Upon finishing Peace Corps service my friends and I had arranged some travel to go out with a bang. For me, this COS trip was the chance to get to see some of the amazing things I'd missed in South Africa, and also to get to see other Southern African countries. It was such an adventure, filled with equal parts amazing and scary.
Safari at Kruger National Park
The first stop was somewhere I had wanted to see since
arrival in South Africa. While I got to
see a lot of cool animals at Addo Elephant Park in the Eastern Cape, I had
never been on a proper safari (in the open air vehicle, with a guide, all that
jazz). It was a blast! We saw tons of really cool animals (even
glimpsed the top of a lion’s head).
Seeing a rhino in the wild was my favorite because they are so rare,
massive, and crazy looking. They look like dinosaurs - it's unbelievable! I also loved seeing the hippos for the same
reason. Both are just really huge and
bizarre looking animals, it’s pretty amazing to see them in the wild.
Mozambique
With my PC friend Sam and her two friends visiting from
Seattle we left Kruger and headed to Mozambique to check out the famous
beaches. Maputo was our first stop and a
starting point before our final destination of Tofo. Maputo honestly didn't leave me with a very
good impression. It was a pretty dirty
city, with lots and lots of massive potholes on the streets and the sidewalks
(which I had the pleasure of trying to avoid in our rental car).
The trip to Tofo took us through the countryside of
Mozambique where seeing plastic bags of cashews hanging from branches on the
side of the road was typical (and so was someone practically running in front
of your car to try and sell you them!).
We had a few run-ins with the local Moz police while driving. Luckily none of them fined us, and despite
all the warnings and horror stories we didn't have to bribe anyone. Tofo is a TINY little beach village with some
pretty amazing spots. The tacos at one restaurant/diving
shop were incredible! The market was
really cool, and the place we stayed was pretty awesome too. It was quite a ways down the beach so we had
it to ourselves since it was "off" season. This place is so off the beaten path it's
pretty amazing that they get as many tourists as they do - but it was definitely
worth it! So beautiful!
Our trip in Moz was cut a day short due to a flat tire on
our car rental, which we got patched by two sixteen year old boys who spoke not
a word of English (but did a great patch job!).
We ended our trip with a visit to my friend Sam's Peace Corps site in
Kwa-Zulu Natal. She had the opportunity
to visit my site when she came to help me with my Camp GLOW and I had always
wanted to see hers. It was great to be
able to put faces to names and see where she spent her two years!
Malawi
Next on our trip list was Malawi. For this portion of the travel I was with my
friend Sami (not to be confused with Sam).
We had purchased our 36 hour bus tickets up to Lilongwe and met in Joburg
the night before we took off. Talk about
an interesting bus ride. First, we were
the only white people (which we were totally used to, but I'm pretty sure they
all thought we were crazy). Second, we
had the least luggage out of everyone and literally a semi-truck sized trailer
was being pulled by our bus to accommodate all of the "luggage"
everyone was bringing back to their families in Malawi. Third, for what felt like the entire 36
hours, horrible movies/music videos played.
Some points they blared the music so loud you had no choice but to
watch. My favorite were the music videos
like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13G7nekKkbk.
The bus ride took all day and night Saturday and we had to
go through two boarders before Malawi (Zimbabwe and Mozambique). At the Mozambican boarder we had to pay a ridiculous
amount that we are 100% positive they just made up (since no signs were posted
saying how much it was, and I had just crossed into Mozambique the week before
at a different boarder where the prices WERE posted, and they were less). They were also incompetent and racist - a
great combination. They refused to help
any of the white people who came after us, and we're convinced the only reason
they helped us is because our bus attendant talked to them for us. They also put the wrong name on my friend’s
visa - the last person who had gotten a visa before her was apparently named
Michael so on her visa that's what it said!
Of course upon exiting the country they didn’t even notice that the name
on her visa didn’t match the name on her passport (luckily!).
Once we arrived in Malawi we only had a bit further to go
before we got to our destination, Lilongwe.
We ended up getting onto a mini bus taxi though and ditching our big bus
for the last part of the trip because at the boarder we were stopped and the
authorities were going to look through all of the cargo (remember the semi-truck
sized trailer we had at the back?). It
had to be emptied and it was all gone through - it was going to take literally
hours. A German lady we met who was
traveling back on our bus (she got on in Zimbabwe) told us she always just
leaves the bus here and takes a mini bus to Lilongwe. So we joined her in the hopes of getting to
Lilongwe before dark. Long story short:
we arrived after dark, Sami got into a physical altercation because a man was
trying to pick pocket from my backpack in the overly crowded taxi rank area, we
arrived at the backpackers our friend had made a reservation at a few weeks
before to find it closed (permanently), and had to find a new place to stay -
in the dark, in a city we had never been to before. Luckily many Malawians speak English so it
wasn't a huge problem and our taxi driver got us to a different
backpackers. Crisis averted (kind of).
