sorry its been so long but we've been in the worst place on earth and by that i mean Malawi
seriously this country is total crap
we hate it here the people are ugly and smelly and dumb and ignorant and they beg like victorian street children.
it all started when we got taken for 50 US bus unscrupulous money chargers at the boarder. their money is worthless and only comes in denominations up to 500 ( which is equivalent of 3 bucks)
anyway we crossed with a pakistani guy who was on business and immigration gave us a hard time about the dipolomatic aspects of sharing a cab. but we did get a free ride from the mozambique boarder to blantyre ( capitlish city ) spent the night in a decent lodge and awoke wiht a chest cold and pink eye (kim had the pink eye) spent the next half day in the hospital where i met a doctor whose sister lives in Mammaroneck.
anyway we went to mt mulanje ( 2nd higest peak in africa ) walked 2km up a huge hill with all our gear and checked into the a 70 us a night hotel ( over priced ).
next day did the boma path up top CCAP hut ( look it up its insane and 2500m straight up hill i almost died
the rest of the shit show adventure when we get to lilongwe...
we're at the airport ( in blantyre yeah free interne)t and its on fire literally the field is burning and there i s a huge cloud of smoke and fire trucks
anyway mt mulanje was tough, i mean really tough as in I lost 4 pints of sweat and almost had six heart attacks on the way up alone. we had a guide named shawn-o he did not understand the concept of time. In fact I don’t think anyone in this country does. Anyway we stayed at a nothing hut up on the plateau called CCAP hut it was cold really cold and we were ill prepared for the lack of food and drink. We decided to come down the next day and asked shawn-o to take us down the easiest route. But since we never went through the legit channels for a guide we couldn’t go back to the Likunbula forestry office and instead had to go Nessa village about 15k east of Mulanje town. Anyway the decent was murder. It was sheer down and bone crushing stone of pure slippery slopes. It started with a nice walk through meadows and forests on the tops of the mtn but quickly turned nasty. Kim fell many times and we kept slamming our toes as we came down. It was rough by the end we were tired hungry and ready to stop walking. But the best was yet to come. Nessa village is still 5k from the main rd and the village only has one car no taxis and a few bikes. Our guide didn’t have any cash so the bike taxi route was out. We asked about a car taxi directly back to the lodge but the car owner couldn’t drive the car and the only guy in town who could drive didn’t have papers. So we had to hup it 5 long long kilometers down a hot and dusty road to catch a minibus back to town. We decided to stay in the kara’o’mula lodge again for sake of ease and again it was overpriced and not worth it, however it was the most rewarding shower ever and we slept like babies. The next day we decided to head for the beach at cape maclear. big mistake. we took a mini-bus back to limbe and tried to get another to blantyre only to realize all roads go from Limbe. Without enough cash for the mini-bus we hopped on a big bus thinking it would go semi direct. Wrong wrong wrong. We sat at the depot for an hour waiting for it to fill to the brim. We were squished in the back with 4 other people and a fan. The only redeeming factor was the rasta bus driver pumping bob marley the whole way. It took 7 hours to go 300K. Miserable tired hungry and poor we got off the bus at monkey bay and had to change 80 USD for enough cash to get through the night. We thought we would be able to get cash in cape Maclear, again we were wrong. We took an open air pick up truck with no joke 25 other people and 5 days worth of supplies for a village down a bumpy dirt rd to reach cape mac 45 min later. I met a cool born again named Deniss on the matola he only tried to convert me to christ like 5 times. Anyway we landed at Fat money and check into another over priced room, but we were tired hungry and cranky and the bed was glorious.
Cape maclear is .billed as a hippie pardise, and that’s what we were hoping for after 5 very tough days of travel and activity. What we found was a small village where “beach boys” do nothing but harras you the sun beats unrentlessly and the everything is overpriced. We had no idea why this was considered one of the best places on earth to chill out. We spent our first day taking more matolas and more pick up taxis back to mongochi ( the closest town with an atm in total we spent 6 hours to go 140 km. it sucked. But much like Malawi the suckiness is part of the adventure. By the time we got back to the town We begrudgingly ate the chips, tomatoes sauce and fish mixture that $18 had bought us and then went to the bar for a quick beer before passing out. The next day we had to get up early for our scheduled fresh water dive in lake Malawi. There is only one dive shop in town but the price was right and we needed to get a freshwater dive under our belts. 70 bucks for two dives aint bad and we had another travlling couple to keep us company. We dove a small wreck at 30m but kim had difficulty descending and we only spent about 30min down deep. After a refill of air and some snorkling on a preserved island in the lake we did our second dive and saw chilid fish and lots of them. Back on dry land we stopped for lunch and tried to figure out our plans for the next coupke of days. W decided to stay another night in cape maclear just to maclear our heads of the disastrous days of travel. We spent the next day doing nothing and it was glorious. However we couldn’t get the hotel to come down in price for the 54th night on the room so we decided to head toward Lilongwe just to be closer to the airport and our eventual escape. Now I hate to admit when i'm wrong but the transit portion of our return was miserable. We should have stayed in cape maclear and taken the ferry the next day, we should have never taken that smelly fish filled mini bus to mongochi, we should have stopped and gotten off in liwonde ( to see the national park and do a cheap safari) we should have switched to a bus to Lilongwe in Zomba but no we stayed on 6 miserable hours back to Blantyre. The guesthouse we had stayed in on that first night was full and we had to cab it up to a overpriced shitty hot, sweaty noisy lodge filled with UN kids doing internships. A bad Indian food meal later we were both on the shitter and praying for the next day. We decided to rent a car but later found out that the net day was Eid- al-fitr and everything was closed up tight. In disgust we stopped at the air Malawi office to confirm our flight and to ask about the AXA bus to Lilongwe, what we found was the smartest man in Malawi. He realized that our flight had us flying from Lilongwe back to Blantyre, then back to Lilongwe and finally on to dare s salaam. This man, who will remain nameless to protect his innocence, may be the only person in the entire country with the ability to think abstractly, he put us on a flight to Lilongwe that night ( thank god) and we spent the next 4 hours playing in the internet and eating a delicious Ethiopian meal, finally real coffee.
We landed in Lilongwe were pick up by our hostel and taken back for our executive room stay. A well spent 40 bucks and things were starting to look up. We went for Korean food at Kims and watched Wanted in the hostel. The next day we did up the town, I had my crocs stolen in cape maclear ( damn you beach boys) so I needed to replace them. We hit up the only western style shopping mall in the country and I found what is likely to be the only real croc dealer in the entire eastern Africa corridor. On the way back to town we went to Civo vs Silvers ( a Lilongwe darby match) which was the league final, it was free and kim and I became more interesting then the match itself when we got close to the field ans started to engage the raucous crowd.
We hit up a local market and I purchased some socks, then we stopped by the tailors section and I took of my pants and had a local guy fix my buttons and pockets. I don’t know what was stranger me without pants in a market place in Lilongwe or the fact that after about 30 seconds no one was paying attention to me. That night we had fried chicken and spicy fries ( it was like eating at popeyes except it was all hallal) and it was cheap. We drank some beers with the Peace Corps kids who were marveling that what they considered civilization after 3 months in a dirt hut and hit a local bar for some interesting dancing and drinking. The next day we tried to kill some hours by sleeping late sitting for a long breakfast and doing some shopping at Shop Rite. Finally we found a cab and high tailed it for the airport on our way to freedom. I sweet talked my way through security with tons of contraband and we boarded the plane out of Dantes inferno. Ah sweet freedom thy name is Tanzania.
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