July 8, 2004
Technically, there is no secret PC handshake, but as David points out, the lingo is just as good. We met Dakota, an education volunteer in Monkey Bay, on the minibus from Liwonde town yesterday. As he and David were chatting during an unexpected stop (caused by my sudden and desperate need to use a bathroom, any bathroom), the PC connection came up and he invited us to stay at the PC transit house here in Lilongwe. We're camping, still, but have made shameless use of their kitchen and hot showers, which is nice.
So, more interestingly, we've been to Zomba plateau, for some nice hiking and to Liwonde National Park, which was amazing! We had our first monkey encounter on Zomba with a lone Blue monkey, which scared all three of us. Much more exciting than seeing them in the zoo. We also went to a trout farm on the plateau, which was interesting. Trout (rainbow, by the way) are not native to Malawi. They were introduced by the British at the turn of the century, but they seem well suited to the colder streams of the plateau and Mulanje mountain. They don't live in the lake, so there's no disturbance of the chombe (a native fish) or chitilids (several different species of native fish).
Liwonde was beautiful, though we didn't see either elephants (David's desire) or black rhinos (mine). We did, however, camp next to the river and listened to hippos chortling all night. We went on a boat safari and an early morning walk with a guide and an armed guard (to protect us against cranky bull buffaloes and elephants). In addition to a couple antelope species (the Sable is beautiful!) we also saw several species of birds (including the racket-tailed roller), which was fun. Papa may be pleased by our ornithological knowledge, yet!
To get to Liwonde, we ended up walking about 15 kms from Ulongwe village. In a way, the walk was more exciting than the park, but this time it was the two of us who were very much on display, rather than animals. David remarked that it was like being TV for the several hundred people we passed. Mostly it was the kids who were so excited: for about half the walk we had a following of 10-15 kids, peaking at 30 when we were rushed just outside a primary school. Talking didn't seem to be the point of following us, mostly I think, it was to see if we'd do anything odd (which happened when David took off his boot to inspect a blister). We were probably so interesting because most people drive into the park, take a boat transfer (the park is on the huge, sluggish Shire river), or, if they do come from Ulongwe, take bike taxis. We decided our way was better, though, because other than feeling a tad freakish, we met a lot more people and saw several dozen small villages.
We're in Lilongwe, now, but leave tomorrow for the Vwaza Marsh nature reserve, after which we head to Malawi's two main islands: Likoma and Chimzulu. We'll be "stranded" for about a week due to the ferry schedule, but have some good books to read.
