Hiking Trails, Canoe Trails & Game Drives

Howzit? We've had a great last couple of days here in the midst of South Africa...

We were in the Hogsback mountains for a couple days and stayed at a place called "Away With the Fairies" (I'm sure we'll get some comments on that alone!). It was a nice place with great views, although it did pale in comparison to being in the heart of the Drakensberg. We took a couple lovely walks through some really nice forests to a couple waterfalls. Lots of monkeys in those forests, that we might have missed if we didn't have three dogs along with us to bark incessantly at them.

Here's a look at one of the waterfalls. Sorry, Gracie, I've been playing with other dogs.


From there we drove south to Port Alfred which is on the coast and on the mouth of the Kowie River. We came here solely to do a two day canoe trip up the river to a hut. It was a random thing we read about in our guide book and it sounded like a nice change of pace. So we set out, 20 km up the river silently winding our way through the sleeping hippos and fending off the alligators with our paddles. Just joking. The most we had to contend with was a lazy seal that followed us part way up the river. Being so close to the coast, the tide has influence on the river for the entire journey so we had to time our paddling around the tides to make it easiest on ourselves. It was a lovely two days. We were pretty much the only ones on the river and once we got out of the residential parts of Port Alfred, it was nothing but us and Mother Nature at her best. We paddled through a couple nature reserves and while we didn't see much wildlife, the sounds of all the birds was amazing. It was a very relaxing time. At the end of the 20km we arrived at our hut for the night, where we ended up sleeping outside anyway as there were a few too many spiders inside for our liking (I know....spiders live outside as well...).

Here's what the scenery was like on the river.

The canoe did the job, but it was kinda small. I'm not sure how well you can see Keith in this picture, but this is the morning we headed back down the river (it looks early, but it's really only 7:00), so the canoe is actually much emptier as we have eaten a lot of food out of it.

From the Kowie River we beat feet to the Greater Addo Elephant Park where we saw, well, elephants! Among lots of other game. The park was built around saving the elephants of the area, when at creation there were only something like 11 elephants left. Now there is around 400 and we saw plenty of them. Other game we were able to see was one far off lion, hartbeest, kudu, ostrich, and so many warthogs we were ready to have one for a bbq by the end of our stay there! We stayed at the campground for two nights and enjoyed three game drives (self-driven now, of course!). The park is very well set up. Fabulous camping facilities, and very-easy-to-navigate roads.

The main attraction. One of the many times a whole herd passed right by our car.


We really enjoyed watching the kudu. There are tons of them in the park, so lots of close ups and even a few locking their beautiful horns with each other.


We are currently in Jeffery's Bay, the surfing mecca of South Africa. Not very good surf right now, as we have yet to see a surfer in the water. But we had to come here so that we could say we've been to "J'Bay". From here we'll move a little further west to spend a few days at Tstitikama National Park (definitely did not spell that correctly...).

Wild Coast Beach Life

We have spent the last week traveling down the Wild Coast of South Africa at quite a leisurely pace….enjoying the scenery, seafood and surf.

But I think we left off in Pietermaritzburg….a stopover on the way to the coast. Before hitting the Wild Coast, we passed through Durban and the more populated, vacation destination of the South Coast. Originally we were going to stay a day in Durban, but we heard way too many stories of muggings in the city, and all it is is a big city, so we decided to pass through. We had heard nice things about the big market there and a popular local dish called bunny chow, so we talked ourselves into stopping for just an hour or so to check out the market and have lunch. Well, I think we have been thoroughly spoiled by the beautiful markets of SE Asia. This market was fine, and granted it was Sunday so it was a bit shut down, but it just doesn’t compare to the sights, sounds and smells of an Asian market. Nevertheless we bought a curio or two, had a bowl of bunny chow (a big chunk of bread with a hole carved out of the middle which is then filled with curry). We were nervous the whole time about the Land Rover parked on the street (it stands out slightly in these cities), but we made it unscathed and were off to the coast.

The coastline north and south of Durban is a huge vacation/weekend destination for locals, and is consequently quite developed. We skipped the northern beaches and pushed on south for about 50 more km finally stopping for the night in Scottsburg. There aren’t any national parks here, so we had to settle on a very crowded/commercial caravan park, that had thankfully sort of emptied out as the school holiday is finally coming to a close. This caravan park acts as a bit of a retirement village in the winter. Half of the place was taken up by senior citizens that have set up quite impressive camps with no intent of leaving for the next 4 months or so. Our neighbor for the night was quite the friendly chap and gave up plenty of advice and his opinions about South Africa.

