#springbreak2k15

Two things I’ve learned in Malawi, 1) travel is always interesting, 2) public transportation is always interesting.

Over Easter weekend, two volunteers and I decided to take a spring break trip. Thursday morning, Erin (from England) and Saskia (from Germany) and I left for the Mushroom Farm in Livingstonia. Side-note: the Mushroom Farm isn’t what it sounds like – it’s just an eco-lodge in the mountains overlooking Lake Malawi.

Context for this blog post: Erin and Saskia love mocking the American idea of wild spring breaks, so we decided we’d have our own, African, spring break experience. Full of adventure and selfies and fun.

We had intended to leave early on Thursday morning, but when we awoke, it was raining crazy-hard. Instead we had an enormous breakfast while we waited out the rain. Eventually it slowed enough for us to walk to town, we got in a shared taxi, and headed to Mzuzu. No marriage proposals on this ride. However, Erin and I were in the backseat, right next to the trunk of the van, where was stored a cardboard box full of fresh fish. That made for a pleasant ride.

After a stop at the grocery store and at an ATM (which worked, surprise!) we went to get a minibus up to northern Malawi. As we approached the minibus area, someone asked us if we were going to Livingstonia, we replied that we were, and he motioned us to jump into the minibus that was about to depart. We looked at the full bus and said, “Um, I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any room for us.” He shook his head and told us we’d all be seated together in the back row. So we got in. We were in the row with another man, our knees pressed against the seats in front of us, all our bags and things on our laps, our hips jammed against one another. It was very comfortable.

Almost as soon as we started driving, we stopped again to pick up more people. I was reminded of travel in Honduras. There was a super sharp piece of metal on the seat digging into my thigh. At one point in the 2.5-hour ride, I think I counted 26 people in the minibus, with a minimum of four people in each row.

We got off the minibus at the bottom of the mountain where Mushroom Farm is located. We waited a bit for a truck to go up the mountain, hopped into the back, and began our steep and curvy ascent. Now, there are 18 marked bends in the road up the mountain, with countless others. After Bend 4, our truck broke down. The driver tried to repair it five times, with no success. Just as we were about to get out of the truck and begin walking up the mountain, the driver announced that all was fixed and that we were ready to go. This time, after we rolled a pretty scary distance backwards down the road, the engine kicked in.

Around Bend 10, the truck broke down again. This time the driver told us to all get into the back of a cargo truck in front of us, also heading up the mountain. When we got on, there were already 25 people in the new truck. We were the only white people. The road was curvy, steep, and bumpy, and the driver wanted to make it to the top extremely quickly. Trying to find my phone to take a picture of the situation, I let go of the side of the truck, I immediately body-slammed into the woman next to me, and then slammed in the other direction into Erin. Everyone in the truck was extremely entertained and we were laughing so hard. I got no photo.

Eventually we arrived at Mushroom Farm. I can’t even explain how gorgeous Mushroom Farm is. It’s in the forest; it looks over a valley, a lake, and mountains. On the other side of the lake, the mountains of Tanzania are visible. And because we were there during the rainy season, fog and clouds kept coming into the valley and surrounding our mountain. Breath-taking would be an understatement.

Friday morning we went to Manchewe Falls, the highest waterfall in Malawi, conveniently located a short hike from the Mushroom Farm. After finding the falls and successfully shaking off the boys who wanted to be our guides, we hiked all around and discovered that there were various waterfalls. We think we found the waterfall, but we’re not exactly sure. Farther up the mountain we walked to the actual town of Livingstonia, where Scottish missionaries built a church and a community in the 1890s. It was a bit surreal. There was all this European architecture in the middle of Malawi, surrounded by the typical construction of the country, as well. We finally found the church, which was full of people eating lunch and practicing for Easter.

Saturday morning, Saskia and I went to hike up to Chombe Plateau. It would be a full day hike, and Erin wasn’t feeling great. We had to hire a guide. Almost as soon as we began walking, he led us through someone’s property. A few guys came over to talk to our guide, and it looked like they had dead sparrows in their hands. It took us a moment, but we soon realized that our guide, Thomas, was buying birds from them. He bought three and proceeded to tuck them into his front shirt pocket. We couldn’t believe what was happening, and Saskia and I casually asked him, “Uh, Thomas, did you just buy some birds?” He replied that they were for dinner. I asked if they’d be better if he bought them fresh, at the end of our hike. He laughed and told us that they would still be fresh.

Saskia and I had decided we would hike quickly, so that we would get back to Erin before dark. (Meanwhile, back at Mushroom Farm, it turned out I had accidentally locked Erin in our room, and she really needed to use the bathroom. She called for help and was freed.) So here are Saskia and I, hiking along this road on top of a mountain, and poor Thomas can’t keep up. Eventually we got to a turn in the road and had no idea which way to go. We looked back for Thomas and could not see him. Saskia called his name and we heard, “It’s okay, I’m coming! I bought another bird from a man in the forest!”

The last stretch of the hike to the plateau was a steep, muddy path through  tall grass. We made it up the mountain with some difficulty. But the view at the top was incredible. We ate a lunch of tomatoes, peanuts, and Doritos, took loads of pictures, and began the hike down. Which, I will admit, was full of the two of us tripping and falling down the mountain.

Sunday morning we left Mushroom Farm (after a full breakfast, of course,) and decided we’d hike down the mountain, taking all the shortcuts past the bends. We made it down with not too many muddy falls. The ride back to Nkhata Bay was much less eventful, as we hitched a ride with a friend from Butterfly.

Our spring break trip was so much more fantastically Malawian than any spring break trip I’d ever imagined.