Three Peaks

walking through a township at first light, below Michuru peak


view across to Ndirande from Michuru peak


Rach on top of Michuru


Rach at the first tea stop - breakfast!


walking along a bit of (disused/infrequently used/not used on Sunday) railway to get to the 2nd tea stop


2nd tea stop in the lush grounds of a well-to-do ex-pat house


half way up Ndirande, and approaching the scramble (up the vegetated gully to the right of the main cliff)


"A" near the summit of Ndirande ("A" was on the majete and sapitwa hikes with us too)


coming down steeply off the summit of Ndirande, and into the tropical vegetation


descending a steep step on Ndirande


Approaching Mount Soche


One of the kids who followed us up Soche


The view across Soche township and Limbe - our township is just out of shot on the right


The summit of Mount Soche


Looking back along the summit ridge of Mount Soche


2 of the cheeky kids who followed us to the top


Descending Mount Soche and trying to find the path in the long grass and setting sun


nice flowers on the slopes of Soche


Me, descending Soche after a long day!


Hello all!

First of all, another few funny slogans from around us:
• On a minibus “it’s not me, it’s Allah!”…reassuring
• On another minibus “don’t worry, Jesus is in control”…dead bloke driving, good stuff…!
• A bottle shop near us is called the “Kosovo Bottle Store”, so a free portion of ethnic cleansing with every beer…?

On Sunday Rachel and I joined up with all the other crazy asungu in the area for the annual Three Peaks Walk arranged by the Mountain Club of Malawi. This is a non-competitive 42km (yes, that is basically a marathon) route around Blantyre, taking in the three largest hills. I’m not 100% sure of the starting elevation, but I’d say each hill was between 1500ft and 2000ft of elevation gain, so not much individually but enough when taken as a group. The main challenge was sticking to the schedule which had us completing the route in 13 hours. I think we all started off well, and were ahead at the first tea stop (tea and coffee stops were a life-saver! There was a support crew who drove to strategic points to meet and greet us with sugary and salty snacks, and as much liquid as we could handle!), but between the first and 2nd tea stops the pace really dropped and we were behind for the rest of the day. However there was a great feeling of camaraderie and it was far less of a pointless slog than I had worried it might be. At no stage (perhaps with the exception of our 3.40am wake-up call) did I feel this was a total beast of a hike – probably because of the subdivided nature of the walk into smaller sections interspersed with coffee stops.

We started off from the centre of Blantyre at 5am on the dot, and walked through the streets in darkness as late night revellers staggered home past us with a rather confused look on their faces. We were a group of probably 20 or 25 at the start, so must have looked quite a sight! The first hill (Michuru) was attacked with vigour as the sun rose, and we were rewarded with great views from the top. Rach and I made it to the top with around 10 minutes to have breakfast, so perfect timing. Then everyone hurried off down the hill to the conservation department car park and a cuppa. After that we had a long flatish walk across the plains (which are inhabited by one of the densest and most complex townships I have yet seen!) to the next tea stop in a wonderful house at the foot of the 2nd hill (Ndirande).

Here Rachel decided she would quit while she was still enjoying it, and quite right too as Ndirande was quite a steep, vegetated scramble, with some people (not me)getting attacked by bees, so probably for the best she bailed when she did. Ndirande had fantastic views from the top, across to Zomba Mountain and Mount Mulanje, both of which had a cap of cloud. We could also see right across the whole city and townships that we had come through, and what we still had to cover. The steep decent through dense undergrowth took us to the next tea stop, where Rachel met me again, having hitched a lift with one of the support vehicles.

After that, a further steep decent took us to a series of unofficial fields with beaten paths which we bashed our way through, and into Limbe (the town nearest to Bangwe township). We crossed through Limbe and approached the final hill, Mount Soche. After a final stop for tea and changing plasters and socks (I had 5 blisters by this point, all on my left foot oddly enough!), we headed off through the Soche township to the hill. Along the way we were adopted by a group of kids who accompanied us all the way to the top! The top of Soche is beautiful, a rainforest type of vegetation with a huge monolith at the summit to provide stunning vistas in all directions as the sun dipped in the sky on the 2nd shortest day.

The decent from Soche is tricky to find due to the very long grass (see photo) but we made it down to the townships (past potential muggers in caves and Rastafarians growing marijuana) just before dark. From there it was an hours hobble to the starting point and some well earned beers!

