I was debating what to do for Christmas with the office closed for a week, limited funds, and no desire to spend too much time on busses. There are 2 other Crisis Corps Volunteers who did their Peace Corps assignments in Malawi. They invited me to join them for a trip to Malawi. Bill, Meghan and I left Lusaka at 6 a.m. on Christmas Eve to head first to Chipata, still in Zambia, then to take a shared taxi to the border, to take another shared taxi to the nearest town, and then a minibus to Lilongwe. A bit gruelling, but we reached our destination before dark and settled in to the Peace Corps transit house after a Christmas Eve feast of burgers and chips. The house was empty aside from one volunteer whose planned trip to Zambia was postponed due to stomach troubles.
Bill and Meghan had turned in when this other volunteer came in with a wide eyed look and a question of what to do about a certain guest hovering near his backpack. It was a hairy, fat tarantula, probably 4 inches long. I watched to make sure it didn’t make any moves into the backpack, while he went and got a security guard who used his club to bludgeon it to death. Thank goodness for security!
The next morning we hit the road around 7 to head to Senga Bay. This involved taking 2 minibuses packed to the rim with people and goods, then hopping into the back of a pickup truck, followed by a bicycle taxi. This was my first time to experience the latter. Skinny boys with rickety bikes have a padded plank on the back of the bike and they transported us with our packs and all for about a dollar the final kilometres to the lake. I have to admit, I was pretty terrified and felt really bad for the poor guy straining to transport my bulk! Unfortunately, the first place we went to had no rooms available so we had to take the bike taxis one more time. On the sandy potholed roads with speeding cars passing occasionally, I was really not sure we’d reach our destination. This was Meghan’s first time away from home for Christmas but she pointed out it didn’t really feel like Christmas lugging our packs around in sweltering heat. We finally were checked into a room which we were given at a substantial Peace Corps discount, cleaned up a bit, and headed for something to eat.
We apparently had found a very popular place for Malawians to have their Christmas dinner. After 2 hours and multiple enquiries, we finally had something to eat, by which time I was really grumpy! My festive entry was vegetable curry (green bean and potato) with rice. They had no dessert, no chocolate, no ice cream---nothing. IMAGINE! Christmas without sweets!!!! I had a 15 cent box of stale animal crackers for dessert. Talk about not feeling like Christmas!
We walked on the beach for a little while but before long it started to rain so we went back and watched tv in the room….a rare treat although we lost reception through much of the film we were trying to watch due to the storm.
Bill headed back to Lilongwe the next day and Meghan went to her Peace Corps village to see some kids she is supporting to go to boarding school. I went to see about some activities on the lake, particularly hiking and sailing. On my way, I encountered a hotel employee who was so concerned the people would overcharge me for a sailboat. He connected me to a friend who said it was $40 for 3 hours….out of my price range. Instead I went hiking with another friend of his for $8. This is a lot of money in Malawi. Later I found out I was being scammed, but luckily it was just for the $8 and not the $40! I went on a really nice hike in the hills with stunning views of the lake. Bouldering down the hill in the heat wasn’t quite so much fun. The guide took me to his sisters for lunch of nshima (corn meal porridge), fish and beans. What I really wanted….a bowl of ice cream! A hot lake shore without ice cream just didn’t seem right! No diet coke either although soda water sufficed on that one.
I was really tired by the time I got home but did stop and book the one sailboat (catamaran) in the area…which is $10 an hour….for the next day. So Tuesday I went for a quick morning sail before hitching a ride to town to catch a minibus to Blantyre and Mount Mulanje. Also on the bus were two German aid workers who were also headed to Mount Mulanje but a day after me.
I reached Blantyre around 5… a backpacker with a popular bar and good food but really smelly dorm rooms. I shared a room with a chatty Peace Corps Volunteer from Namibia. Despite the smell, I managed to get a good nights sleep before heading to Mount Mulanje.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Some by Train….
Some by fuel truck!
The Tazara Railway runs between a town a couple hours north of Lusaka called Kapiri Mphshi and Dar es Salaam. This is the most popular way people travel to Tanzania and being a bit of a train fan myself, I’d planned on doing this since I came. When it came to actually going, the 24 hour trip by bus sounded better than 2-1/2 days by train….not to mention the people I spoke to who’d spent an extra 23 hours on a broken down train in the middle of nowhere!