Upon reading our guidebook, we discovered that one of the top ten dive sites in the world (according to who, we are not sure) is right off the coast where we are camped. It is called Aliwal Shoal and is famous for its shark sightings, specifically the ‘Raggie’. So the next morning we decided very last minute to go ahead and do one dive. It was OK, but the current was really kicking and the group was a bit too big, so we spent more time fighting the current in order to stay with the group than being able to truly enjoy the dive. No sharks, but did see a turtle and an electric ray.

The next two days were mostly just driving days to get us to the start of the Wild Coast. The Wild Coast, also known as the Transkei, is 200 km stretch of coastline along the southern part of the Eastern Cape. It is deemed ‘Wild’ for its inaccessibility and rough coastline. While there are more dirt roads and the towns are quite a bit more remote, calling it Wild might be a stretch as it all becomes more and more developed and as roads get paved. Nevertheless, the villages are lovely, rural and peaceful. We thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring the area.

Here we are on one of our many short treks around the coast. This one in Mpande.


The first stop was in Port St Johns where we again stayed at a local campground. This time a much more peaceful and less crowded one. We took a walk up the bluff/hill/mountain overlooking the coast, and took a short walk through a very small nature reserve where we had beautiful coastal views and spotted two zebra. From there we moved on to a very small village called Mpande. There is one backpackers there called the Kraal, and is a very remote, eco-friendly, laid back kind of place. No electricity and stunning views of the bay. Right from the front deck of the main building we could look out at the bay and watch heaps of dolphins playing and surfing. Apparently there were whales out there too, but we never saw them. We spent three very relaxed days there where we bought crayfish from the local fishermen and cooked fabulous dinners, took many walks on and around the beach, canoed up the river/lagoon in a leaky boat, tried to surf for about 10 minutes (too cold and we didn’t have a clue what we were doing), and took a horse ride to a waterfall. We got hit with a cold front and a big rain storm while we were there, so it was a good time to just chill out for a while.

Not a bad campsite, eh? This is at the Kraal. We spent most of our time in the backpacker itself, and really only slept up here in the Rover:


Our next jump south was to Coffee Bay, named after a ship carrying coffee wrecked. The coffee trees grew for a while here, but have long since died out. We took the back roads here, which were all dirt, but still quite well maintained and only got a little lost. We stayed at a fantastic backpackers called the Coffee Shack. We still camped (i.e. slept in the Land Rover), but had use of really top notch kitchen facilities, and were able to take advantage of all of the free things on offer. One of which was a free surf lesson. It is amazing what the right equipment and instruction can do for your attitude about a sport. Not to say that we can surf now, but after 1 hour of instruction we were at least able to both stand up a handful of times (granted, it was a very big board and the waves were small).

Here is a look at what most of the villagers' homes look like. The people of the Wild Coast are Xhosa and their language (one of the 11 official languages of Africa!) includes that famous clicking sound. Pretty cool to listen to.


Our second day there we took a drive out to the famous “Hole in the Rock” and had another unfortunate incident with shoes. What is it with shoes in Africa? Upon arrival to Hole in the Rock, we had two kids approach us: one wanted to guide us to the sight and the other to watch our car. This is very typical of any tourist spot and usually works well. The kid watches the car and you pay him a couple of Rand when you get back. We said no thanks to the guide, told them they could both watch our car for us while we were gone, wanting to do something to help these guys out. Keith had tied a pair of shoes to the roof, as they were quite wet from the previous night's rain. He thought about putting them back in the car, but thought, nah...we’ve got these guys looking after the car. So we scramble up a bluff, and Keith glances back at the car and sees someone on top of it! So he runs back to the car, and lo and behold, finds his shoes gone. One of the boys is gone now, but his shoes are there, and the other kid denies seeing anything at all and suddenly can’t speak any English. We tried our best to scare them into confessing (threatening to call the police and getting as many people from the village involved), but they were steadfast in their denials. Keith found the other kid guiltily coming out of the bushes and thrashed around in there a bit trying to see where he hid Keith’s shoes, but we couldn’t come up with them. We finally left with a very bad taste in our mouths. It’s not even the shoes. Keith had bought a different pair a while ago, and this was just a cheap Bangkok pair that he didn’t even like. The problem is that these kids know it is no big deal for us to replace them, but they don’t realize the longer term impact it has on their village and our perception of it and how it shapes how we behave towards locals in the future. If you can’t trust the guy you are paying to watch your car, who can you trust?

The Hole in the Rock. Pretty self explanatory.


Scenery around Hole in the Rock:


From Coffee Bay we took a larger jump down the coast to the near end of the Wild Coast to another very well equipped and well run backpackers in Cintsa called Buccaneers. More of the same beach stuff and another horse ride, this time running along the beach, which was great fun.

