TJ, he gone

Posted in Travel, Events, Lilongwe by Dom on August 11th, 2008

So TJ came. We had a good time. Though it started out a bit hectic. See he had decided he wanted to do something famous while he was here and after talking him out of climbing Kilimanjaro he decided he wanted to do Victoria Falls so he bought his tickets to fly out of Lusaka, Zambia instead of Malawi. So that made a lot of plans a bit awkward. I had wanted to do the lakeshore hike and maybe camp in Liwonde national park and hike Mulanje but there would be no time to get to Lusaka after all that. Once he got here he thought he wanted to go really far north but then there wouldn’t have been time for Victoria falls, we would have just had a few extra days in limbo killing time. Not the best way to vacation.

So what happened was after he flew in we stayed in Lilongwe a night and then went up to my house for a night and tried to strategize. We woke up deciding to skip Malawi and go straight to Zambia so we would have time to do both Victoria falls and South Luangwa national park. See one of our hitches just came from the park and claimed it was like being in the middle of National Geographic. So that sold TJ. We walked out to hitch around 9, a lazy morning, and then decided, yet again, that we would let fate decide. I stood on the northbound side of the road to flag at the traffic towards the lake and he stood on the southbound side to flag at traffic that would take us to Zambia. I got a ride and off to Nkhata Bay we went.

We stayed there a couple days, got a discount on a chalet because of booking confusion, sweet! Swam a lot, ate a lot, walked a lot. It was cool. We then left early to try to get to Zambia in a day. We made it. We got a hitch down the scenic lakeshore road with a South African. He had something to do with the Uranium mine in the north. He was difficult to understand. He got there in enough time to hitch out to the border and on to Chipata though, so that was cool. Chipata was cool, like a big Mzuzu, except I broke my sunglasses Jenn had brought me pretty much the instant I got there. I did find some pretty sweet replacements though as you’ll see when I can post some photos.

Anyway hung there for a night, met some people, drank some beer, the usual. In the morning we hitched out to South Luangwa. Got a truckbed ride down a 100k dirt road for a couple hours. It’s pretty hot there too for it being winter and all. This is where we encountered the only problem of the trip. The place we got dropped was booked, it being busy season and all. So we had them call around and find us someplace else, and then because there were like elephants and hippos blocking the path to the bar and everwhere else, they had to drive us to this other place the booked for us. It was called croc valley or croc farm or something. There weren’t many crocs where ever it was. We stayed there one full day, did two drives and saw pretty much everything but cheetahs and rhino. We saw elephants, hippos, crocs, buffalo, giraffe, lion, leopard, hyenas, etc. Pretty sweet. The hyena laugh still haunts my dreams, it was pretty creepy. It worked out because TJ had decided he needed to stay until we saw some lions and we saw some the second ride. Convenient when trying to get to Vic Falls. So we made some friends and got a ride back to Chipata in the back with luggage. We got there it was no hassle which was nice.

Again, stayed there a night, met some people, drank some beer, the usual. Then we hitched to Lusaka. Got a free ride with some nice locals and found the suggested hostel with open beds. Stayed there one night and decided to take a bus to Livingstone, the Zambia border town closest to the falls. It wasn’t the best choice. The 8hr bus ride was not very pleasant on the rough roads. So much so that when we left we reverted to our hitch hiking ways. But we got there and again found the suggested hostel with available beds. It was a pretty cool place. Colorful, informative, except there was a lady there that was quite rude. I heard rumors that she didn’t like the busy season. She more seemed to not like her life, but that’s just what I saw. We never spoke about it though. That place had an interesting policy of not keeping your bed unless you had paid for it; which made for some worrisome days when we forgot to pay. Fearing we would return with our stuff in the office and some random traveler in our bed. It never happened though.

The first day we missed the free transport down to the falls from the hostel and so we walked and hitched and eventually got a taxi. We had a great time. We did the normal thing walking around the park taking picturing and getting wet in the spray. Then we hiked down this path to the run-off, the first rapid, called the boiling pot. It was rocky and wet and cool. Climbed around a bit, found a little somewhat calm pool if you will and took a swim. The water was pretty cold and every now and then a big rush would flood the thing and make me fear I was being washed out to swim the rapids. Which really did look like fun, especially after hiking around under that hot Zambian sun all day. After that we decided to try to figure out how to get on the other side of the falls. We had seen, before going, there was a pool at the brink of the falls that you could swim in. While we were taking pictures we saw some people over there so we wanted to check it out ourselves. We found a rasta guide to show us the way. He took us to some nice spots for photos and then showed us the pool. It was pretty crazy. Our guide showed us some points we could jump in. And we did. They were about five or ten meters up. A good jump. We waived to the tourists on the normal side and dove in, well feet first, clenching our butt so as not to be cleansed. Again the water was cold, but invigorating, especially being so close to the falls. I’ll definitely try to post some photos when I get a chance. The only downfall to that trip was that I lost my knife. A real bummer but I figure theres no better place to lose a knife than one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Once the swimming was done, I walked over to the Zimbabwean border and got ripped off for a ten million dollar note. I think I paid the equivalent of about twenty two cents. Oh well, it’s a nice souvenir I’m told. It has an expiration date on it. A smart idea, if a bit funny I thought.

After that we hitched back. The next day we did a rafting trip. It was probably the highlight of the whole trip. It wasn’t actually rafting, it was riverboarding, you just had to go with the rafters. I had never heard of this or seen it anywhere, but what it is is they give you short fins, a boogie board, a helmet and lifejacket and you basically swim the rapids. It really made regular rafting seem like a cakewalk. The water was cold and as anyone that’s been diving with me knows, I get cold easily, I was shaking the whole time. It was awesome though, just awesome! They would pick us up and raft us over the calm sections and drop us back in right before a rapid. We’d strategize a bit with out guide and then swim as hard as we could accordingly, which was normally against the very strong current. By the end of the trip my feet just flapped behind my legs my ankles were so beat. The next day my thumbs were sore from my deathgrip the deathgrip I had on my board the whole time. I only thought I was going to die about four times too, it was great. Saw some crocodiles, unfortunately they only stayed on the shore in the sun. I thought it would be pretty funny to see one of those things flopping it’s way down those crazy rapids beside me. That river was really deep and it was crazy to feel the currents underneath. They’d pull your legs all over the place. The whole thing was just intense. Afterwards they gave us beers and lunch which went well with the breakfast they provided before the trip. We watched the video they made and got ripped off buying the photos they took. I’ll post some of those when I can too. That was pretty much day two.

Day three, there, we just walked around and hung out and recovered. Nothing too special. Went shopping in the curios, watched the new texas chainsaw massacre, and animal planet while eating lunch, weird. Then we hitched back to Lusaka the next day and TJ flew out and I hitched again, back to Chipata. In all my wisdom I left my credit cards in TJ’s bag too, so I hope they enjoy their trip to Europe.

Overall it was a great time. Back in Lilongwe now sorting out my bank stuff and preparing for COS conference. Hazah! (oh yeah, my pink eye is better.)