So now, if anyone asks me what my marathon time is I will be able to say 13 hours 30 minutes, and 6 cups of coffee!

I hope all are well, happy solstice, fathers day, and any other occasion you may wish to celebrate!

PS – Congratulations to Magic and Nathan on their engagement! (I hope everyone knows by now!)

Flora and many anthropological observations

HUGE Baobab in Majete wildlife park - i love these trees!


nice pink flowers just outside Majete (apparently this plant only flowers in near drought)


a Mulanje Cedar (i think) on the slopes of the Mulanje Massif


on the Mulanje 'plateau'


on the Mulanje 'plateau'


wee alpine flowers on the slopes of Sapitwa, probably around 7000ft altitude


wee alpine flowers on the slopes of Sapitwa, probably around 7000ft altitude


tea plantation near Mulanje, looking across to a hill in Mozambique


flowers half way up to the Zomba plateau

I thought I should share some of the photos of flora I’ve been diligently taking. I am often accused of taking too many photos of mountains, so I thought I’d diversify to other immobile objects (starting on the easy stuff!). So I hope you enjoy. I don’t know the names of any of them, but perhaps that will whet your appetite to look them up.

In other news, Rachel has been ridiculously busy this week as today is the start of the first work camp. She is currently out at the site (around 1hour, to 90 minutes away) managing the deliveries of various building materials, volunteers and professional builders who will hopefully manage to build 2 new classrooms for a massively over subscribed school in a rural village called Kachere (or Kuchere, I’m not exactly sure).

Rachel has been a beacon of calm in the hysteria and disorganisation that has surrounded her – I’m beginning to wonder if she’s been sneaking off for a quick smoke! She has been really good at accepting that in the short time we are here we cannot suddenly change the prevailing ‘laid back’ (aka lazy) attitude of Malawians, and realising that as long as she has done her best she should not worry if the final outcome is achieved or not. A hard thing for us liberals to accept, but it has to be accepted for sustainable mental health. Once one has accepted that things may happen, or they may not, it is like a weight being lifted from your shoulders (until the next frustration piles the weight back on). I think we were approaching this attitude on our own, but an email from Hamish quoting Laurence of Arabia was a catalyst for a change of approach. This change of approach will hopefully only last until December, otherwise we’ll be unemployable in the UK!

Before I forget, I must note down some of the amazing slogans we see around us (mainly on the minibuses). I wish I had photos of these all, but trying to get a camera out while surrounded by 25 people and chickens in a 15 seater minibus is not really an option! The slogans attributed to minibuses must be looked at in the context of the incredibly dangerous and non-courteous way they drive, otherwise they wouldn’t be funny.
• Lord Knows (on a minibus)
• When god says yes, nobody says no (on a minibus)
• W*nk electronics (name of a shop)
• Aunty / Uncle (insert very British name here) ‘s Grocery/Salon/Investments (common name of shops)

OK, so I can’t remember as many as I’d hoped, but I will try to carry a notepad around with me next time I’m in town, and come back with some more “gems”…