Us with our horses in Cintsa:


We got to 'swim' with the horses as we crossed back over the lagoon back to the fields:



It is truly beautiful scenery along this coast, and you could easily get lost along here, but we decided it was time to shake things up a bit, so now we are heading inland again. We’ll spend a couple days back in the mountains where apparently they just had Christmas in July (snow!)…..maybe it’s time to splurge on a real room and take a break from sleeping in the Rover, i.e it’s cold up there!

Land Rover 101 - Completed

OK. We're back in the city after a wonderful seven days of car camping....or Land Rover camping actually. Why, cause it not a car. It's a LAND ROVER. Not something we are used to in the USA. It's a three-way cross between a Willy's Jeep, an International Scout, and an Abrams Tank. John, the LRs owner, has set it up very nicely with fridge, sleeping platform, and all sorts of camping gear and the LR's condition is immaculate.

The Rig:


Upon leaving Pretoria, we headed for the Golden Gate National Park (NP) for our first two nights of camping. Beautiful park and very nice campgrounds. We did a couple of short day hikes in the surrounding hills and sort of got used to a new independence that we haven't had for a while. We also discovered, even after advice from several folks, that it is quite cold at night, but the days are warm and perfect for hiking.

Camping at Golden Gate.


After stocking up in the small town of Bergville, we headed to a backpackers place bordering the Natal NP. We watched Italy beat France in the finals of the World Cup. It was a great game, tied 1 to 1 after overtime and Italy won it with penalty kicks. After a tough sell job by the owner of the backpackers to try and get us to stay there for more nights, we headed to the actual park for better camping. We hiked up the to the base of the Ampitheater, one of the highlights of the Drakensburg area.

Ampitheater.


Then we headed for the Cathredral Peak area of the Northern Drakensburg NP. Cathredral Peak can be summitted in a day, although it is listed as a very strenuous, long hike, with several non-technical scrambling sections. It is listed correctly. It took us the full nine hours to summit and return to camp, but it was well worth the effort. The views are dramatic and breath-taking. Em and I started early and ended up in front of a larger, guided group. When we passed the group on the way down from the summit scramble section, the guide was very surprised we made it. He thought we must be locals who knew the route. Of his group of 9, only 4 made it to the actual summit, and Em was the only female!

View of Cathredral Peak:




Summit Scramble


Summit!


The Drakensburg is a mountain range running north-south and we had one more stop to make before heading to the coast. We chose the Injinsuti area for its great day-hikes and San cave paintings. We also saw the Eland, the largest of the antelopes. We must have seen about a dozen in total.

Eland just above camp:



Em and I are enjoying this part of our trip very much. It's a combination of having our own Rig (THANKS JOHN!), and camping and hiking in great parks, with great facilities. We are cooking our own food, driving where we want, when we want. Next, we head to the Wild Coast!

Sunrise and Moonset above the Drakensberg:

Misc Observations

Here are some random thoughts and observations that I have been making notes of as we've been moving along through Africa. Thought I'd get them onto the computer before I lose my little pieces of paper....

• Every single country we have been to, we have seen young boys pushing tires around with sticks. Funny how universal some childhood games truly are.
• Buying food through bus windows is such a reliable and cheap way to have a meal. Every time the bus stops to load and unload people, you are sure to be presented with the opportunity to buy a snack. Standard fare includes: boiled eggs (our favorite), fried bread, oranges, ground nuts (peanuts), and soda pop (that is if you can drink the whole bottle before the bus leaves - they want their bottle back!). The most entertaining stop we had was when we pulled into a rather major bus terminal but were only one of about 6 people on the bus. Upon pulling into the station, I stand up to stretch and just about die laughing as I proceed to get poked in the head with a bagful of bread suspended on a long stick (we were in a tall bus). I couldn't see the man selling the bread, just a bagful of bread persistently knocking me on the shoulder and head. Hilarious.
• In Malawi especially, there are lots of roadblocks. The minibuses usually fall victim to them the most often. And when the cops see us crammed in there, they invariably want to see our passports - just because they can, I think. Apparently, the minibuses get fined for being overcrowded.....so is it really profitable for them to cram us all in like that??
• Women are fearless about breastfeeding here. Babies are hanging off moms' chests everywhere we look and breasts are whipped out without hesitation to appease a hungry child. It is such a contrast to North America where we require private rooms or complete coverage with blankets. It is really refreshing to see it done so openly here.
• It will never cease to amaze us how frantically people will board a boat/bus/train when it may not be leaving for 2 hours!
• Men often greet each other with what I will call a lingering handshake. After the initial grasp, they continue to hold each other's hand while talking. It is not uncommon to see men walking down the street holding hands. Cute.
• One day sitting waiting for a bus, I noticed a very poor boy clinging to two very used water bottles trying to clean them out. I had just finished my water and instead of tossing the bottle, I handed it to him. Never have I seen a face light up so much.
• People constantly try to charge us extra on public transportation for our large, yes, but neatly compact backpacks. However they don't blink an eye at the local woman who climbs on board with two huge bags of rice, baskets of oranges, and bags of cassava root that are ripping open and spilling all over the place!
• Women carry EVERYTHING on their heads. Except for their babies which are tied onto their backs with a simple piece of cloth.
• In Tanzania, a lot of goods are transported on huge wooden wheelbarrows pulled and pushed by men. A very hard day's work indeed.
• South Africa may be a more modern country, but the evidence of crime is everywhere. Every single house we see has a complete security system - gates, security response, barred windows, and absolutely no cars parked on the street at night.

