Kiss the blessed ground for our fortuitous reunion
Erin's ADD is very strong today, so she apparently wasn't quite up to the task of getting us all the way through the trip. Close enough. She left us at the bottom of Mulanje, where we were quite tired, sweaty and cramped from hiking, bartering, traveling and repacking the cedar chests multiple times. We made it to Zomba again, however this time we were placed not in the lap of luxury afforded by the Embassy Cottage, but rather an experience of a dilapidated colonial building that housed the Malawian gov't officials when the capital was in Zomba. But we were no worse for the wear and excited to head out to Mumbo Island in Lake Malawi.
The time and energy to get there was large, but worth it. (This seems to be a common characteristic of african destinations.) The road from Monkey Bay to Cape Maclear, where our boat was departing from, was one of the worst washboards I've ever been on.
It's the type of road that will shake your fillings loose. 18km can be a remarkably long time, but it eventually ended as we parked our car to board a boat for Mumbo Island. The ride into the island is incredible. There are 5 permanent tents setup on a separate, smaller island connected by a small footbridge. Each of these are splayed across the island, pointing five different directions to enhance the feeling of isolation. Lunch and dinner were served buffet style, but with only 14 guests at the resort, it certainly was no Ponderosa Steakhouse. Not that there's anything wrong with Ponderosa. It's just ... different.
We ended up spending the first night in the guide's tent because there wasn't enough room for us in the ridiculously cool permatents, but the second night we were bumped up to full adult status to enjoy the breeze, the views, the hammock, the everything that makes this place so amazing. We hiked around the island for a bit and also did a bit of kayaking.
We managed to make it all the way around the island. It took about an hour or so at a nice relaxing pace. Both nights we went on the sunset cruise, which was a small boat with an outboard motor that provided sundowners. A sundowner is an african code word for a drink you take at sunset while watching the debut of night. Gin and Tonic or Carlsburg beer have been my preferred choice of late.
Mom and Dad took off on Sunday morning to return to Lilongwe because someone in this family has to work. This left Erin and I with one morning and afternoon on the island alone, which we promptly took advantage of by hiking to the otherside of the island and swimming a la natural. Then we had lunch and returned to Cape Maclear, where we would spend a couple of nights before starting the trek back to Lilongwe ourselves.
Cape Maclear was a nice beachtown that could soak up time too quickly. A week could have passed before we realized it. But we only had a few nights, so we decided the best option would be to take advantage of it. Somehow, this turned into the idea of SCUBA diving. Erin was not too keen on the idea, but my wily arguments somehow convinced her that being 30 feet underwater with a self contained breathing apparatus was something on her list of unfulfilled accomplishments. So we did it. We had a great guide who helped us out immensely. I was taking a refresher course so that I could remember all the things I'd forgotten in the last 7 years since I'd last dove. Erin was taking a Discover course. This basically meant that she got a 10 minute overview on shore of what scuba was, and then a 10 minute practice run in 4 feet of water, and then told, "Alright! Let's dive!" It didn't quite work out that easily, I'm afraid, but it was certainly an experience to remember. For us both, I'm sure. She wouldn't let me take a picture of her in her full scuba gear, which I was quite sore about.
After the scuba-disaster-adventure, we went to have a couple beers and some lunch, then on our way back to the hostel we met Simon and Trust, two enterprising guys who convinced us
we had to taste their pancakes the following morning on the beach instead of eating at the hostel. We were okay with that part, but then they asked for 200 kwacha ($1.35) so they could buy the necessary ingredients. At this point, I thought we might have been had, but it was not true. I should learn to trust more. They showed up dutifully and cooked us some pancakes on a three stone fire on the beach, right outside of our hostel. It was great.
At this point, we had decided to head back to Lilongwe. Quite an adventure. You might think 250km would be fairly quick to cover. But not here. About 9 or 10 hours of traveling over 2 days. We left Cape Maclear around 10am, walked the edge of town, waited about 45 minutes to hitch a ride to Monkey Bay. From Monkey Bay we jumped on the back of a matola (a pickup truck) for 5-6km to Tuka Tuka Turnoff, which is where we needed to catch a ride to Golomoti. This was another matola ride of about 60km. Erin was in the cab while I was in the back with 4 50kg bags of feed, 3 other guys, 4 goats and 2 pigs. Goats scream quite loudly, in case anyone was wondering. It's a painful sound that enters your ear and takes over other sensory mechanisms to the point that it's the only thing you can sense. That and the sound of a pig trying to bite it's way through a metal gate. Also a wonderful sound. But feed bags are remarkably comfortable to sit on. The matola needed to be jump started every time it stopped, which was two times too many. But we did make it to Golomoti. From there we caught a bus to Salima, where we arrived around 4:30pm and decided that enough was enough for one day. 150km in 6 hours. That averages about 25km/hr or 15mph. We spent the night at Mwambiya Lodge for 3000 kwacha ($20), drank a few beers, at some dinner and that was the night. We knew we needed some rest for the next day, but didn't exactly know what to expect.
In all fairness, it would be difficult to predict this scenario, and really even difficult to imagine unless you went through it, but here's what happened. We left the hotel, bought a bottle of water, and went to the bus station. None of the buses were close to full, and we weren't about to wait an hour or two for it to fill up. (African buses don't leave at a particular time, but rather when the bus is full. Not just full in the sense that every seat is taken, but full in the sense that there is no physical way to put more people in the bus.) So we started walking down the road toward Lilongwe, hoping to hitch our way there. The manager from the hotel stopped and gave us a ride to the next bus stop, where we could have picked up a bus for 650mkw. We thought the correct price was 500mkw. I'm still not sure what the correct price is. But anyway, we leave the bus stop to try our luck at hitching some more. We walked for a bit, waited for a bit, no luck, walked for a bit. Then a minibus came over the crest of a hill, we decided we might as well try our luck with this one. And it stopped! Hooray! And even better, it wasn't even full. Almost empty, actually. Why is it empty? I don't know, they say they're going to Lilongwe, let's just hop on. Okay, why not.
We get to a police stop, which is quite common, and then they say to us, "five minutes, then we go." Okay, no problem, five minutes is no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Five minutes pass, ten minutes pass, then they say that they're ready to go. Only this time, there's a bus behind us. We somehow had managed to get on a bus towing another broken bus to Lilongwe. There was a 30 pound towing bar that was held on with sisal rope.
I know nature is strong and all, but the scale of things seemed a little out of balance. And yes, lo and behold, the tow bar came off on a hill. We stop, reattach it then continue on. Then one of the drivers wanted to buy some tomatoes. We stopped, the tow came off, they put it back on, we continue. We're going down a hill, the tow bar comes off, so this time the broken bus with no functioning engine decided he might as well ride the hill down. He passes us. We wave and smile as the broken bus passes us. We find him waiting on the next hill. We reattach to towing bar. At this point, we can actually see the grain elevators of Lilongwe and make a bet about how many more times the tow bar will come off before our drop off point. I say one, Erin says two. It breaks right by the tobacco auction. They reattach it. Then right as we come to our stop, pulling into the gas station, the towbar comes off again, meaning Erin won the bet. We hop off the bus, kiss the blessed ground for our fortuitous reunion and walk back to mom and dad's.