Other African observations I must get down before I forget that they are odd:
• Hawkers will carry live chickens around for sale, but the chickens will be partially plucked (probably to show the good quality of the meat – must be pretty cruel to the animal, but in some respects they lead a much better life than many chickens in the UK as they are all free range and organic!
• Yes, people (mainly women) do carry things around on their heads – quite skilfully. Often you may see young children being schooled in the art, which is quite funny as their parent will always laugh at them when they fail.
• When Malawians receive a gift (from white or local people) they will almost never say “thank you”, however if you exchange greetings with someone in passing on the street the conversation always ends with a “thank you”#
• Yes, most Malawians eat all meals with their hands
• I haven’t mentioned sugar cane yet have I? This is the staple snack for the country, a foot or so of sugar cane which they carry around, chew on, and spit out the husks to the ground
• The amount people can carry on a bicycle (mostly single speed as the derailleurs / hub gears have failed a long time ago) is incredible. Again, I must try to get photos. We regularly pass people with what must be 30 or 50kg bags of maize or rice on the back of their bike. Or with a 5ft tall sack of charcoal. Or a 12ft long piece of corrugated metal for roofing (if they are sensible this will be tied on vertically, but occasionally you come across people who have tied them on horizontally and are a very wide load. A chicken cage or 2 (each would be about 1ft cubed) Or pretty much anything else you can think of! Admittedly you rarely see people actually cycling with these loads, but rather using the bike as a means of not having to carry the weight. But still, the sight is impressive!
• I regularly get called “boss”, especially by people who want something from me. Sometimes I am called “brother” in a more informal setting by the youth. Rachel will often be called “madam” with respect, or “sister”, “aunty”, or “mama” in a less respectful setting. One bloke even called her “aunty” while trying to proposition her…a bit odd!
• Chichewa has no differentiation between “he” and “she”, “him” and “her”…which means when someone is being described to you, you are never quite sure whether they are talking about a male or female. This is especially interesting when you consider how divided the culture is in respect to gender roles…all very anthropological anyway.
• In the Malawian family children get tough love. Adults are given priority when it comes to meal times, the kids will get the scraps. A child given a sweet by a doctor may have it snatched from them by the mother. Children in Malawi are not allowed eggs, as the parents worry that if the child works out that they can get eggs from any chicken in the township, none of the eggs will be left to produce more chicks. In Malawi it is entirely normal to see a pre-school child (girl most likely) carrying a younger sibling on their back with one of the wrap-around pieces of decorated cloth their mothers use…parents seem to take very much a back seat with raising children if there are siblings about.

So that's the update, I hope you enjoyed it!

Majete Crossover hike

Aloe plant



A goat corral we walked past before entering the park (our first 6km on Saturday was outside the park boundary)



Prickly Pear



Twisted Baobab




Monitor Lizard



Hippo guarding a beautiful looking play-wave for kayaking!



bathing/wallowing spot near the camp



flowers of an invasive species



large pod of hippos!



leopard tortoise



elephant family crossing to an island in the Shire River



A big bull elephant



Finishing off at the falls near the park entrance - see previous Majete post for more photos



Last week was rather stressful for us. Absence of key members of staff, looming project deadlines and large chunks of missing vital information – combined with an apparent lack of acceptance of any requirement for speedy action was not a good combination!

However, there were also some really good bits too. Sister A has arrived from the emerald Isle. This is her 8th or 9th year of volunteering in various areas of work in various African country and she gets around the apathy and lethargy which plagues most progress in the area by doing loads of fundraising before she leaves (by selling what sounds like a very popular recipe book) and arriving with enough money to make things happen immediately! A novel approach to us, but it certainly seems effective as she has already arranged for 2 boreholes in outlying villages in Rural Blantyre region, before her main body of work which is to take part in one of Rachel’s work camps building a school. She is quite an amazing lady, very very generous to us and to the locals, but also with a good understanding of the complex issues of aid. While understanding to a certain extent about aid dependency, she doesn’t take the approach we are heading towards which is rather pessimistic – she takes a more short term approach which is ‘these people are poor, I can help them, I’m going to help them’. This results in her being able to achieve her goals very quickly and easily. For Rachel and I it is harder, as we are walking the metaphorical minefield of trying to support Malawians to enable them to support themselves long term…a much bigger issue as it deals with culture change rather than just donations and infrastructure project. However, both are valuable and we have really appreciated Sister A’s presence and calming influence!

On Friday we finished early (apparently we should only work a half day every Friday anyway) and went to our favourite greasy-spoon in town to have a beer and watch the first game of the world cup. Having heard practically nothing else on the radio for weeks we figured, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!’. We were the only asungu in the bar, but the locals were friendly and nonchalant to our presence as it is in the middle of Blantyre, so they are more exposed to asungu. The game was pretty mediocre, with some moments of interest, but it was great to be there when South Africa scored, as most Malawians seem to be supporting AAT (Any African Team), which is nice to see. After the game, our friend AP came to meet us for beer and food and then we headed back to her side of town to stay over night at her neighbour AB (who climbed Sapitwa last weekend with me). We needed to stay over as we had to be at the Blantyre Sports Club for 5.30 in the morning, and AB had a reliable taxi arranged from her place. It was also lovely to have a nice relaxing evening socialising with friends.

