Zomba

Hello All! We arrived back to Blantyre safely yesterday morning after a weekend filled with many wild adventures! On Friday morning Katie, Kim, Sammie and I left for Dedza at about 8am (we were scheduled to leave at 7am...but weren't surprised at all when the car didn't show up until 8...Malawi time seems to be a little slower than the pace that we are used to!). The drive to Dedza was beautiful. Rolling hills and green countryside...makes me feel guilty for falling asleep for some of the drive! It took us 3 hours to get to Dedza, and when we arrived we were all ready for coffee! Luckily, the pottery place that we were visiting is known for its great coffee shop. The 4 of us ate a delicious lunch, shopped for pottery and relaxed for most of the afternoon.





We had rented a car and driver for the entire day, so the driver waited for us while we shopped and soon after 3 we got back on the road for Zomba. We were expecting the drive to Zomba to take 1-2 hours but really it took 3. On the way to Dedza the driver had been a very good driver and we all felt safe, so it took some of the girls by surprise when he all of a sudden seemed to be driving a little recklessly. I was not worried until our car hit a biker! We didn't knock the biker off his bike (actually it was remarkable, the biker didn't even swerve!) but our rear-view mirror hit him. It made all of us jump and pay more attention to our drivers driving. It appeared to us that his driving got exponentially worse as it got darker! We concluded that he had night blindness...not a quality you look for in a driver! Added to the fact that our driver couldn't see, was the fact that none of us knew exactly where we were going (including our driver), and the fact that once night falls here it is pitch black. The road to the plateau was a steep, windy road along the side of the mountain, and I actually found it comical at times because the car would almost stall out as the road got steeper, and all I could think about was 4 girls pushing a car up a mountain in the middle of the night! Eventually we made it to the top of the plateau and we were so happy to join the rest of our group. We stayed in a guest house on the top of the plateau that is owned by Mr. Umi. It was a furnished 3 bedroom house with 2 double beds in each room. Plenty of room for all of us. Mr. Umi offered to cook us dinner, but we have Shant...so we did not need Mr. Umi's help with dinner! Mr. Umi was also our tour guide for the next day.

On Saturday morning we set out with Mr. Umi soon after 9 to see the plateau. First, we stopped at the Mulunguzi Dam. This dam supplies most of the water to Zomba and surrounding villages. At the dam we hiked down a rocky slope to get to the door to an underground tunnel. Mr. Umi's friend opened up the pressure locked doors and we all walked through the tunnel that was 47 meters under the water's surface! It was very cool!

Inside the tunnel:





After the dam we continued on our hike up the plateau. We hiked for about 5 more hours. It was a good hike and at times we were all huffing and puffing. The remarkable thing is that as we were climbing up the mountain we kept getting passed by Malawians, mainly women and children, climbing down the mountain barefoot and carrying what looked like their weight in firewood on their head! They are not allowed to cut down trees that are not damaged so they have to hike to the top of the plateau where a fire went through a couple years ago to collect this wood to heat their homes. Mr. Umi said that they make this trek once a week. The men were at the top of the plateau collecting the wood, and the women and children were carrying the wood home. The ground was quite slippery and there was a steep incline, and we were all focused on not wiping out, I have no idea how they managed the decent and looked so graceful doing so.





We got to the first lookout called Queen’s View. Here we stopped for lunch. The fog cleared for just a minute to give us a peak at the village below. Then we continued on to Emperor’s View, where Kim unfortunately got attacked by elephant ants! The story goes that these ants are so ruthless and relentless that they will actually drive an elephant to kill himself! They will climb inside an elephants ear and irritate him so much that he bangs his head against a tree (in an effort to get the ants out) so hard that he knocks himself unconscious! The ants then eat the elephant! Who knew ants could be so powerful? Kim was fine after she jumped around a bit and took off her shoes and socks!

The next stop was our favorite part of the day...Williams Falls! We were all so hot and sweaty from the walk that we were dying to get in the water. Even though the water was freezing we all changed into our suits and splashed around under the water fall. It was so refreshing!







After our dip in the water we headed back to the house, where we relaxed for the rest of the day.

On Sunday morning it was pouring rain, Mr. Umi arranged to have a "taxi" take us down the mountain. When our ride arrived we all laughed! Our taxi was a pick-up truck with 2 benches in the bed of the truck and tarp over the top of the bed of the truck. It reminded me for all the world of the type of truck that you see on tv that gets pulled over and when they look in the back it is filled with refugees. The tarp was there to keep the rain out, but the holes in the tarp did a nice job of letting lots of cold rain in! Poor Emily pretty much got a shower in the truck. This truck took us down the same windy road that we came up on Friday night, so again we feared for our lives as we got jostled around the back of a truck. It was funny!


We took a standard greyhound type bus back to Blantyre, and that ride was nice, and fairly uneventful except for the fact that the bus was over crowded so some people had to stand, and one the people standing was a lady holding a baby that (we think) had pooped his pants, and the baby was right next to Tom's head the entire 2 hour bus ride!

Last night the 8 of us went to a nice Italian restuarant with Terrie. The food was delicious! Terrie also presented Shant with an apron that she had the tailor make for him. A nice thank you for all of Shant's hard work last week, since he made us dinner 4 nights last week. Simoni is back today so Shant will get a break.

Have a good day!