EX-PAT-CELLENT HOSPITALITY
I would have thought that the ex-pats that inhabit the far-flung corners of Africa, and contribute a significant amount to the countries they now call home, would steer well-clear of us indigent travellers doing the "Africa thang". I certainly - cynic that I am - wouldn't be seen anywhere near such wide-eyed, eager innocents (something I never thought I'd admit to being) gushing their enthusiasm for "strange" climes, especially if I lived there.
But our time at Doogles in Blantyre was made - despite the rain - really enjoyable due to the hospitality of the local residents, many of them ex-pats. We arrived in Blantyre late in the afternoon after two days of driving over fairly long distances (In African, diesel truck, overland-loaded terms).
The next day we declared a rest day and, while I hacked away at the computer, Lisa went to sit at the bar and have a quite beer. Or so she thought. When I took a break and went to see her, she was surrounded by locals who insisted that I have a beer.
That was the beginning of the end, with drink after drink being bought for us - it was Boxing Day and so a day for celebration - and every time we tried to buy a round, we were shouted down and Monique, the woman behind the bar, was instructed not to take any money from us.
Later that evening, I found myself instructing an American, Trent, and a Belgian, Michel, on the merits of South Africa's game parks and their inexpensiveness compared to the rest of Africa's parks. This while struggling to stand upright and focus - thanks to generous volume of ex-pat hospitality.
The next morning, feeling rather subdued but strangely un-hungover (no headache, no fear of food!) Trent said that he had stuggled to maintain a straight face but had done so simply because, although unable to stand straight, I was still able to hold a lucid and sensible discussion. He and Michel were, like so many people we've met, really enjoyable and intelligent company - one of the many unexpected bonuses of travelling.
To Kevin the accountant (surnames never seem to be exchanged), who had decided at the age of 27 that an accounting job in London was not the ideal way to spend the rest of his life, and the other Blantyre residents who made our stay so worthwhile and informative, our thanks.
Their friendship transformed a soggy time of waiting into another reminder of why we like Africa.
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THE SOGGY SEASON
Senga Bay, 31 December 2001
We've clearly hit the wet season in Malawi and everything has turned soggy. In the week since reaching Blantyre, we haven't had a single day of dry weather and it is awfully difficult to do anything when it involves getting wet - even getting out of bed to go a pee is a matter of brinkmanship: you stay in bed until remaining there any longer will involve the bed being wetter, from inside, than if you get out and brave the rain.
It's one of the more difficult aspects of living in the truck and sleeping in the rooftop tent. And staying in backpackers and campsites doesn't make things any easier. It's not as though you can charge down the ladder in the middle of the night, stark naked, pee in the nearest bush and then storm back to the tent - there is always a nightwatchman standing around watching your antics.
Out plans to leave Doogles in Blantyre on Boxing Day and head for Mulanje were thwarted quite comprehensively by the weather and we ended up staying there for five nights in the hope that there would be at least a drying up, if not a clearing, in the weather.
No such luck - the rain just kept on coming down and we were forced to huddle around the bar nursing yet another beer (see the side panel!). We spent our time chatting to locals and travellers alike, collecting information and tips.
After five days of this we decided it was time to either head north and try to find a dry patch or go down to Mulanje and hope that the weather there was (a little) better. The Mulanje Massif is only about 70 km south-east of Blantyre and, on a good day, is visible from about 15 km outside Blantyre. Naturally, we didn't see a sign of it through the lowering clouds until we were about 15 km from the massif and felt we were about to drive into the damned lump of rock.
Skid marks
Our moods weren't exactly the most cheerful that morning as we trundled towards the mountain - after so much rain and so little chance to wash clothes, dry tents and clean the truck, Lisa and I were both feeling a little miffy (take that word whichever way you want!) and suffering, I suspect, from cabin fever.
Getting lost and taking a 20-odd kilometer detour halfway around the mountain didn't improve our moods, especially when, halfway along what passed for the road we were on, a bent old crone decided she was going to make her excruciatingly slow way across the road. This notwithstanding the fact that her decision to cross was made when we were only 100 m from her! Skidding to a halt on those roads is not the easiest or most pleasant task and, when we came to a stop about a meter short of the old biddy and she lifted her head to cast a rheumy glare over us, I was tempted to climb out and hasten her demise with the walking stick, almost as bent as she was, she was leaning on.
