20.12.06 Mulanje (Malawi), Mozambique, Kruger NP (SA) Hello there, here’s a little pre-christmas blog for you to read whilst you are sipping another glass of mulled wine, eating yet more chocolate, or having that ‘it really is the last one’ mince pie! Happy Christmas to you all, and best wishes for the New Year! We hope you have a lovely time and Santa spoils you all! We left you last time enjoying the fantastic hospitality of Morag and Lindsay. Suffice as to say, our bellies are a little more rounded than before and by the time we left, the rooftop tent hadn’t seen the light of day for 3 weeks!!! In our defence, one week of that 3 was spent up the mountain where our food was greatly limited and our beds were the floors of wooden huts! So whilst we were in Mulanje we spent a couple of days visiting the hospital where we used to work and catch up with our old work colleagues and friends there. It was really lovely to see everyone again and they were very happy to see us after 2 years! They were so welcoming, it was quite emotional being back again and many of them wanted us to stay and work there again! The laboratory seemed to be running well and had stayed fairly much how we left it. This was a great relief, as we were wondering if it may have lost a bit of it’s momentum after we had gone. We were very pleased to find that the 2 newly qualified lab staff that took over from us, were still there and with Mr Kanyoza (our counterpart during our placement) they were maintaining a good standard of lab work. They experience the usual problems with getting reagents, lab materials, and having to work with very old and poorly maintained equipment. However, they manage remarkably well and can always look on the bright side of their situation! We asked them to make a list of things that they really need at the moment, and hopefully when we get back to the UK we can get some things to send over to them. We also gave the hospital money to contribute to their ‘Sponsor a Bed’ scheme with money that was raised at the L&D lab that we worked at before we came travelling, (thanks again to everyone who bought raffle tickets and donated money!). The scheme works by enabling you to (as it says) ‘Sponsor a Bed’ for a year by donating $500, which the hospital puts in to a fund. The money is then allocated to whatever particular expenses are required at that time, eg. it may pay for some new mattresses, or the electricity bill, or nutritional supplementary feeds for the paediatric unit, the list goes on and on. The key is that the money can be distributed in exactly the way the hospital needs to keep the whole place running on a day to day basis, rather than being earmarked for one thing in particular. This is an invaluable fund for the hospital and the money that we raised for the hospital was very gratefully received by the new hospital medical director, with many thanks. The next stop in Mulanje was the mountain! I’m sure you all remember the very large Mulanje Massif that we could see from our front garden, which we used to climb up. Well a trip back to Mulanje would not have been complete without us reliving the hard 4 hour slog up to the plateau, and a few days staying in the huts and climbing the odd peak. In fact we had loved being up there so much that we arranged to stay up the mountain for 8 days, visiting 5 different huts and climbing the illusive ‘Sapitwa’ (‘don’t go there!’ in Chichewa) peak. Of course the whole experience is made much more bearable by the fact that you hire porters and guides to go with you, and more importantly carry all you stuff!! So with Fred and File (yep that was his name), brothers that we were recommended to take up, we set off on our great hike! Like I said, the first day hiking up the steep slopes to the top of the plateau is pretty difficult going to say the least! I would describe myself and Jason as reasonably fit individuals, who, having been up and down the massif several times before, would find it fair going. Well, probably due to the fact that we have spent the last 7 months doing little more than sitting in the landy driving from place to place and spending more time sitting in there on safari, I should have expected the climb to be a bit more of a stretch on the old muscles! Admittedly we were going up in the hottest part of the year, but still I can tell you that the first day hiking was a slight shock to the system and we had a strenuous work out! Nevertheless, it was completely worth every drop of sweat, as the views and the scenery were even more stunning than we remembered. Once up on the plateau the walks between the huts are much less demanding, fortunately, and the extra exertion up one or more of the 25 peaks is entirely at you discretion! We went up two other peaks, but we saved the biggest, Sapitwa, til last. It stands at 3,000 metres (remembering that you’re already at 1,500m on the plateau, so you’re already half way there, thank goodness!) and the climb is mostly over large boulders and through little wooded areas. There is no pathway as such, you are utterly reliant on the guides you’ve got with you knowing the way. Without their knowledge it would take you forever to get to the top! It was tough going (well not so much for Jas, but I needed the occasional hand or push up from Fred!) but we made it! The sky was clear blue when we set out, but 3 hours later at the summit, sod’s law, we couldn’t see a thing as the clouds had gathered all around us! Hey ho, that’s life, and we had a good laugh about it. So we stopped up there long enough to eat some peanuts to restore our energy, have a quick