Saturday morning arrived far to early and the taxi was surprisingly on time. We arrived at the designated spot to meet up with the Wildlife and Environment Society of Malawi (WESM) for their annual Majete Crossover hike. Majete wildlife park is a reserve around 90 minutes from Blantyre with loads of wonderful wildlife and scenery (the observant among you will notice we have been there before…). Every year the WESM run a hike which requires the group to split into 2 teams – one enters the park from the North and the other from the South. Meeting in the middle to camp, vehicle keys are swapped and each group continues to the opposite side of the park to drive home in the vehicles of the other team.

We opted (upon good authority) to walk North to South and were very glad we had as this put us into a delightful group of people, meant the sun was behind us rather than in our face all day, meant that we did the longer day on Saturday and saved the best of the wildlife for Sunday. Also, our WESM organisers were L & J who spoiled the whole group of us with fantastic food all weekend, from croissants and fresh coffee on Saturday morning, a fantastic Bolognese with all the trimmings on Saturday night (including red wine!) and bacon rolls (on fresh home made rolls) on Sunday morning…we definitely landed on our feet! In case you are wondering, no we did not have to carry all this food in, nor did we have porters, but we had a crew of WESM members who drove a vehicle in to the campsite, loaded to the gunwales with our tents and food - very very luxurious camping!

As well as the culinary highlights we also saw some fantastic animals, and we had a few people in our group who were particularly knowledgeable about the various birds and beasts, so that really helped. We saw (in no particular order, and with lots of omissions and spelling mistakes)

• Boham’s bee eaters
• Little bee eaters
• Baboons
• Hippos
• Elephants
• Monitor lizard
• Tortoise
• Fish and Snake Eagles
• Ibis (or something like it)
• Hornbills
• Perhaps parrots, not entirely sure
• Wart hogs
• Élan
• Some other wild deer-type things
• And loads of butterflies and dragon flies

Once we got to the park (the first 6km of our walk on Saturday was outside the park) we were met by 2 park wardens who would act as scouts/guides/protect us from a charging elephant with their rifles, as well as making sure we didn't get lost. It was certainly reassuring to have them with us when we came across a rather large bull elephant near the end of Sunday who would have been quite a terrifying sight otherwise. How effective the wardens' rifles would have been against a charging elephant I wouldn't like to know...

It was great to walk along the banks of the Shire which looks like it would be a beautiful and exciting white water trip if it weren't for the massive population of hippos (and croc's too apparently, but we didn't see any).

A great trip, and a wonderful culinary experience (which as you will all know, is of almost equal importance for us!).

Tiwonana!

Sapitwa Sleepover - Another long post!

Dawn mists on the plains, from summit of Sapitwa

Peaks of the massif, from left: Khuto, Chigaru, Dzole, Namasile, Chinzama?, unnamed?

Chambe peak at dawn from summit of Sapitwa

Sunrise on the summit of Sapitwa

sunset on the summit of Sapitwa

self portrait on summit at sunset...chilly!

Our campsite

From left: me, J, E, B, A, C

The view from the summit when we arrived - we camped in the grass on the far right

J, and a little of E on the final scramble to the summit

C, A and a little of B in the dense undergrowth found in gullies on the peak

Steep slab on the lower slopes - tricky with heavy packs

Flowers on the way up the peak - I'm told they are Aloe

This sign should be on top, but is actually just next to the hut!

Chisepo hut, with lower slopes of Sapitwa behind

dawn on the plains, from Chisepo hut

sunrise from Chisepo hut

Chambe peak as the sun set while we were still 2 hours from the hut on Friday

B on the way up, near the bottom

Photos are in reverse order again...sorry!

Last weekend I joined up with the mountain club again for another trip, this time up the 3^rd highest peak south of the Sahara (excluding South Africa)…a bit of a convoluted title, but basically it’s by far the biggest thing for miles around.

Sapitwa peak (Sapitwa apparently meaning “don’t go there”) is around 10,000ft and is the high point of the Mulanje plateau. Of course, the “plateau” is not very plateau-like. I think it’s best described as follows: Once you have climbed up 3000ft from the plains, to an altitude of around 6000ft, it is quite like being at sea levels in the West Highlands of Scotland. Lots of hills and valleys and ridges still to be negotiated to navigate around the ‘plateau’.

The characters in this story are: B, leader of the group; C, a young lad from Blantyre; A, a German medical student out on elective; J, who works in malaria research; and E, who works in social development. And me!