After retracing our tracks to the tar road, we began searching for the correct turnoff. This isn't an easy task as only the major roads are signposted and the signposts are generally small and often obscured by other handpainted signs, often for local churches and schools. While locals may know exactly where they are and not need the signs, for travellers it is like doing a jigsaw puzzle of a really good photograph of a brick wall.
Money squawks
When we got to the village at the turnoff to the Likubula Forestry Station we were besieged by a horde of "freelance" mountain guides all insisting that we must remember their names, they were good guides and we should ask for them when we booked our route at the forestry station.
Not content with this, they ran after the truck like a pack of dogs after a cat, all the way to the station (keeping up wasn't difficult considering the condition of the roads) where they again swarmed around the truck and our windows as though they were a swarm of flies and we were nice warm, freshly laid piles of dung.
I found it less than inspiring to have someone trying to thrust their head through the window (really, really "in your face" seems to be the best marketing ploy these guys can come up with) and shout at you: "I'm Lawless! Remember my name! I'm top guide!"
Lisa was far more polite in dealing with these nuisances - I merely growled something suitably restrained at them and they, wisely, decided to leave me alone.
We made the fatal mistake of deciding to stay at the Forest Lodge's campsite overnight and make a decision about hiking up the mountain in the morning. Because we hadn't made a definite decision, the more persistent pains - I mean guides - wouldn't leave us alone and hung around the truck for the rest of the day, going home when it got dark and then returning before we had woken up the following morning - in fact, we would have slept a lot longer if they hadn't been talking, as loudly as they generally do, 10 meters from the truck.
I know that they have to earn a living - somehow - and that their chances of finding work as well-paying as guiding are few and far between, but they also need to see the wisdom in restraint. We were also told the full-time guides were a different lot and that for many of these guides, taking a group up the mountain is the equivalent of a month's wages - and a chance they may only get once a month.
Mzungu watching
But they found us on completely the wrong day! We also made the mistake of assuming that staying at the Forest Lodge would give us some measure of isolation - for twice the price of the forestry carpark, we certainly hoped for it - but our hopes were dashed when we emerged from the office after paying the man to find the swarm was back around the truck.
After breakfast, and another thundershower, we decided not to go up the mountain for three days: what is the point if you can't even see the mountain and it is going to be soggy for the whole trip. It would have been a different matter if we knew the mountain and were going up for the serenity but we had hoped to see some of the mountain and its views. That didn't exactly seem likely.
A group of Japanese who were working in Malawi were going up to see the New Year's first sunrise in from the summit of Mt Mulanje - at 3 000 and a bit meters the highest peak in Central Africa, we were told - but we suspect they may still be waiting for that elusive first glimpse.
A fresh cuppa
We turned tail for Blantyre, there to drop off a guidebook we'd borrowed from the backpackers, driving through the tea plantations which are steeped on highlands approaching the massif.
For those of you who haven't seen tea on the bush - we hadn't and were quite fascinated - it grows on a bush about knee-high and is best grown in the highlands (we later found the highlands near Mbeya in Tanzania are also tea-ming with the bushes) above 1 000 m in heavy rainfall areas.
I had always thought tea bushes were significantly bigger and lusher, with larger leaves waving from more supple stems growing from the main trunk. They appear, instead, the way I imagine my first attempt at a bonsai would.
The pickers were out when we passed, dressed in whatever clothes they could afford but wearing bright yellow, plastic raincoats and bearing roughly woven baskets on their backs as they trawled between the bushes picking the top five leaves from the stems. They are paid by the weight of tea they pick each day.
In Malawi, only the lower grades of tea are kept for domestic consumption, the better quality stuff leafing (sic) the country to, no doubt, make up the bulk of those brands which advertise "the best leaves picked from around the world".
After stopping in at Doogles backpackers and being forced to drink another several beers, we headed to Monkey Bay, hoping to find a dry patch to spend New Year.
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