photo and then off we went to make the journey down again! It was a bit easier on the way down, only taking us 2 hours! By the time we got to the hut again, my legs were definitely telling me they had had enough! It was excellent though to have conquered the highest peak on Mulanje which we hadn’t done before, and we felt suitably pleased with ourselves, despite not being able to experience the tremendous views from the top! The huts on the mountain are pretty basic. They each differ slightly in design, but generally have a room with a fire in for cooking and eating, and another room to sleep in. Quite often, however, it gets rather chilly at night and so you end up sleeping next to the fire. There are guys at each hut that are paid to stay there and make sure you have enough chopped wood for the fire and clean water available. If you’re lucky some of them have had the brainwave of having a few bottles of beer and soft drinks there too for sale, which does go down well after a long days hiking! There are lovely views around each hut and you really feel as though you are miles away from anything, without a care in the world. We loved our week up there and each days walks were through slightly different surroundings, all of which were very beautiful. I think we could have easily stayed up there 2 weeks or more! Back down we came though, straight back to the luxury of Morag and Lindsay’s, which was more spoiling for us. We went back to the hospital for a last visit to the lab, and to take some photos of everyone. Although we didn’t actually pop and see our old house, not feeling it was polite to intrude in someone else’s home now, we did manage to track down our old day worker, Arnold and night guard, Headson. It was lovely to see them again and they were very pleased to see us. They were both very well and we gave them a bit of a Christmas present, a big bag of maize meal which they use to make ‘nsima’, their staple meal, to help them through this time of year, which is called the ‘hungry season’. We were very happy to learn that our night guard’s dog ‘Tiger’, that we looked after as well, was also fine and still strong! We didn’t see him though, which is a shame, but just knowing he was OK (dogs have a pretty rough life in Malawi) was as good as we could have hoped! After spending a few more days in Mulanje (by this time we had needed to go to Blantyre to extend our visas, because we had already overstayed our 30 days!), we caught up with everybody we used to know there, who still lived there. It was a great time and it felt just like when we lived there, and as if we had only been away a couple of months. We truly enjoyed our return to VSO place, and I certainly could have easily stayed there for another 18 months, working in the lab again, and living with the mountain so nearby! Time was ticking on by now and we really did have to leave Malawi. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting it again, and we are practically certain that we’ll get back there again sometime! But for now we had to move on in to Mozambique, and we’re sorry to say that as a result of spending much too long in Malawi, we had to abandon our tour of Moz and reduce it to a whistle stop trip through to get back in to SA. We did try and work things out to stay in Moz longer, but after much deliberation we agreed that despite hearing very good reports on Moz, there was much more that we wanted to see and do in SA, so we preferred to get on down there again. We took 4 days to get through Moz and along the way we did find some very nice beach-side campsites to stay in. So at least we did get to swim in the sea and sample the great seafood a few times on the way through. Firstly we stayed in a little coastal town called Quelimane, which was quite nice, but a bit run down, not on the tourist route really. Then on to Vilankulos, where we had the best seafood so far, so we stayed for two days! Although on the way there at 7pm at night we were lucky to get anywhere, due to a ‘blow out’! Now before you start panicking, it wasn’t at all the sensational blow outs that you hear about. In fact, thankfully, as it was dark and the roads weren’t the best, we were going quite steadily, so there was no huge bang as the tyre burst, nor any skidding around in an uncontrollable landy! Actually quite the opposite. The tyre was getting a bit rugged around the edges, so we were planning on changing it in SA anyway. But we had gone over just one too many potholes and it decided ‘enough was enough!’ On the next bumpy bit we heard an unusual noise coming from the back of the landy and when Jas peered out he could see the tyre was no more! I could tell something was wrong and had already slowed right down and so we gently pulled off the road and came to a very graceful halt. It wasn’t at all like in the movies, no massive screeches, no slamming on of brakes and no somersaulting vehicles, I’m very glad to say! All kitted out with our high lift jack and spare wheel, we were sure we would soon be on our way again. Not quite so, as it wasn’t at all long before several Mozambiquians (not sure if that’s the right word) had found us and were hastily offering their assistance. Now, unfortunately we can’t say that our Portuguese is up to scratch, and their English was about the same, but through the universal language of hand gestures we were soon communicating reasonably well and the guys were happily helping us. They seemed to know what they were doing, but it wasn’t long before we were having a couple of problems, but we persevered and after an hour or so, we were back on the road