her I might be working on a T/A mission in an as-yet unspecified country in southern Africa, she asked: “Not Malawi?”. I am sure many of the images which so impressed us were shot right here. Words fail to describe the majestic wilderness of it, so I resort to repetitions of “kukongolo”.
We spend another quarter hour or so of a rest break sprawled over dry rocks of a water course which trickles along in the background, providing the sound of flowing water as soundtrack to our reverie. Birds call in the background - yet the absence of noises lets the voices of nature join into a sound of silence.
Sun warms us, while intermittent winds cool us, so with another “tiende” we move off. We spend a little more than three and a half hours hiking to Lichenya hut, which Vincent again announces as being “in good time”. He's right - shortly after we've moved into our quarter at Lichenya hut, the clouds envelop it and begin pelting it with rain. It gets rather chilly outside in a hurry, and while I have both warm and rain clothes with me, I am glad Vincent isn't caught in this weather. So, he admits, is he. He also tells me that he would be very happy if I did not sleep in the tent-shaped tarp I set up outside. I am hesitant - I brought it halfway around the globe to test, after all. What wins me over is that sleeping inside means I won't need all of my warm clothes in my sleeping bag, allowing me to loan some to Vincent.
The hut is large, it even has a form of loft. On a warm night, that's where I would sleep - the loft has a window which, on a clear day, would give a fabulous view. Given that it is neither clear nor warm, we strategically choose the smaller of the rooms in possession of a fireplace. Since having shared lunch with me, Vincent seems to accept that we are travelling as a team, and as we have the hut to ourselves (though it is the largest on Mulanje, even featuring electric lighting fed by solar cells) we decide that he'll sleep directly in front of the fireplace, while I set up my quarters on the other side. When he goes to ask the guardsman for a blanket, I ask that he also ask for a blanket for me. Which I don't need, of course, but with two blankets, my pile vest and balaclava I hope Vincent won't have to freeze tonight, though it's likely to get colder in here once the fire burns out than it ever did at Chambe Hut. I worry for a little while - the additional blanket has to come from somewhere, and the one or two families I saw who occupy one or more of the smaller straw-thatched huts around Lichenya hut with their inadequately clothed small children are not people whom I would wish to deprive of warmth. But this is, as I've been told, the largest of the huts, so it stands to reason that many people with many guides sometimes overnight here, so I assume the blanket came from a store for such purposes. Anyway, a family can move together for warmth, while notions of privacy and intimacy keep us apart in scenarios short of life-threatening cold.
We eat heartily (Nsima, black herring with tomato, and an instant pasta meal again) and bed down for the night, after I've inspected my tarp outside. It remains dry inside, the wind is no problem, I am certain I would have slept quite well in it.
The night passes without incident (we had spotted the leaky bits of roof early on and positioned ourselves so we weren't rained on at night). The guardsman comes in at 6:30 as promised to light our fire. I had initially denied the need to do so when asked, before asking Vincent whether he might like to cook something in the morning. Which he admitted that yes, he would.
Nsima and noodle soup again. Then I take down my tarp (leaving a diamond-shaped bit of dryness behind on the otherwise sodden ground), pack up my things and - “tiende”. We backtrack just a bit. The grasses we found neatly laid out to dry yesterday are still lying where they were, though dry is not something they will be for a while. It is chilly this morning, and stays so for a while. I've let Vincent continue to wear the pile vest for a while and loaned him my softshell pants for a bit. We are both in good spirits as we move off.
After a km or so of terrain we passed through yesterday, we turn off towards Likhabula. It's a long descent, with stunning views. After two hours or so, we sit for a while on an inviting rock in the sun, drink our last bits of water eat a few raisins. It's peaceful here. Further down, we spot monkeys in the trees and even meet hikers going up, twice. We've also met several search groups during the day, though there appears to be no trace of the hiker. I'm thinking that if he was ill prepared, a single night like the last one might have done him in, certainly if he was already malnourished (and there were no indications that he travelled with a week's worth of provisions). No one is admitting that they are looking for a corpse, however.
Vincent is carrying two brooms (made of the grasses they cut for that purpose up on the plateau), which he got at Lichenya hut. He tells me he is bringing them home. One of them, however, it turns out goes to the person who loaned him the windbreaker he was wearing. We meet this person (and many others) at the bottom of our descent, in the village of Likhabula. Residences generally consist of the now-familiar one-room brick houses, thatched with straw or sometimes - probably a sign of affluence - covered with metal sheeting. Some of them are falling down, others are going up. The largest building under construction, easily the size of four to five of these dwellings, is going to be a church. I am again given to wonder to what degree the resources put into religious pursuits result in a useful kickback for the society affording them. Is enough gained in the way of charity, solidarity and prevention of social friction to make this an efficient use of resources?