Coming back, I did hope to take the train but it only makes the routes on certain days and it would have meant staying in Dar waiting a couple days and I had done what I wanted to do and was ready to return to Zambia. Maura and I thought we were being slick taking a bus from Moshe to a town fairly close to the Zambian and Malawian borders where she was going. We quickly noticed that the bus was travelling the same route we’d came on, just passing a short distance outside of Dar. We did save maybe an hour on the bus, and spending another night in Dar which we weren’t that keen on, so it was ok. We were just disappointed that we didn’t get to see other scenery and the bus was a lot less pleasant than the bus which goes from Dar to Lusaka.
I got to the Zambian border at about 9 the next morning and when I found out that the earliest bus to Lusaka didn’t leave until 6:30 p.m. I decided hitching would be the best way to get home. One little problem…there was very little traffic! The only vehicles that passed were either local, or fuel trucks carrying petrol to meet Zambia’s ongoing fuel crisis. Just when I was going to give up and go to wait for the bus, a fuel truck came by with a driver and his assistant. They agreed to take me on board and the adventure began.
The scenery through northern Zambia was different from what I’d seen before and I was glad I managed to find one of the few ways to actually travel through during daylight hours. It was also one more cultural experience! We stopped very frequently to make sure other truckers parked on the side of the road were ok. Also, not only were most of the people we encountered spoke Swahili. All the way to Kapiri Mposhi it felt more like Tanzania than Zambia. We even ate at a West Africa restaurant in the evening…well, I did. The driver was Muslim and observing Ramadan, so he drove the entire day with no food or drink until about 6 when he had some tea, chipati and samosas.
When it got dark and I couldn’t enjoy the scenery any more, I crawled in back, finished my book, and fell sound asleep on the nice soft bed. They woke me up at about 11 p.m. when we reached the town where they were diverging from my destination. They had met another trucker headed to Lusaka who had agreed to pick me up there. They left me at a restaurant where the owner, again east African, agreed to make sure I was ok. I enjoyed chai tea and chipatis while I waited, waited, and waited. The other driver never arrived, so when the restaurant closed at 2 a.m., they took me to a guest house their family owns. It was a simple room with outhouses in the back and cost less than $3.
The next morning I caught a bus to Lusaka and was home by midday, happy to have enjoyed a great trip, and to have had such an interesting trip home having met some great people who helped me get home safely and securely!
The Tazara Railway runs between a town a couple hours north of Lusaka called Kapiri Mphshi and Dar es Salaam. This is the most popular way people travel to Tanzania and being a bit of a train fan myself, I’d planned on doing this since I came. When it came to actually going, the 24 hour trip by bus sounded better than 2-1/2 days by train….not to mention the people I spoke to who’d spent an extra 23 hours on a broken down train in the middle of nowhere!
Coming back, I did hope to take the train but it only makes the routes on certain days and it would have meant staying in Dar waiting a couple days and I had done what I wanted to do and was ready to return to Zambia. Maura and I thought we were being slick taking a bus from Moshe to a town fairly close to the Zambian and Malawian borders where she was going. We quickly noticed that the bus was travelling the same route we’d came on, just passing a short distance outside of Dar. We did save maybe an hour on the bus, and spending another night in Dar which we weren’t that keen on, so it was ok. We were just disappointed that we didn’t get to see other scenery and the bus was a lot less pleasant than the bus which goes from Dar to Lusaka.
I got to the Zambian border at about 9 the next morning and when I found out that the earliest bus to Lusaka didn’t leave until 6:30 p.m. I decided hitching would be the best way to get home. One little problem…there was very little traffic! The only vehicles that passed were either local, or fuel trucks carrying petrol to meet Zambia’s ongoing fuel crisis. Just when I was going to give up and go to wait for the bus, a fuel truck came by with a driver and his assistant. They agreed to take me on board and the adventure began.
The scenery through northern Zambia was different from what I’d seen before and I was glad I managed to find one of the few ways to actually travel through during daylight hours. It was also one more cultural experience! We stopped very frequently to make sure other truckers parked on the side of the road were ok. Also, not only were most of the people we encountered spoke Swahili. All the way to Kapiri Mposhi it felt more like Tanzania than Zambia. We even ate at a West Africa restaurant in the evening…well, I did. The driver was Muslim and observing Ramadan, so he drove the entire day with no food or drink until about 6 when he had some tea, chipati and samosas.