We are still in Pretoria. We spent the last two days stocking up on supplies for the car and getting familiar with the Land Rover. What is the deal with this car anyway you might be wondering? Well we have these very cool friends back home, John G. and Jenn, who own this Land Rover here in South Africa and keep it parked at John R.'s house here in Pretoria. They have given us their blessing to use the 1989 Rover for our journey through this region. So we spent the last two days with John R. who is an amazingly generous and helpful person. He is the 'caretaker' of the car while it is here, so he gave us all the in's and out's of how to run it and stocked us up on any incidentals we might need in any imaginable situation. Not only that, but he treated us to an amazing BBQ which included warthog ribs! Yum! So we are fully stocked, including petrol (which will be a painful endeavor each time we have to fill up), and will spend the rest of the day organizing and planning our route for tomorrow. We should be able to give you more regular updates again as internet should be abundant and cheap through South Africa.

Cheers to all, and go Italy! :)

Mozambique...and into South Africa

We swore to ourselves that we would never put ourselves through the agony of an absurdly long bus ride - we just don't need to be in that kind of hurry to get anywhere. So how is it that we were on a bus for the better part of 28 hours to get to our primary Mozambique destination of Tofo? We aren't really sure, it just kind of happened.

Our crossing from Malawi to Mozambique went smoothly. It was minibuses the whole way, but they all left surprisingly promptly upon our arrival. Our only moment of discomfort was at the border when we had to decide whether or not to change our Malawi kwacha on the black market or not. More than once, we've ended up with large stacks of currency from the previous country that no one would exchange legitimately. Our guide book lists the dire consequences of getting caught trading money on the black market in Mozambique so I asked the immigration official if Tete (the city we were headed to) had facilities to change kwacha. Nope, they say. Any legal exchanges here at the border? 'Nope. You must use the black market.' OK. So we've got an official person telling us to do something our book says is highly illegal....that's got to be worth something at interrogation, right? Not wanting to be stuck with the money, we decided to risk it and went as a group (there were three of us at this point) and did a very conspicuous exchange (literally surrounded by about 20 guys with handfuls of Mozambique meticais). We managed fine, and called them on several calculator errors, managing to not get ripped off too badly.

So, enter Mozambique. They speak Portuguese here. Supposedly Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish, but not vice versa. So, right away I tried my very limited knowledge of Spanish in attempts to clarify our requests or conversations. The results have been mixed - sometimes I get instant comprehension, and sometimes I get blank stares. Everyone gets a kick out of my trying anyway. Luckily the numbers have been very similar, so that has made bargaining and shopping easier.

We stayed one night in Tete. Nothing much there except the mighty Zambezi River (flows from Victoria Falls). We quickly learned the new standards in accommodation here. You pay a lot more and get a LOT less for your money. Buses in Mozambique leave refreshingly on time (as long as you're not boarding a minibus), but they leave obnoxiously early. So at 4:00 AM the next day we were boarding our home for the next 28 hours. One hour into our ride, we were stopped, broken down at the edge of a very small village. 'Welcome to Mozambique', our travel companion, Carin tells us. It took the guy running the bus 10 minutes to fix the oil leak and two hours to flag down/track down enough replacement oil to safely start the engine again. In the meantime a tire went flat.

Waiting patiently...you can see our bus driver in the background pleading with the driver of that truck for some oil:


The rest of the ride is a bit of a blur. The seats were very uncomfortable, but as people got on and off we were able to rearrange to the best possible options. We ate entirely from food sold through the bus windows, save for one longer stop where we sat down to some local grub. The three guys running the bus (1 driving, 2 taking money and soliciting business) turned out to be real quality people. At our stop in one of the larger cities, we had all gotten off the bus to stretch and search for snacks. Apparently as Carin was re-boarding she was pick-pocketed. The bus guys saw this happen and proceeded to knock the culprit down, hold him down and hit him until he relinquished the money. Where the aggression was a bit disturbing, it was nice to see these guys looking out for us. We've heard plenty of mugging stories where people just stand by and watch...maybe shaking their heads in dismay, but not doing much else.

