Iringa – Chitimba Beach

18/8/19

The night was long and difficult, complete with stomach pains and almost running to the bathroom several times. But when the morning finally came around, I was almost feeling better and had managed to keep down the modest half potato I had eaten for dinner. A slice of toast was followed by more cramps and nausea, but I felt cautiously optimistic that the worst was indeed over. Plus Pete had told me if I was still not good by tonight we would go to hospital, and that I did not want at all!

We left the campsite at 7:30 and started along another long drive section. This part was very scenically interesting as, other than the national park we had to cross once again, we then had to drive through a valley of baobab trees. Baobabs are very large trees, consisting of too much water to be used for timber but offering a lot of shade and moisture. For me, it reminded me of a musical story I used to listen to as a little girl – about a little African boy and his drum sleeping under a baobab tree and running into tricky jackals – and I had the song stuck in my head the rest of the day.

The drive itself wasn’t so long in terms of distance, but our destination was at about 1700 meters or so above sea level which meant climbing a very winding narrow mountain. Our truck has got fairly good engine power, but the same cannot be said for the other petroleum or container trucks taking this road. And with limited visibility and a lot of traffic, it meant we were stuck at a slow pace for quite some time.

We finally made it to the campsite just before 14:00 and set up our lunch tables and salads. I decided to brave a small serving of salad and pasta, which once again my stomach did not appreciate but thankfully did not throw back up. Afterwards however, the afternoon was entirely ours to rest and do as we wanted before a long drive the next day.

With no real prompting, we split up into 2 teams at this point. Half of us put up the tents for everyone in a nice small circle while the other half undertook the task of cleaning out the fridge of the truck. There was a lingering smell in the truck – unrelated to my illness the day before – and we decided it was down to the fridge. We took this opportunity to deep clean the whole truck as well, and were all very proud children when Pete returned wanting to clean out the truck and we told him we had already done it.

Most of us then took this opportunity to catch up on our reading, calmly in the shade while the last of our laundry dried on the trees. At around 17:00, we had found a makeshift map of the area around the campsite and decided to go for a walk. The map was very much not to scale, which made our trek a little more complicated than expected, but we managed some sort of walk as planned, passing by baskets of sunflower heads along the way – who knows what those are for.

Once back at the campsite, I went to try out the fabled “hot showers” of the campsite – which to my delight burned my skin! – and we proceeded to the campsite restaurant which Pete had organised for dinner tonight. Dinner was beautiful, and I risked an extra mouthful of beef – to the disagreement of my stomach once again. Still, I was feeling much better by then so no hospital!

Unfortunately once the sun had gone down, the reality of the altitude hit us hard. We scrambled onto the bus to grab jumpers and socks ready for the short but cold night awaiting us as our final farewell to Tanzania.

19/8/19

The night was definitely cold and I reassumed my human cocoon position from the Ngorongoro cater to get me through. By 4:30, the tents were down, we had had breakfast, made a packed lunch and were on our way for our full day of driving.

Fun fact about the truck: there is no heating! As we all tried to get comfortable to finish sleeping off the night, we were positively freezing. By the time we had reached our first toilet stop, half the bus had braved their way to the lockers at the back to grab their blankets or sleeping bags. And with heads and legs sticking out from all angles the the many speed bumps on the road, that was a challenge in itself.

After the stop when the rest of us had also grabbed our blankets, we looked like a right bunch of weird eskimos. The positions to sleep became even more extravagant and honestly it’s a miracle I didn’t fall off my seats with each speed bump.

Once the sun had come up though, we began a whole new pastime: fly hunting. The campsite last night had been absolutely riddled with flies – like seriously – and the truck cleaning had unfortunately required us to open the door and windows. After dark, they had all settled for the night and work up with the sun. Hundreds of them. So we spent a solid hour of the morning opening and closing windows (it was still cold after all…) and coaxing the buzzing things into going outside.

We made it to the border around lunch time, more or less. The first part of the border was the simple exiting Tanzania, filling out forms getting the stamps, then back on the bus. We then had to drive to the Malawi side of the border which started the interesting part of this border control. We had to get passed countless trucks facing every possible direction, and were convinced we would be there all day. Somehow, we started reversing out, seeing cars trying to get through in front of us then reverse again, I’m almost certain someone got driven on, and we then barged our way through.

The Malawi part of the border was fun. We filled out a full visa form – not that they cared much since some of us forgot to sign the forms and they didn’t blink – handed our passports and yellow fever certificates and then sat and waited. The 11 of us were processed in about 45 minutes – record time really – but the truck paperwork took a solid hour and a half.

We found any way possible to kill time until Francis finally came back on board and we drove away. Welcome to Malawi! We drove about an hour until we reached a big town (the local equivalent anyway) for a quick ATM stop and to get some drinks. The heat was intense as we sat there waiting to leave and a cold soft drink made a huge difference to our day!