B, C and I set off around 2.30 from the car park at Likabula. B & C had decided to hire porters, as most people do, but I figured I would see what it would be like without their assistance – experimenting in the name of science and so I can advise visitors when they come…Well, I think I would certainly have appreciated a porter, as I ended up carrying over 15kg (carrying communal food, fuel, etc which couldn't fit in the bags for the porters), but as it happened I coped ok, just sweated A LOT!

We took the ‘skyline’ path - so called because of the old cable that runs down from the “plateau” for the forestry operations. The weather was mercifully cloudy and we plodded up an ever steepening path through the woods, passing many beautiful flowers, and with regular views across the valley to Chilemba peak and beyond to the plains and the tea plantations. I continued to sweat.

Having reached the “plateau” in around 90 minutes, we had around an hour and a half of daylight left. We managed to successfully find the ‘short cut’ path which took us through recently felled forestry (the Mulanje Conservation Trust are trying to get rid of pine trees in order to let the endangered Mulanje Cedar take over again) which was disorientating for B, but we made it through and onto the main path again in daylight. A quick snack stop for much needed salts (C was suffering particularly with cramps) and we put on head torches and plodded off, up and over ridges and valleys, past what we think were baboons who made a rather funny noise a bit like the noise produced when you bounce a rock along an icy pond, and eventually arrived at the Chisepo hut at around 7pm. We’d beasted the “6 hour” hike in 4 and a half hours, and boy could I feel it!

A, J and E had left earlier in the morning and taken a more leisurely pace up to the hut. The hut was comfortingly smoky and basic, like so many huts in Scotland, and after a feast of spag bol cooked on the fire we bedded down for the night. (by this point the B and C’s bags had arrived courtesy of 2 porters – not the ones they had chosen. Some dodgy business was suspected, as these porters were not on the qualified list, and so had probably been subcontracted onto the job by the originally selected porters, who would have taken a cut of the fee).

We awoke around 5.15 the next morning, thanks to B’s warning of a beautiful sunrise. A leisurely morning of drying sweaty clothes and eating lots of breakfast, then we headed off up to the Sapitwa peak around 10am. A, J and E had porters taking some camping stuff up for them, but C, B and I were carrying quite big packs – which proved a little problematic when it came to some of the tight squeezes between boulders, climbing up narrow gullies, and scrabbling through dense undergrowth. When we left, clouds had rolled in – as they tend to do apparently between 10am and 5pm, but by lunch time we had climbed above them, and remained above them for the rest of the day. We arrived on the summit about 2pm, having taken quite a leisurely pace, and set up the tents on a strip of grass. The rest of the afternoon was spent chatting and either sunbathing or avoiding the sun, depending on sunburnability. The clouds stayed with us until after sunset, but the feeling of being isolated on an island in the sky was lovely.

After sunset we cooked and stared at the fantastically starry sky for as long as we could bear before the cold drove us all into our beds. The time was around 7pm! The night was long, and very cold (down to minus 2 celcius), and the winds were whipping our tents, so most people had disturbed sleep. However, when we dared to head out for the sunrise the wind had dropped and we huddled in our sleeping bags silently watching the African dawn develop for over an hour.

The colours were fantastic, and my camera work cannot do it justice. In all, I took over 130 photos this weekend, but this blog will only allow a small number per post, so if anyone is interested I have many more photos of hills, flowers and sunrises/sunsets which I can show when I get back to the UK. I could upload more into another post, but I think I’ll just leave you in suspense!

We headed back down the hill, and got to the hut around 10.15 – 10.30. C by this point was not in a good way. He may have had food poisoning from an inadequately heated meal on the summit, or it may have been sheer exhaustion, but he stopped for a quick vomit near the hut to clear his head. Luckily A had some pills she could give him for his condition, which at least kept him mobile if not particularly happy. He battled on, to his credit, and made it down with B, A and I. (E & J were staying up the hill one more night). C was on his first major hike, and didn’t have proper equipment, so it is no wonder he was pretty beaten when we got back down just before 4pm.

He perked up a little when we got to the pizzeria in Mulanje town. To my delight Rachel had come out to meet us! She had taken the minibus from town out to Mulanje and arrived about 1 hour before we did. She had spent that time reading at the pizzeria, and enjoying a cool beer.

So, that was my weekend – thanks for reading this far! There are far more details to tell and photos to show (lots of beautiful flowers), but too much for this blog entry, so I will have to try to remember them.