Vincent and I exchange emails (how he manages to get email access here when it's been darn hard - and expensive - for me to get a connection, and a spotty, low-bandwidth one at that, remains a mystery for now). My tip is larger than his remaining payment (he's putting me on a truck which will get me to where a minibus will get me to Blantyre, so I think I can reinvest some of the return trip money saved) and I hand it over with the exhortation to go back to school. He indicates that he will do just that. As he also told me that he slept quite well with the Balaclava (and I can't stand it while sleeping), I let him keep that as well. As the body loses most of its heat via the body, what with an entire artery heating the skin around the skull to keep the brain warm and cozy, I guess that's the best ease-of-carrying to warmth difference I can make in his wardrobe. It can be stuffed in a pocket of his shorts on hot days and still come along, whereas the pile vest would very nearly necessitate a backpack. Plus, I still need the vest and use it regularly, not like the Balaclava. This exchange happens underneath a sign proclaiming that Unicef is paying for the school construction project going on in the background, which I think is laying it on a little thick. But this isn't a movie ending, so we still have to wait (lounging in the half-shadow of a stunted little tree) for a while before a truck passing through consents to take me along to the tarmac road in Mulanje town.
The central area of Mulanje town, following the paved overland route through the town, is packed with people. This is market, central bus station, hangout and probably a number of other things, not easily identified at a glance, at once. The ubiquitous white Toyota Hi-Ace minibuses line one side of the street, coming and leaving without apparent rhyme or reason. But saying “Blantyre” is all I need to do, and yes, it will be 400 MK, like I was led to expect. Only it will actually go to Limbe, which is right next to Blantyre (in fact, the delineation escaped me when going from one to the other).
There's one young man whose job it appears to be to hunt down people who want to go in their direction (though, all of the buses on this side of the street are going there), while another, older gentleman sits behind the wheel and honks every once in a while. We leave when the minibus is full - that is, every seat is taken, so we have a dozen people aboard. I was told in Chambe Hut that in Mozambique they aim for at least twenty people (in the same kind of car, but on roads so bad that they'd be likely to break down even if not hopelessly overloaded). This trip is a piece of cake. I still have the legs zipped off my convertible pants, and the very small girl on the lap of the young woman next to me seems to find the hairs on the pale skin endlessly fascinating. As much as I find her attentions cute, I am annoyed by the young hustler on the other side also occasionally touching my leg and saying “money”. I tell him that I'll pay when I'm there, but he keeps trying every quarter of an hour or so.
While driving is nominally on the left, it's really more in the center. What the rule does establish is that the default direction in which to dodge oncoming traffic is left, which helps. We reach Limbe after an hour and a half or so, driving down a street which, along with its parallel streets, features several dozen nearly identical-looking vehicles in a chaotic hellhole of sputtering engines and honking horns, which the locals appear to easily make sense of. I pay the young man and indicate to the next random person around me that I'd like to go to Blantyre. I'm rapidly put into another minibus, which also fills up over the time. Just before it's full, a fellow Mzungu (white person) is set down next to me. She's apparently just come from Mozambique to renew her Mozambican visa, after having sailed a dhow from Zanzibar down to the Mozambican coast. She was told that “Doogle's” would be a good place to stay for backpackers in Blantyre, and left with no more information than that (in fact, asking me whether I knew its spelling). And here I thought I was being adventurous.
I get off at a sign indicating the hotel in which I stayed the past week, pay the agreed upon 50 MK (prices for transportation seem to relate to the ease of attaining it much more than to the actual distance travelled) and walk the rest on foot. I manage to get to the lodge I booked for this night without incident. It's just over a third of the price of the one the Bank booked, and while looking a little dodgy by western standards, the shower is far better - it produces hot water instantly and when turning on the tab marked with a red spot. Who says you have to die to be reborn?
I am picked up by a friendly gentleman from the RBM at 5:45, half an hour before the agreed time (I'm all packed, so I'm ready to go in less than five minutes) and sped to Chileka International Airport. There ensues a short nervous waiting time before the check-in desk opens - I've had no email access for three days (I tried after my arrival, but the lodge didn't have internet access, the pay-as-you-go WiFi hotspot where I took my lunch refused to talk to my laptop, and the internet cafés were all closed) and worry whether a purely electronic ticket made in DC will actually get me aboard a plane in Blantyre. To my relief, it works without a hitch.