We only drove a couple of hours in Malawi but I can already confidently say it is an absolutely beautiful country. Possibly the prettiest one we’ve seen yet. A significant proportion of the country is occupied by Lake Malawi – the third biggest lake in Africa – which is so big that if I didn’t know Malawi was a land-locked country, I would be convinced we were looking at the ocean. Because of this, the land is very green, with many trees and complete with the mountains all around, it’s a postcard picture at every turn.

Malawi is also one of the poorest countries in Africa. They have basically no resources to mine or trade, though the land is quite fertile and they are very big on the cassava plantations and rice fields everywhere. But they are also known as the warmest heart of Africa as the people are arguably the most welcoming of this continent – understandably so when you see the amazing scenery.

Francis punched the accelerator, almost ran over a couple of people, and as promised we made it to the campsite by nightfall. The camp is directly on the lake (with that size I think everything in this country is on the lake) but to our annoyance, the camp was already pretty packed with other tour groups – including the ones we’d met at Nairobi and Arusha!

We set up our tents and then had a walk on the beach before dinner. Pete treated us to spaghetti bolognaise, which again my stomach was a bit anxious about but managed to hold down in the end. The additional tour groups however meant that for the first time we had a queue to get to the showers. This experience has confirmed my overall dislike for people basically!

20/8/19

An early start this morning, our whole group had decided to take part in the Livingstonia hike. This hike basically takes you about 16km to the top of a nearby mountain, at the top of which is a museum on David Livingstone – a very important British figure in African history. On the way to the museum, at only 11km up the mountain, is a beautiful waterfall and a cool pool for a quick swim as well.

So at 6:30, after a bacon and egg breakfast I would later regret, we left the campsite – me almost wearing thongs instead of sneakers and having to rush back on the truck to swap! Quite a few guys owning the shops outside the campsite started to walk with us, no doubt to get us to buy something from their shops, and to my surprise they just kept going to the top – anything for a sale right?

The hike was definitely tougher than the gorillas had been. Although the forest of the gorillas had proved challenging, and we had faced a lot of up and down sections of the path, we were armed with a walking stick, the ground itself was steady (for the most part anyway) and the guides stopped very regularly for a long time.

This was different. It was just ascent, constant ascent, on sand and rocks for the most part, and the breaks were few, far between and fairly short. It was all made even more interesting each time our main guide suggested we take a “shortcut”. This essentially avoided the long winding road of just ascension, but meant swapping from walking to full on mountain goat climbing!

Unfortunately for me, I had given my stomach too much credit and had thought it was better than it actually was. The breakfast had been a colossal mistake and I immediately knew when my stomach started turning. Add to that the sun and heat, and the effort of the climb, and I was positively dying. The guys walking with us kept saying to just take it slowly, take breaks, but even with that I could see myself failing.

A few others were struggling at the back with me, but I kept feeling worse and worse, needing to stop for breath hoping that would prevent me from throwing up. Eventually I reached my peek and realised I was about to pass out instead of vomiting and I called it. Found myself a rock on the side of the road to sit on and dropped my head in between my knees to breathe and either pass out or vomit.

One of the guys had stayed behind to watch over me, kept saying it was ok to just take a break and walk slowly, but I told him it would happen and I would fall any minute. He called up our main guide who came back down and said the same, but I think he quickly understood from my face that it wasn’t happening – according to TJ’s later description I looked definitely awful and my lips had gone an unnatural shade.

I asked if it was possible to get the car up to the waterfall just to finish that since I had told myself I would make it there and was very disappointed not to. He made a call and told me the car was not yet there but would start going up soon so we could hitch a ride. He left us to rejoin the group, and I was left semi-dead on my rock with my helper guy watching over me.

We must have waited about 40 minutes if not longer – even trying to hitch a ride with another guy – before the car finally arrived, parking a little further up using a rock as their anti-rolling technique. I was very happy with my decision to take the car though, as even just the 100 metre walk to the car made my almost settled stomach want to cry again.

When I say car, I do in fact mean a ute. Filled completely with 20kg bags of white sugar, and 5 people sitting on top. Malawi taxi baby! So up I went, sitting on top of a bag, feet trying to squish in between some of the other bags for support, gripping onto the bar of the cabin for dear life. Going up the mountain of sand and rocks. It shook in all possible directions, and more than once I was convinced I would fall off!

Turns out I must have made it about 65-70% of the way to the waterfall before crumbling to the floor. And no regrets about trying my hand at the crazy ute drive instead of the walk which, contrary to my guide’s claims, would have taken much more than 30 minutes! And would have killed me of course… I made it to the waterfall just after the rest of the group had reached it as well too which worked out well for everyone.