We got to our originally planned stop at about 10:00 PM. It was still a chapa ride to the town of Vilancula itself, and by this point, Carin had convinced us to push onto Tofo, where she had worked for six months as a dive instructor and where she was headed. She said we weren't missing much in Vilancula and we were keen on the idea of more time in one place. However, at this point, the driver was ready to sleep for a while. Our seats were quickly taken over by the locals stretching out and making beds, so we were fortunate that Carin had a tent and let us crash inside with her for a couple hours of attempted shut-eye. Up again at 3:30 AM and off. The roads in Mozambique are considerably worse, so it wasn't necessarily a smooth, flat or clean ride. However, I still think the ride in Cambodia takes the cake in terms of discomfort!

We disembarked our bus in Maxixe, then boarded a small local ferry and crossed over the bay to Inhambane. From there it was one more minibus ride up the peninsula to Tofo and our final destination of the Bamboozi lodge/backpackers. Whew!

Tofo is a very small town that sits right on the Indian Ocean. The main industry there now is tourism, but not obnoxiously so. Most of the accommodation is pretty basic and modest. We chose to stay at Bamboozi, which is about 2 km up the beach from the Tofo city center. A nice, mellow place with a very quiet stretch of beach. Accommodation is either camping or very simple huts (grass huts with pavement floors and two mattresses and a mosquito net). The first day there was just settling in and napping.

The next day, the weather was beautiful, so we went right out and did a couple of dives. One of the reasons we wanted to stay here longer was to take advantage of the superb diving that is on offer. Both were beautiful dives. Huge fish, nice coral and the biggest moray eel I've ever seen. Carin, being a dive instructor signed me off on a deep dive so that I could go out and do the most popular dive called Manta Reef. The second day there was another beautiful, sunny day and we decided to take a 'day off' from diving and just chilled out, taking long walks on the beach with plans to dive Manta Reef the next day.

Carin and I after the first dive:


Keith and crew unloading. Very nice boats and equipment...


Then the weather changed. Some freak weather pattern came in and we got hit with winds, rain, clouds, and cold for the next 4 days. It felt like we were on the Oregon Coast! The weather was too harsh for the boats to launch, and the conditions too rough for diving anyway. So we waited. And waited. Our time was spent watching lots of World Cup football in the evenings:


We would get out onto the beach or into town when the weather broke up a little bit. Otherwise it was lots of reading, cards and eating. We also took advantage of the bigger, crashing waves and rented some boogie boards.
Am I running from the wave or getting ready to ride it?


The air and wind was quite cold, but it made the water feel all the warmer. We both got quite a kick out of catching some good rides.


On a walk into the town of Tofo. This is on the road between Bamboozi and Tofo.


Just when we were starting to really go stir crazy and really wondering if the wait for Manta Reef was worth it, the weather sort of broke, and the dive was on. It was a gnarly launch....even on a calm day, getting that boat out over the breakers is a challenge. But we got out and had a very nice dive. It's about a half hour ride to the site. The visibility wasn't great, but we did see one beautiful, huge manta ray right at the end of the dive. Not to mention more moray eels and some of the biggest grouper fish I have ever seen. While we were down there, we all heard some indistinct sound that sounded like muffled voices. When we got to the top we were told that some whales came and swam right over our heads! How cool. And on the way back we saw several whales breeching not too far from our boat. Very nice. Not long after getting back to shore the weather turned to crap again. We were quite lucky to have had the opportunity to get out at all.

So that afternoon, we set out for Inhambane, stayed the night there and caught the 5:30 AM express bus to Maputo the next morning. 1 km out of town, the bus broke down. It died and would not restart. So for the same price, they put us on the next bus that came by which we were quite sure was not an express, despite their insistence that it was. Nevertheless, it was a fine ride and we got to Maputo by late afternoon.

We spent just one day in Maputo. It is the capital of the country and a pretty big city, sitting right on a bay. Very close proximity to South Africa, so a bit more modern. Not the prettiest of cities, and by this point we are pretty anxious to get to South Africa and pick up the Land Rover and be completely independent. We booked tickets on a luxury coach and yesterday rode in style from Maputo to Pretoria, South Africa (just north of Johannesburg). Riding on the roads of South Africa is quite different than Mozambique. It feels just like being at home (big freeways with passing lanes, shopping malls, rest stops) the only difference being that we are on the other side of the road. We settled into a very cozy backpackers last night with a gaggle of girls and their parents in town for the majorette drum competition. Now it is just some logistics then if all goes well, we're off on our own to discover South Africa!