When it got dark and I couldn’t enjoy the scenery any more, I crawled in back, finished my book, and fell sound asleep on the nice soft bed. They woke me up at about 11 p.m. when we reached the town where they were diverging from my destination. They had met another trucker headed to Lusaka who had agreed to pick me up there. They left me at a restaurant where the owner, again east African, agreed to make sure I was ok. I enjoyed chai tea and chipatis while I waited, waited, and waited. The other driver never arrived, so when the restaurant closed at 2 a.m., they took me to a guest house their family owns. It was a simple room with outhouses in the back and cost less than $3.
The next morning I caught a bus to Lusaka and was home by midday, happy to have enjoyed a great trip, and to have had such an interesting trip home having met some great people who helped me get home safely and securely!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Arusha and Kiliminjaro
As I said in the last entry, we came back from the safari and stayed in Arusha, and woke up to stunning views of Mt. Mehru. Femke had to get to Nairobi to fly back to Holland and Maura and I were going to Moshe that afternoon, so we had a number of things to arrange before we left.
After buying bus tickets, checking email,… we visited the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which is taking place right there in Arusha and open to people who want to observe. You have to go through a security check point and leave your passport. You then have a choice of which trial to listen to. We were advised that the 3 rd floor was a high profile person and would be most interesting, but when we got up there, it was closed to the public. We went downstairs where we were given a headset, and pointed to benches where you can sit an observe through one way mirrors. You could choose which language you wanted to listen to, but the attorney speaking was French. There were a number of people in the courtroom…the UN judges, interpreters, and I don’t know who all. You couldn’t see the man who was testifying as they were behind another one way mirror. The trial we sat in on was for 3 former Senior officials from the Interim government of Rwanda – Edouard Karemera, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, and Joseph Nzirorera. They are charged with seven counts including conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, genocide, alternatively complicity in genocide, rape and extermination as crimes against humanity, and serious violations of the Geneva Conventions. All three pled not guilty.
The attorney was interviewing someone who had known one of the men before the genocide and was making the point that he had done good things and were these the actions of someone who could commit such crimes against humanity. I think that’s the whole point of the genocide though….people who had been good, who had been friends and neighbours and done good things, went crazy with racism and hatred.
Afterwards, we wandered around town as my friends wanted to do a bit more shopping. Then we went our separate ways, with Femke heading to Nairobi and Maura and I heading to Moshe, the town near Kiliminjaro.
Moshe is probably my favourite town in Africa so far. It’s fairly small, has a variety of shops such as your Indian shops, market stalls, craft shops… It has great Indian food restaurants for a low price. The guesthouse we stayed in was clean with crisp white sheets. You’re in the shadow of Kiliminjaro. Best of all, it’s a lovely cool fresh mountain air climate. Heaven for an Oregon girl stifled by the dusty heat of Africa!
There were some people offering tours around Kili for around $70 but we decided to strike out on our own the next day. Sure, we didn’t get the cute little boxed lunch or a guide to accompany us on the mini bus, but we saved $30 each. Just to get into the park you pay $30. All fees were due to double in the new year. Then you have to hire a guide for $20. We were just going to the first level which wasn’t too strenuous. Unfortunately, cloud cover which later gave way to rain, meant we saw less of the mountain than we saw from town. I had previously wanted to climb the whole mountain, but I’m glad I did a day trip first because it ended any desire to do it. It’s too expensive, it’s too populated, and the views going up don’t seem that remarkable. We met one young woman from the UK who had spent her $800 but got altitude sickness and had to give it up. She said she really hadn’t been prepared for the strenuous nature of the trek. Clearly other people also had little awareness of what they were doing because we saw people with inappropriate gear, porters who had to carry peoples large wheeled suitcases on their head because the hikers obviously didn’t realize that a backpack might be more appropriate for such a journey. When they get to the summit I guess they hike from like 4:30 in the morning. If they reach the top and it is cloudy, they still have to start down to keep to the schedule. Anyway, it’s something great to be able to say you did, but I think it’s one I’ll remove from my list of must do’s. I did enjoy the one day…enjoyed the forest, the mountain air, the singing birds, the unique plants and flowers. Then finishing it off with a nice hot curry in town…perfect!
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