Understanding Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" and Planet of the Apes

At the peak of the mountain, too high to see the ground below

Lilongwe is a lot of things: capital of Malawi, geographically spread out, sans street names or proper addresses, lacking electricity, not lacking nyama on wheels (street-side hot dog stands), and extremely dark at night.  Another thing about Lilongwe is that it’s close to plenty of great day/weekend trips.  Over the last couple weeks I’ve gone on two of these.  The first was a trip for “hiking” which became more like professional mountain climbing.  The second trip was another excursion to Lake Malawi at a resort with some azungu doctors from the clinic that invited us.

The oncoming fire moving quickly in our direction

The hiking trip was highlighted by passing a group of dog herders (dog herds included), sighting of mountain deer/goat creatures (new species maybe?), avoiding raging forest fires from the west (hearing the crackling of oncoming fire is surprisingly scary), continued development of my climbing skills, and finally stunning views.  Despite many obstacles we all managed to reach the peak, so high you could barely see the ground.

Sunrise in Manguchi on Lake Malawi

The summit of Balancing Rock Mountain, this area was highly guarded by baboons

Returning to Lake Malawi brought with it new dangers, mainly baboons.  The baboons issued their first warning at our arrival breakfast where they snuck in from above and behind to grab food right off our table.  Not surprisingly they showed a particular affinity to bananas and human babies so we used one of the doctor’s children as a decoy to protect our food.  The beach was gorgeous at the resort, but the sand got blazing hot around noon and when I joined in on a local beach soccer game I was nearly brought to tears at the pain before our team thankfully scored to end the game.  The resort had kayaks which Mel and I used to paddle out and have races with fishermen as they laid their nets.  Note: none of them accepted our challenge to race to Mozambique and back.  I then found myself in a familiar bare-footed rock climbing position as Mel and I summated Balancing Rock Mountain.  Unfortunately for us the top is guarded by wild packs of baboons and we were surrounded by at least 20 of them.  At first it was just cute little baboons wrestling with each other, climbing trees, and fondling themselves.  However, the leaders (and giants) of the group soon emerged and I quickly understood why Planet of the Apes totally made sense.  Luckily all they asked for (in perfect English) was a Grassroot Soccer t-shirt which Mel and I promised to bring them when we returned.

Preparing for aerial dismount to steal food

Beach Soccer

Leaving the resort we were not out of danger yet though.  Gas (both diesel and petrol) remains in extremely short supply and about three hours into a four-and-a-half hour ride back our fuel light went on just as the sun was setting.  We’d passed two gas stations in the last hour and neither had petrol for the car.  Things were getting desperate.  Ally, our driver/MD, had already been taken by stress and handed me the wheel, unable to cope with the falling gas meter.  Now on empty, with kilometers passing between anything resembling a town all our knuckles were white with worry.  Our manager, Meagan, was on call to rush to our rescue with the jerry can of Petrol stored in our laundry room and Mel had even stopped making bad jokes.  Luckily Mike, MD/Zoolander hair, spotted a station hidden behind a pub off the side of the road.  We approached fearing the worst but luckily our luck had turned and we filled up just in time.  Unfortunately, the sun still set before we reached Lilongwe and since the roads are all lightless, single-lane, and only like 75% of the cars use lights there were a couple scares while passing vehicles as Ally had to give herself a dose of morphine after screaming bloody murder when I briefly put us on course for a head-on collision with a motorcycle (totally had it under control).

When in Malawi...

The hiking and lake crew from L to R (Mike, Mel, Ally, Laura, Me)