Hiking at Last!

Em and I spent the majority of our last week on the Mulanje Mastiff in southern Malawi. The area is a magnificent granite mastiff with pine and cedar forests, rocky peaks, and clear rivers. Kinda sounds like home, some might say. The area has a system of huts, with fireplaces, water and even hut caretakers that provide security, light the fire and pack your water. We still had one little problem of what to sleep in, and what to cook with. After our time in New Zealand, we had mailed all of our camping gear home. We looked around Blantyre for sleeping bags to rent or blankets to buy. No luck. We had met an expat who had told us about the Mulanje Mountain Club, so we called them. For a small fee we could become members of the hiking club and gain access to their fully stocked equipment rooms at each hut. Problem solved.

A look at a portion of the mastiff from the bottom. This photo was taken at the end of the hike after a knee-breaking descent.

We headed to Mulanje town in the afternoon and after settling into our rooms we watched all three World Cup games in the lounge. Em and I have become quite big fans of World Cup football. Football is huge with the locals in Africa and just as popular with the European travelers we spend time with. A group of four locals joined us for the second and third games, Saudi Arabia vs Tunisia and Germany vs Poland . We had a good time talking about football (soccer) and politics over a few beers.

After heading to the club office the next morning and getting the key for the storage rooms, we headed to the Forestry office by truck. This is where Em would tell you just how packed the truck was. She would tell you we waited for about an hour for the truck to fill and how she swore the bald tire she spotted would burst as soon as we did finally leave. She would then elaborate on how uncomfortable even the locals were and us included. But I won’t go into those details.

We hired the services of a guide for our four-night trip. Not something Em and I really needed, but at $10 per day it made the trip a little easier as we had heard the trails are not very well marked; especially some of the summit trails. Lewis, Em and I headed off about noon for our 1000m-elevation gain hike. Louis wanted to take the steep, faster route since we started a bit late and Em and I agreed. Holy S”^\! We are out of shape.

It is bad enough that we were gasping the whole way up the mountain with our puny little backpacks. To put us to shame, on the way up, we passed at least 10 of these guys who carry insane loads of lumber balanced on their head down the mountain in bare feet!

We arrived at the hut at about 3:00pm and the caretaker quickly started a fire. The hut was basic, but nice, with a great view of Chambe Peak, which I believe is the largest granite wall in Southern Africa at over 5500’ of cliff face. (Yes, Paul, there are climbing routes up the face, and a even a local book on routes throughout the area.) We unlocked the club storage room and found cook pots, wool blankets, and nice mattresses. Later in the evening we were joined by a French couple and a Brit living in Tigard, Oregon.

A cozy evening in the hut by the fire:

The next morning we went for a quick hike about 500m up Chambe Peak to a nice viewpoint, went back to the hut for lunch, then headed off to the next hut at the base of Sapitwa Moutain. This hut was as well stocked, but the rats chased us outside when we went to bed. We moved our bedding to the veranda and slept with a view of the African night sky while the rats ate all our hand soap inside.

The next day was the day of the big climb up Sapitwa, the highest at 3000m. We left at 7:00 am and reached the summit at about 11:00 a.m. The climb was a great scramble over, under and around large granite boulders and the 360-degree view at the top was gorgeous.

Em and Lewis at the top of Malawi (Sapitwa is the highest point in Malawi):


After a well-deserved lunch at the hut, we headed off again for our next stop, Thuchila Hut. We had the hut to ourselves for the second night (the guide sleeps in the caretaker's hut) and tried for the veranda again. This time little black ants chased us back inside the hut.

A look at the Thuchila hut as the sun was setting. The peak we climbed that last day is behind the one seen here.

The next morning Em and I decided to change our route and instead of heading to the fourth hut, we stayed another night at Thuchila and made a nice day-hike summit of another peak. Later in the day four more hikers came in. We spent some time reading and playing Bao.

Em learning the finer points of Bao, and winning against Lewis. It took us three times of beating Lewis before realizing that he was letting us win, so that we would "go home with good feelings about the game". Cute, I guess, but we are too competitive to be handed a game like that!

The next morning we descended to a small village where we waited to catch a bus or truck back to Mulanje and then on to Blantyre. About 50 kids, who just wanted to stare at us, quickly surrounded Em and me. One of them had a homemade football (soccerball) made of plastic shopping bags with string around it. I made two goals on a small patch of dirt and Em and I started passing the ball between us. Eventually we got 4 more kids to join us and we played 3-on-3 football for about half and hour. Football truly is a unifying sport.

For more on the mountain see: http://www.rjc1.demon.co.uk/credits/mulanje.htm

Some more images from the hike.