The waterfall was very beautiful, it’s almost 900 metres in total drop I believe, though through many smaller falls and rivers or pools along the way. We then walked around the corner in 2 groups to get to the pool area we could swim in. The first group went ahead in advance so they could carry on upwards to the top of the mountain and the museum, while the rest of us were going to take the car back down to be on time for our afternoon planning.

While they swam, we were taken a little further around to what they called a “cave”. Turns out it was a dug out ahead in the rock behind the falls which was used by runaway slaves to hide back in the day. The view on the valley from behind the waterfall was quite amazing, and the coolness of the cave was more than welcome. Although the path going up and down to get there made me almost regret going there despite how short the path was.

We then made it back to the pool where Jo and I got changed into our togs and decided to hop in. To say that it was cold wouldn’t be correct. The water was nothing short of “absolutely freezing”! Jo loved it but my face clearly demonstrated pure agony at the cold. The only good thing is it was so cold I think it froze my stomach in place and stopped it from feeling like crap, if only temporarily.

We made it back from the pool to the ute, which had been emptied of the sugar by now. 7 of us were going back down i the ute with the 5 or so guides coming down with us. Turns out the way down wasn’t any faster – or more comfortable! – than my way up had been. It took us about an hour to make it down the mountain, showing in great detail just how high we had actually climbed up in the end.

Once back at the camp, I still felt a bit wretched so I was happy to spend the next couple of hours just sitting ad resting a bit. At 14:00 Jo and I headed off to see a witch doctor while the others went to a wood carving lesson. The walk to the witch doctor that was “close by” took us all the way back to the start of the mountain, and thankfully we veered off instead of going up. By this time I was already dying again so I was grateful that we had finally made it.

So the witch doctor is the local village’s go-to guru man, with plenty of potions to fix all kinds of ailments, and who also tells you your future. I was psyched! He arrived dressed mostly in red, with a bandana, an open-sleeved jacket and shorts with a white cross on them. Bracelets and necklaces of course, but the most intriguing parts were the jingle bells wrapped around the ankles and a belt of metal pieces to clink together as he walked.

A few boys had been getting the drums ready for him on the side, so they brought them over ready to start a dance. He pulled out a small plastic bottle, then to my absolutely delight and shock, took a sniff in each nostril, closed his eyes and started to dance! With a staff in one hand and a whip-like stick with pieces of fur in the other, he just stood there, rapidly stamping his feet on the floor and shaking his backside. Absolutely fabulous!

After the first dance, we were told we could dance with him if we wanted as well. He turned to me mid-way through his dance, and I declined still feeling a bit rough, but sent him on to Jo who completely went for it! We were then shown the “final dance” – identical to the first 2 but hey – and he retreated to his house.

He returned with a box full of small containers and bottles, each filled with different powders or potions. Our guide acted as a translator for us as he poured a bit of his “potions” in the lids to show us. These included Love Potion number 7 and Love Potion number 9, medicines to treat headaches, constipation, wounds, good luck – which obviously needs treatment – and much more.

Question time come up and of course, our first question was what was the difference between Love Potions 7 and 9. Well, number 7 is for those searching for love to find it, whereas number 9 is for those who have love but want it stronger. How to use these? Either put it in tea, or rub it on the face, or put it in a necklace, it depends on the potion and the desired effect.

He explained to us how he became a witch doctor – which requires approval from the Chief Witch Doctor, who knew?! – and before long, it was time for the fortune telling. Jo went in first, while I tried to entertain the children who had sat next to us entranced by the dancing and potions of course. After about 5 or so minutes, it was my turn.

He sat me down, took another sniff of his bottle in each nostril, and then, through our translator, began to talk about my life as it is currently and my future. What can I say? It’s very much like a psychic reading: you can interpret it in your own way and believe it or not. He was on point about certain things, though most were either obvious or so easily applied to one’s life that it’s hard to tell for sure the legitimacy of the reading. So I guess if, as predicted, I do return to Africa following my marriage and the birth of my son and daughter, I’ll come interrogate him further!

On the way back to camp, we ran into those learning to wood carve – or rather being shown how to wood carve and picking at the small bits themselves – and I found the shop of the guy who had sat with me for so long to watch over me while waiting for the car. As a “thank you” I agreed to buy a couple of bracelets and gave him a tip, and promptly returned to camp for a nice hot shower.

The others returned a bit later from the rest of the hike, looking thrilled but absolutely dead from the 35km or so they had just walked – and especially climbed. I’m disappointed I didn’t make it to the top to see the museum, which was apparently quite interesting, but as it gave me a chance for the witch doctor visit, I can’t completely complain – except for the nausea that is.

Pete and Francis made another amazing dinner, but unfortunately my stomach still was not recovered and, despite have skipped lunch already, I couldn’t handle more than a few mouthfuls of rice. Pete started explaining that the campsite tomorrow will be completely crazy however, including a homemade fruit punch apparently, so I’m very hopeful I’ll finally be in shape for a least a small drink and some fun tomorrow!