I was told to go take a hike...: September 2017

After we left Mushroom Farm, we did two transit days to get ourselves to Blantyre. The first day was spent hiking down the Great Rift Escarpment to the tarmac road where we caught a surprisingly comfortable minibus to Mzuzu. In Mzuzu, we picked up food from the store, renewed my sister’s visa, and got our bus tickets to Blantyre the next day. We stayed at a hostel run by a South Korean woman and her American husband and ate amazing Korean food while there.

The next day we took 12 hour bus ride from Mzuzu to Blantyre. We left at 7am sharp (there were a few people we saw trying to get the bus to stop. Because they were late, the bus did not stop for them. Amazing for public transport in Malawi!), got two drinks, some snacks, and had an hour break in Lilongwe. The bus ride went well except for the driver barreling down the middle of the road. This would not have been bad had I not sat in the front of the bus. The other issue was the deafening music videos played over the buses TV for about 9 hours. I watched current hip hop and R&B and really poorly produced Malawian music videos. It became a problem when the videos went on repeat after about an hour.

Once in Blantyre, we taxied to our hostel because it had just got dark, had dinner, and went to bed. It is exhausting to travel for such a long time even though I did absolutely nothing all day. The next day was Malawian Independence Day (July 6) but we didn’t see any festivities, parades, or fireworks. The plan was to transit to the Mt. Mulanje area the next day so we could run a porter’s race and do a three day trek up the mountain. To do this, we needed to shop for food, wash our clothes, and prepare ourselves for the next week of travel. We did this, walked around the city, and I even applied for a nursing job back in the States. It was a nice quiet day and interesting to see another Malawian city.

Blantyre is the commercial capital of Malawi and the largest city. It is very hilly and crowded. I didn’t like it as much as Mzuzu or Lilongwe (the other two major Malawian cities) but this is because there isn’t much to do there. My hope was to participate in some Independence Day celebrations or do some interesting tourist sites but I wouldn’t find any. I was able to visit the oldest building in Malawi (it is a tourist shop/restaurant now) and a historic church but other that this, found not very much to do. While I was disappointed about the lack of activities, Blantyre was meant as a rest day and it served its purpose because the next week was spent running, hiking, and being active.

Tribal masks we saw at the oldest building in Malawi

Historic church in Blantyre

My sister Karyn petting a girraffe

Me with a zebra

The other big activity we did near Livingstonia was to hike from Mushroom Farm to Chelinda Camp in Nyika NP and back over five days. We hired a local guide, Paul, who is a park ranger in Nyika, and these five days were some of the best I had in Malawi.

On the day we got to Mushroom Farm, Paul was waiting there for us to finalize our trip and agree on a price for his guiding services. My goal was to do this hike in 5 days but Paul was hesitant to agree to this because it takes 6 days to do normally. After come conversation, we agreed to the hike, his fee, and a goal of 5 days if he felt we could do it. The next day he came to the Farm and we left (after a massive 15 minute downpour). We walked into Livingstonia where Paul got his supplies, stopped by his house for him to get his trekking equipment and gun, and through many villages. This first day was on dirt roads and we walked straight up, over, and down the hills. It was a fascinating day because we got a great tour of rural Malawi. Paul saw people he knew, we saw villagers building a structure to be used by all, we crossed makeshift wooden bridges over rivers, and camped for the night at a coffee processing center.

At camp, we met a man hiking from Nyika NP to Livingstonia. He booked this trip two years ago, flew from Lilongwe to the NP, and then did a fully guided trip. He had a guide, cook, ranger, server, and 3 porters to carry his and all of the expeditions stuff. We were stunned by this because we were paying $15/day for Paul and provided all our own gear and food. This man, Chris, must have paid at least $1000 for the flight and trek. A ludicrous amount of money for a dirt cheap adventurer like me.

This first day was pretty easy because it was slow and on easy roads but the next three days would be much more difficult. The second day began by walking through fields of bananas and coffee and then up steep paths to get into the park. Nyika is a plateau at about 7700 feet. We started our hike at about 3700 feet in Livingstonia and camped the first night at about 4700 feet. Today, we gained the rest of the altitude and would be on the plateau before lunch.

We hiked straight up the hills again and as we got higher up, the weather changed to be very misty, drizzly, and cooler (think Seattle weather). This continued until we were on the plateau where the weather was cool and wet but midday it would turn cool and sunny. The plateau reminded me of the rolling hills of the Channel Island off of southern California. There were small areas covered in oak but otherwise there were short grasses covering the land. The trail changed also and was the width of a foot. This was frustrating to me because I had to walk like a supermodel on a catwalk to not wreck my shoes and not walk on the sides of the trail. It was also awkward because the grasses were long enough to obscure the trail so you never quite knew where the trail was.

We ate lunch at the spot where people normally spend night two, so we continued on and camped in a gully in the middle of one of the oak thickets (see picture below). The third day was spent walking to Chelinda Camp and seeing antelope and zebra in the grasslands around the camp. They ran off before you could get close but it was amazing to see African animals again. We walked around the camp and then headed back to our campsite. The next two days were spent getting back to Livingstonia and Paul took us on a tour of the town as we walked through it. This trek up to Nyika NP was really one of the best parts of my trip in Malawi because I got to hike, see rural Malawi, experience a place not many people go to, and get out into nature.

After we got back to Mushroom Farm, we spent the next day there and then headed off to the south of Malawi for the rest of our time there.