Shortly thereafter I am told by the young lady from Zimbabwe sitting next to me on the flight (and continuing on to Jo'burg) that she's had a very similar moment yesterday, with the exact opposite result. I feel that I'm going through a weird bit of post-event jitters as she recounts how she had already been on a bus to Lilongwe for an hour in order to catch a flight from there, when she was called to tell her that the flight from Lilongwe was already fully booked. My remark that these sorts of events at least should meet with the understanding of the employer is countered with “not if you're your own employer” and I allow that customers might be less understanding.
We have an interesting discussion, mostly about religion, of all things, in the course of which I also learn that she is a Mugabe supporter. I hadn't thought educated, smart and Mugabe-supporter were traits that could be combined in a single person. Live and learn. She says what with the past experiences of civil war, there's a large majority that just doesn't want to rock the boat and get on with their lives. And I guess if I'd grown up in a system like that, I would have tried to arrange myself with it as well.
Lilongwe's Kamuzu International Airport is a much grander affair than Blantyre's Chileka airport, sporting a longish building with two stories. My baggage is early on the conveyor belt and I take a taxi to Annie's lodge (recommended for mid-range stays by the - 2001 - Lonely Planet guide), hoping to get a room, even though I never received a response to my inquiring email. On the road, I again notice the signs from the traffic authority, and also, here, from the tax authority which have some sort of exhortation (“drive to arrive” and “sustain the fertilizer subsidy - pay taxes”) on one half and the other half taken up by a giant picture of His Excellency Mutharika, President of Malawi. It appears that here, too, the rulers used state money to help their reelection (the last election was only two months ago).
It turns out that yes, they have a room - actually reserved for me, they'd seen the email, but were unable to respond due to network issues. Ah. It also turns out that the power is down, so no recharging for my laptop and no WiFi either, as the outage appears to affect the entire neighbourhood and therefore also takes out the WiFi router.
I still have a few hours before my interview. I think for a moment of the fact that the lady from Zimbabwe had told me “if you have that much time, Lake Malawi is only an hour away” which I had countered with “lead me not into temptation”. I decide to have a nap - probably a good preparation for my interview, given that I've had to get up so early, and a time in which I won't be building up nerves. I awake to the lights in the room coming on, and actually manage to chat with my wife via Skype for a bit (the usual 30 minute-cards for online access are the same here as in Blantyre) while getting dressed.
I take a taxi to the World Bank office to avoid arriving sweaty (and just possibly getting lost), am well before the appointed time and spend a bit of time waiting. Everything seems to go smoothly enough and it feels as though I've hardly been there when I find myself back on the street again. To decompress, I decide to walk back. The streets all look the same, but a young man I ask for directions is headed roughly in the same direction and so I join the people (not a few of them also in suits) whose preferred (or more likely, only) means of transport is also on foot.
The next day I fly back. I'm at the airport way too early (better than late) and spend an hour sitting in a tree outside of the airport, before the check-in desk opens. The business lounge at Kamuzu has snacks and drinks (that's good), but WiFi again has to be purchased (and I have no cash left - that was intentional this time).
In Jo'burg there is a desk for Business and First Class passengers of South African Airlines with a prominent “Star Alliance” sign (of which Lufthansa is a member). So I hope to be able to check in there. After waiting for a while for the person in front of me to finish his business (it seems complicated) I am told that no, if I'm on the Lufthansa flight (there's a South African one leaving an hour later), I have to go to the Lufthansa desk. Of which there is only one. I have to wait 45 minutes at the transfer desk for them to check maybe a dozen people through - the reasons for this escape me. The layover time, which seemed ample, now is just sufficient to make my connection without running. I still stop by the business lounge really quickly in order to connect with home - but they, too, *sell* WiFi and have only a single computer for customer access, which is of course in use. And here I thought I'd be back in civilization... ;-)
The flight back is uneventful. Upon arrival, I contemplate that if I get my bag *right* away, I might even catch the train at 6:09 (if my recollection of the train departures at Frankfurt Airport is correct). In fact, it seems to me that having the train departure schedule for the Airport train terminal would be good information to provide on board. But I wait for my baggage until the sign says that offloading for my flight is finished. While I talk to the lady at baggage tracing, she receives a call informing her that a suitcase for a Mr. Corterier, supposedly on the LH flight, was just offloaded from the South African flight - in the next building. I run over there, get my suitcase, run to the train station (taking care not to run in the immediate vicinity of customs) and just make the 7:09 train. I'm back. Yay.