After a week of our travel to Malawi we are back to Sophie! I didn’t introduce myself last time, but I’m one on the project leads for Malawi. Today was our break day, we got to hike Zomba Plateau. We finally have some pictures attached again!
Last night, we arrived at our campsite on the Zomba Plateau, cooked dinner, and went to sleep for the earliest night so far (11 pm). Despite this, nobody wanted to get up in the morning due to the rain. We ate breakfast, made sandwiches to eat on our hike, and set off! Costa told us to leave between 8 and 9 but we didn’t leave until 9:30, which came back to bite us later that day.
As we set off, our guide Costa told us that the hike would be 17 kilometers, roughly 10.5 miles. We set off excited to see Malawi’s beauty and be back by 4 pm. Luckily, it was only 7 km uphill, and downhill or across the plateau’s ridge for the rest.
As we hike up the mountain, we saw beautiful flowers and rainforest, with a layer of fog covering the whole forest. While the fog was cool in the forest, we were sad when we finally got to the top and there was no view. But this did not get us too down, and we ate our (nut less) Nutella, jelly, and sun butter sandwiches at the peak.
As the hike went on, we chatted about many things and got to know each other even better. We also played the game “Contact” until Gordon got tired of us playing. At some points, the fog lifted enough to look out, and the views were amazing. One of the stops was Chimbwe’s hole, a 75-meter-deep hole, that we saw 2 guys climbing into. We looked, but didn’t get too close.
As we went on, we realized it was nearing 4 and we were nowhere near the end. Costa assured us it’d be okay, and we’d get back safely but kept telling us numbers that were a little shorter than reality. In the end, we ended up going 18.5 miles (roughly 30 km)! We didn’t get back until 6:45 pm, with the last 2 miles in the dark. Luckily, we packed the 10 essentials for hiking, so we had our headlamps to guide us back!
When we got back, we all collapsed at our tent after our long, long day. After giving our feet a quick break, we got to work cooking dinner in the dark (again). We split into teams with me and Adda peeling and chopping our sweet potatoes and carrots, Natasha and Hudson washing and cooking the rice porridge, and Annie and Gordon washing dishes and doing whatever else needed to be done.
We all cooked and ate dinner around the fire cookstove tonight, which was very fun and kept us a little warmer. The campground dog has been following us around during our time here and cozied up next to the fire as well. As cute as she was, we aren’t allowed to touch any animals while we’re here. Instead, Natasha used a stick the pet the dog, and they both seemed to be very happy with the situation.
Splitting up into the “cool tent” (Gordon, Natasha, and Hudson) and the subsequently named “hot tent” (me, Adda, and Annie) we got to sleep around 11 for the last 2 days ahead!
Side note— we found Natasha’s phone! It turns out it had been in my bag instead of hers all along—oops!