A look down at the valley we trudged up from:

The two of us atop Sapitwa:


For the geologist father....a nice granite boulder field along the Sapitwa ascent:


A typical valley crossing up on the mastiff:


We are now back in Blantyre at Doogles where we have coincidentally reunited with several travelers we have met along the way...one as far back as in Zanzibar. We enjoyed several beers in the bar tonight over an unexciting football game between Ecuador and Germany. We'll head out to Mozambique tomorrow via minibus.

A special thanks to our faithful moms and their diligence with the comments...we do read and enjoy them!

A quick note on food here....basically, we should have had our cholesteral checked at the end of the SE Asia leg of the journey and again at the end of our time hear in Africa. We went from stir fried veggies everyday and every meal, to nothing to choose from here except chicken, beef or eggs mixed with a whopping helping of grease-laden chips (fries). It's cheap enough, but not too healthy. Veggies and fruit are quite hard to come by...we can't wait to get to the Rover in South Africa and the bigger grocery stores so we can finally cook for ourselves! We never knew we'd miss our kitchen so much!

Lazy Days on Lake Malawi

Been a while, eh? Considering internet is not nearly as abundant here in Malawi and so incredibly expensive (up to $30 an hour!!!), we have been away from the keyboard.

Malawi so far has been great. Really, truly some of the friendliest people we have met. Such a difference from Tanzania. Our crossing over into Malawi was smooth as ever, and we were pleasantly surprised at the friendliness of the immigration officers. Usually, I think it is in the job description of these folks to be as surly as possible and not crack a smile, but these guys were all smiles and hello, how are you's.

Malawi is a very small country surrounded by Tanzania to the north, Mozambique to the East and Zimbabwe and Zambia to the west. A large part of the country consists of Lake Malawi - a huge freshwater lake famous for its many species of fish. Lake Malawi sits on the east side of the country, while the west side is lined with several different mountain ranges and plateaus.

Our first stop was along the lake about 100 km south of the Tanzania border near a town called Chitimba. We stayed about 5km north of town at a rustic little beachside place called Mdokera's Campsite. It is a small, family run place with open air huts that sit right on the beach.

Here is the hut at Mdokera's:


We landed there on the right day, because Mr Mdokera was having some sort of celebration. Family and friends were all gathering there for a day of fun. Mr. Mdokera welcomed us with open arms and encouraged us to join in the celebrations. It was a fun night. Lots of traditional food, traditional song and dance (of which we were of course forced to participate in), and so many friendly gazes, laughs and conversations no one could understand. One of the nice things about Malawi, is that they haven't yet discovered that they can charge muzungus to take their picture. Quite the contrary here. They can't get enough of the camera, and once it is taken out, you are surrounded by children (and adults) that want their photo taken. Walking through villages, you aren't asked for money, instead you hear, "picture, picture!" with no expectation of money. After spending 7 months in SE Asia wanting more people-pictures, but never wanting to be intrusive with the camera, here we found ourselves hiding the camera because we had grown weary of taking photos and being the center of attention while the celebration was going on.

Upon arrival at Mdokera's we were instantly welcomed in and given some of the local grub - fresh fish from the lake and ugali (tastes like Farina cereal):


Dancing and singing. Can you find us in the crowd?


More dancing. These women can move! And sing...their voices were amazing.


Just west of Chitimba sits a small, colonial town called Livingstonia, named after one of the original white settlers/explorers/missionaries to this area, David Livingstone. Livingstonia sits way on top of a plateau overlooking Lake Malawi. The road to the town is little traveled, and apparently quite treacherous. So unless you have a 4WD or are having a medical emergency (the main hospital is up in Livingstonia, while the bulk of the population is down at lakeside...yeah, that makes sense) the best way to get there is to walk. With one of Mr. Mdokera's nephews as our guide we set out the next day at 7:00 AM to walk up there. It was a great hike, although a bit harder than we expected. It was an all day affair - about 4 hours up, two hours in town, and 3 back to camp. The walk took us through many villages, up steep hills with nice views of the lake, behind a roaring waterfall, and finally into the town. Livingstonia itself, was not much to see - lots of old, brick and stone buildings very spread out in a pine forest - but the walk was worth it. Our new shoes did us fine - they are not great (actually quite crap compared to what we had), but they serve the purpose and neither of us has blisters. I can hardly complain as our guide walked the whole thing in flip flops with holes in them (at a much faster pace I must add).

Here is a view of Lake Malawi (yes it is a lake and not an ocean) on our way up to Livingstonia:


The church in Livingstonia - built in the late 1800's. We were lucky enough to hear a small bit of singing in it.