and waving back to the very contented guys, (a little monetary thanks had been given in return for their hard work!). Arriving at Vilankulos a little later than expected, we found a campsite and could relax at last! From there we went to Praia de Xai Xai, and the most gorgeous beach of golden sand and blue sea that just went on and on and on! That evening we could see the weather was getting a bit stormy, and later we were watching the most amazing thunder and lightning storm I have ever seen. The lightning was flashing all across the ocean and really illuminating the whole sky. We could see it all coming closer towards us, and it eventually reached us and the rain just kept coming and coming, with such strong winds that I was sure the tent was going to get blown off the top of the landy! It was really cool to watch it all and it actually provided some much needed relief from the extremely hot temperatures we were having to endure in Moz. I know that Africa is hot, but really, the heat in Moz was absolutely incredible, the hottest we have ever been! Sweat, boy did we ever, especially as we were mostly in the landy driving. The landy was getting so hot that you couldn’t touch parts of it for fear of getting 3rd degree burns! Of the little that we did see, Moz looked a very nice country, and with the Portguese influence (from when they colonised it) it was quite different from the other countries we have been in. We would definitely go back to explore it properly, we’ll just have to use it as another excuse to travelling again! It was a quick and painless re-entry in to SA, and as soon as you are across the border you can tell you are back in a developed country again. There are shops everywhere, selling everything, and now the roads are full of other cars, not bicycles, kids, goats and donkeys! Our first port of call was Nelspruit, a city about 100km from the border. We planned to stay there a couple of days to do some of the more mundane things, get money, food shopping, laundry, oh and getting a new tyre to replace the spare! Now we were back in to a big and bustling city, we couldn’t resist a bit of a treat and so we went to see the James Bond film. I’m not sure how long it has been out in the UK, but it has only just come out here. The next day we didn’t waste any time in getting back on the road and going up to Kruger NP. It is such a famous park that we didn’t know whether it would live up to the hype, or it would be too commercial and too busy. After all the great parks we had been to already and the amazing ‘bush camping’ that we had done, we weren’t sure if being in a proper campsite with shops and restaurants, swimming pools and large numbers of people would be as rewarding. Going in with slight apprehension, we were soon to be very pleasantly surprised. Yes it was totally different from the very basic camps we were used to, and there were tarmac roads, with quite a few cars on. Nevertheless, the actual game viewing was outstanding and we never thought that we would see as much as we did. In the 8 days we were there, we moved around three different areas of the park (the size of Wales) and 5 of those 8 days we saw the ‘Big 5’ (lion, buffalo, leopard, elephant and rhino), plus hyena, giraffe, crocodiles, hippo, baboons, vervet monkeys, wildebeest, warthog, many types of antelope, many birds of prey, bee-eaters, sunbirds, oh the list goes on and on! But by far the best sighting for us here, only because we have never ever seen them before and were really hoping to find them, were packs of wild dogs! Might not sound particularly amazing, but they are quite rare and we were very happy to find them and watch them for long periods, on several occasions. With the wild dogs, groups of 5/6 rhinos at time, leopards eating impalas in trees, lions eating zebra and giraffe, huge herds of buffalo, and some of the biggest elephants we have seen, all in all we found Kruger to be as good as we had heard! It was 8 fantastic days and a place that we would definitely return to. Not overlooking the smaller animals that we enjoyed seeing as well, plenty of tortoises, chameleons, mongooses, tree agamas, terrapins, baby impala, baby warthogs, monitor lizards, dung beetles (in full dung rolling action), baby eagle owls, and last but not least glow worms! As you can imagine we had a hard time leaving there, especially Jas! Now we are heading down to Cape Town to met Tor, my friend from uni, who is arriving on the 21st and staying with us for Christmas and New Year. It’s going to be a busy 10 days with visits to Stellenbosch, De Hoop nature reserve, Table Mountain and Robben Island, plus lots of other things in and around Cape Town. On top of which we have to fit in Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve!!!! We can’t wait and are sure Tor is going to have a great time, as we will and we are really looking forward to her arriving. All that’s left for me to say, apart from ‘what a short blog this is!!’, is we hope you have a brilliant Christmas and New Year, and enjoy yourselves where ever you are and whatever you do! Take care and we’ll be in touch again in 2007! Best wishes from us and our love to you all. Love Kate and Jas xxx PS. We’ll do our best to put up with having xmas on the beach in lovely sunshine!!! PPS. I know that on the blog there are no paragraphs. This is not me being very slack, but for some reason when you up load on to the blog it gets rid of the paragraphs and I haven't as yet found out how to put them back in. So sorry that it's all bunched up in to one big sprawl, you'll have to imagine there are paragraphs there!