From Zomba, I was lucky enough to share a taxi with the traveling family I met originally in Livingstone, Zambia, and I had seen a couple of times along the way, as they were traveling the same route as me for a bit. Apparently they live in London, but had been planning to relocate to Switzerland for work, had packed their bags, enrolled the kids in Swiss German classes, only to have the husband laid off just before their left. With their flat already rented out, they decided to hit the road instead, and had started in Cape Town as I had. They’re planning to travel at least until January, so hopefully I’ll see them as I go along.

Anyway, I caught a ride with them to Mulanje mountain, where I was hoping to tag along with a couple of other people to hire a guide for a few days. The family was planning to wait a couple of days to hike, and after resting in Zomba, I wanted to leave the next day. At their fancier guesthouse (they were flashpacking for a couple of days and catching up on work and homework), I met a couple from England who offered to let me join them, but they were only going for two nights, and I really wanted to traverse the whole plateau in three days. I decided to pony up the money for a guide myself and plan my own trip. 

Paul, who I had hung out with in Cape Mclear, had recommended a guide, who came and took me to Mulanje town to stock up on food for the trip. He insisted we get a chicken, which of course meant a live chicken. I figured he would take it home that night, but no, it was to sleep beside my tent. Luckily it didn’t wake up too often. The plan was to slaughter it on the hike for dinner. When I asked him what they do with vegetarian hikers, he shrugged and said “we kill it before we climb”.

The next morning my guide showed up with another guide, who was apparently the replacement, as my original guide suddenly had school to attend to. Luckily, other than being hungover due to a village celebration the night before (as presumably he wasn’t expecting to be hiking the next day), Freddie turned out to be a great guide. Highly recommended. Plus I had slightly creepy vibes from my original guide, so it all worked out for the best. Freddie also carried the chicken and the heavy food items.

We started hiking at 8am, and had reached Chambe hut by 11:15, where we staying for the night. It was a very steep climb and I was happy to reach the top and refill my water. After relaxing for a couple of hours, I was a bit restless, so went for a short walk, exploring old forestry roads. I also got a lot of reading done on the trip, as other than walking and cooking, there isn’t much to do. Not that I was complaining.

The next day we started hiking at 6:30am, and arrived at our next hut at 9:00am. There I met the English couple, who was just descending from the mountain range’s highest peak. They had left at 3am. Ouch. Freddie and I fueled up and then hit the peak, managing the round trip in 4 hours, which Freddie was very impressed with. Then again, he hadn’t been guiding since July due to a lack of tourists. Other than the English couple, I didn’t meet a single other tourist, so it was a good thing I didn’t wait for others to join. Freddie claimed the riots in Lilongwe was hurting tourism, but so far, this seems to be the norm for Africa for me at least. 

Anyway, I got a few scrapes coming down, and was very happy to be finished hiking that day. The next day we left at 7am and reached our final hut at 2pm. I was exhausted at this point, but this was also my favourite day, with the best scenery, more rolling hills than jagged peaks, and more what I was expecting of Mulanje. Finally, the next morning we only had to hike 2 hours before getting moto taxis back to Mulanje, where I hit an atm, grabbed some food, and headed back to the base of the mountain to have a hot shower and camp for one more night.