July Fourth

Yeah, right now it’s about July 12^th but still, we had a July 4^th not too long ago here.  I think you had one in the States too, but a few hours after ours was. Hahaha, time changes, but I digress.

Our party also coincided with Renee’s birthday, well almost, but it was close enough that it was a joint birthday party for America and Renee. Cassie, Shira and I also decided to take a couple extra days off and do the hike in to Ruarwe, kind of a cool lodge along the lakeshore. To get to Ruarwe you have to either hike in or take a boat, we decided we were going to hike starting at Renee’s site.  Renee lives up north…way up north.  I know you guys look at a map of Malawi and think I live up north. No. Those of you who have your ‘at home edition’ of our game handy, look at your map of Malawi, find Nkhotakota, okay, now go north to Mzuzu, now find Rhumpi and go half way between Rhumpi and Karonga.  Yeah, it’s far and it’s even farther when you don’t have a car. 

My travel day started at 5:30am and ended at 7:00pm.  After getting a bike taxi to Nkhotakota boma I started walking north and got a ride to Dwangwa, from Dwangwa I again began walking and got picked up for a little ways and then got another ride all the way to Mzuzu.  Actually he took me all the way to Ekwendeni, a little out of Mzuzu.  From there I got a minibus to the Rhumpi turnoff where I ran into two more PCVs on their way to the party, Christian and Kathi. 

I don’t remember what time it was but it was getting dark and we wanted a ride.  After quite the wait we finally we able to find an extra shoehorn to use to squeeze us into a passing minibus.  Poor Kathi had a stack of buckets in her face and got a bad leg cramp and trust me there is no way to walk that sucker out while you’re in a mini bus.  Christian was perched on that little ledge behind the driver’s seat and the guy has really long legs so I’m not exactly sure how he origami-ed himself in there but he did. 

You know how when you read about old stone work at places like Machu Picchu they archeologists are all like, “the stones all fit so closely together you couldn’t fit a razorblade between them.” That was our ride, we were the stones at Machu Picchu.

I’m sitting between this woman on my right and these two guys on my left.  It’s kind of something you have to experience but I’ll give it a shot for you.  The guys on my left aren’t sitting, they can’t, that’s how many people are in here.  They are standing in that little space between where the door closes and me, in the seat.  Since they can’t stand up all the way and can’t sit they are bent in half with their heads right next to mine.  Meh, I don’t mind, I’ve had rides like that a lot, it’s normal.  The part that sucked was that these two guys decided they needed to talk to the woman just on the other side of me but to do it in a volume that indicated she was on the dark side of the moon.  Seriously, I may have hearing damage.

Luckily though, this momentary incarceration in the rolling loony bin lasted for just under 2 hours.  I easily had another 30 min left before I would have gone nuts and started trying to fit a razor blade in the neighboring stones…I mean between, between the neighboring stones.

But wouldn’t you know it we arrived at Maji Zuwa the lodge the party was held at! Yay! It was dark and there were already a bunch of people there so we grabbed some dinner, which was good, that day had consisted of two eggs, an ice cream cone in Dwangwa and an orange from Kathi, I was hungry.  So Cassie, my tent mate and I set up overlooking the lake and crashed. 

The next couple days were simply wonderful, food, friends, music and swimming.  The swimming was a bit of a challenge though, the beach at Maji Zuwa isn’t sand, it’s smooth rock covered in algae.  You get really good at learning how to grip with your toes, or just falling over.  Falling over was actually the preferred method for getting in, you walk out and when you can’t control your standing or your swimming partners have abandoned you, you just fall over and swim the rest of the way.  Getting out was interesting, you know what seals look like when they are trying to move on land…yeah…something like that.

Anyways, over the course of the 4^th we came to learn that the ferry that goes into Ruarwe was not working, not boat ride out is not good.  Hiking back out of Ruarwe adds a few days to your trip that we didn’t have.  So we cancelled Ruarwe and the three of us decided to just go lodge hopping for a few days.  First stop; Nkhata Bay, the lodge; Mayouka.

We stayed at Mayouka for three days then hit Kande beach for a night and home after that.  It all added up to just under a week and we had a blast, we spent waaaayyyy too much money much too quickly but we enjoyed every second of it.  I hope everyone back home had a fun Fourth of July, I know we did and I look forward to spending the next one with all of you back in America!