The next day was another scenic bus ride into Mzuzu, the largest city in Northern Malawi. We have been doing our best to avoid the infamous minibuses of Africa (old worn down minibuses with bald tires, a crazy driver, and which are notoriously overcrowded) as they are the biggest danger to our safety as we travel. So far, we have only taken one from the border of Tanzania to a small town called Karonga. After that we've been able to catch "half-buses" or "cruisers" which are 30 seaters with more sane drivers or even full size (although so, so old) buses. And while the seating has been cramped at times, we have been overall pleasantly surprised with the quality of roads and the efficiency of the buses. The climate so far has been nice. Lake Malawi sits at about 475 meters and it is winter here, so the days are warm and dry like a Pacific NW summer and the evenings are refreshingly cool.

Mzuzu sits even higher up, so it was down right cold at night which we had absolutely no problem with. Nothing much to say about Mzuzu, we were just using it as a stop over town on our way back to the lakeside. At the place we stayed, however (which was a backpacker mecca), we met a guy who runs a resort out on an island way on the east side of the lake. He was heading to Nhkata Bay to catch the once a week ferry back to his island and had offered to give us a ride. Between him and his friend that was living on the island for a while, they convinced us to come out with them. We had read a little bit about these islands, but the transport on the ferry (Ilala) was too restrictive for our taste and we were unsure about being 'stuck' in one place for almost a week. After listening to them talk about the peace and beauty of the place and reading about how there is absolutely no crime on the island (we have been hearing a few too many mugging stories and warnings), we decided last minute to jump on the ferry and go, and just bypass the rest of the beach stops we had originally planned from the mainland side. Turned out to be the right decision as it was a fabulous 6 days, and Nhkata Bay (where we had originally planned to do most of our beaching) proved to be quite a dismal place in comparison.

So off we sailed at 9:00 PM to Chizimulu Island. Its neighbor, Likoma Island, is the more popular tourist spot, so we were only one of 4 tourists on the island. It is a small island, with maybe 1,000 inhabitants spread out over its coastline. It was a very lazy 6 days. Lots of reading and cards, and a new game called Bao which is very similar to Mancala (moving rocks around). We also did a fair share of swimming...not just splashing about, but actually swimming from one side of the bay to the other. The owner, Nick and his friend Aggie had gotten in the habit of swimming the bay 5 times a day, and while we never got to the full five laps (the equivalent of 2,000 meters!), we did manage to join them for some morning and evening exercise each day. We also did a dive among a bunch of boulders where we saw tons of small, colorful fish and went through lots of swim-thrus. We also managed a bit of walking - around the island one day and a couple tramps up the hill to watch the sunset. Other than that it was lots of lazing around reading, eating, and gazing out over the water. The people on the island were so nice, and the biggest nuisance we encountered were the never-ending calls of, "Hallo! Hallo!" and "What is my name?!". Pretty cute.

Another sunrise picture. This one from behind the very common baobab tree:


A look at the bay. Amongst those trees somewhere is our sand-floored hut that we called home (unfortunately this is the closest picture we have of it...):


Some of the water sports besides swimming and diving included playing around in this dugout canoe and on some very tippy surf boards.


Saturday night we caught the ferry again at 10:00 PM and by 3:00 AM we were back in Nhkarta Bay. A lousy time to show up in a not so great city. We found various safe places to hang around waiting for a bus and by 9:00 AM were on our way to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. While walking around Nhkarta Bay looking for somewhere to have a cup of tea and sit down (as we were tired of sitting on steet corners getting stared at and approached by every tout in town), we walk into a restaurant. After unloading our packs and getting settled, and having a table set in front of us, the following conversation took place:

Em: Do you have tea?
Gentleman: No
Em: What do you have?
Gentleman: No
Em: Do you have food?
Gentleman: No
Em: What do you have?
Gentleman: Nothing

Well, why in the heck did you seat us at a restaurant then???

The day to Lilongwe was long. 10 hours on a bus. Our stop in Lilongwe was short - just a reload on cash, and a good night's sleep (well deserved after the two hours of sleeping on a wooden floor on the ferry). Although it is the capital, there is not too much going on, and a very lengthy list of where not to walk around town. We were happy to push on. So the next day we continued south to Blantyre which is the commercial capital of the country. Much more happening and apparently safer. We spent today turning our passports over to the Mozambique Consulate, and stocking up for a multi-day hike we are planning. Tomorrow we push south a tiny bit more for some hiking in the spectacular Mulanje Plateau.

Before signing out...on a completely different note: Remember our inner tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos and the crazy rope swing? We finally got the pictures, so here they are:

Me trying to get the courage up to launch myself off that insane platform:


Keith in mid-flight. The pictures really don't do it justice:


Oh yeah, one more thing....

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! (The Bauer Mom)