The next day Sami and
I spent the morning visiting the Peace Corps office in Lilongwe to attempt to
get me a yellow fever card (the WHO International Travel card which is
generally yellow - which you need with proof that you've had the yellow fever
shot to cross certain boarders - like getting back into SA). I HAD the yellow fever shot (you need it for
South Africa) but I had lost my card at the Mozambican boarder the first time I
crossed it. Of course. So the whole morning we're at the medical
office of PC Malawi and they are trying to contact PC South Africa for my
records. They were apparently busy that
morning in SA because it took them hours to let them know that they had already
sent all my records to DC.
GAHHHHHH. The thing we got out of
it though was a ride with PC to another point in Malawi that would get us
closer to Nkhata Bay (our destination which was supposedly only four hours away
by car, but which PCVs assured us would take us all day to get to – they were
right).
They had told us that we should hitch hike to the city
Mzuzu, which is the largest city close to Nkhata Bay. So the travel was: Lilongwe to Mzuzu to
Nkhata Bay. Long story short: hitch
hiking didn't work out, AWESOME Peace Corps Malawi staff went out of their way
to help us, and without them we would have been stranded in the middle of
no-where Malawi, and we ended up on a bus to Mzuzu. We arrived in Mzuzu several hours later after
dark at which point we got a taxi. We
had been talking to our friend Anise who was already in Nkhata Bay with her
friend Jorgen waiting for us to arrive.
We had originally arranged a taxi to come from there to get us, but
decided there would be plenty at the taxi rank by the buses and it would be
cheaper for a ride just one way (this little detail is important to the rest of
the story).
We get in the taxi and pay him part of the total amount so
he can fill up petrol before we go. We
are a good thirty minutes into our drive (now remember it's night and this is
middle of no-where Malawi so it is PITCH BLACK outside). We're driving through these winding roads in
what appears to be the middle of a jungle but since we can't see anything, we
have no idea. All of a sudden Freddy's
headlights go off, which is bizarre because it's PITCH BLACK OUTSIDE. I notice this and say "Hey Freddy, how
come the lights are out?" - silence.
I ask again. Silence. One more time...the reply is a soft
laugh. At this point my thoughts are:
I'm going to die, this was a setup, and he’s going to kill us on this road in
Malawi. Sami and I are looking at each
other like...ummmmm WHAT is going on?!
After a few minutes the car just slowly comes to a stop. Freddy STILL has yet to explain what's
happening and I'm getting more panicked by the second but I’m trying to stay
calm. He gets out and pops the
hood.
After him going back and forth from trying to get the car
started and going out to the engine silently he finally says "battery
problem". He then tries to jump
start it by rolling the car, but the hill is behind us, and he of course
doesn't explain what he's about to do so we start rolling backwards into the
dark - we're honestly thinking we're going to go off a cliff into
oblivion. Sami and I are holding hands
terrified and when the rolling start doesn't work we know we're in
trouble. We called Anise to let her know
what was going on (and spoke loudly and clearly so that he knew we had a friend
waiting for us at our destination). Of
course at this critical moment we run out of airtime so can't communicate from
our side with Anise anymore. We were
able to arrange to have a taxi come and meet us on the road though so we knew
someone was on their way to get us. We
ended up making it safely to Nkhata Bay but not without being a bit
traumatized. I really was
terrified. To defend the taxi driver -
he felt ashamed because his car broke down, and he was embarrassed which is why
he wasn't explaining anything. Also it
has been my experience that Africans tend to not explain ANYTHING, especially
if it's an uncomfortable or disagreeable thing (like - oh shoot - my car
battery is dying!). Instead, they avoid
and remain silent. Not a good thing when
you're a scared tourist and all you what to know is what's going on!
The good news in all of the craziness was we made to Mayoka
Village (the backpackers) and it was AMAZING.
Seriously - amazing. Mayoka
Village is on Lake Malawi, and is one of those rare places that is so cool, you
never want to leave. Their food was
AMAZING, the views were AMAZING, and the chalet we stayed in was -
AMAZING! Everything about it was so
cool. They were socially and
environmentally conscious and the place is community owned and operated. They have free excursions you can take - like
going cliff jumping into the lake (which we did - so much fun!). We were able to walk into town, see the
markets and shops, and get to experience the "Warm Heart of Africa"
(how Malawi is known). We really did
find Malawians to be incredibly friendly and helpful. They would go out of their way to help us
with things, which compared to other places is pretty unique.
We were really sad to leave Mayoka - we could have stayed
there for a full week and wanted to stay longer! We had to move on though so we left for
Tanzania.
It was hard to say
goodbye to Malawi - it had been such a great experience but we were so excited
for the next leg of our trip - Zanzibar!
We headed out to the boarder by private taxi (it was quite the
"splurge" but still ridiculously cheap...LOVE Malawi) and ended up
getting to Tanzania right before it started to get dark (after of course one of
our taxi's tires blew out on the highway and we had to stop and put on the
spare...). Each time we went to a new
destination on this trip it took us AT LEAST two full days to get there and
generally multiple things went array on the way. Once we arrived at the Tanzanian boarder we
were greeted by very eager people, ready to take advantage of us. But that's a whole different story...
