Day: July 19, 2017

Day 12- Back to Malawi

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This morning we got up and Meg, Holly and I went to go run some errands. We had breakfast at the hostel, they had hard boiled eggs! I was so excited. I haven’t been able to get hard boiled eggs here at all. This was exciting for me. We got a tuk-tuk and headed to buy bus tickets for later that day. We are getting a 12:00 bus to Mzuzu and we needed to buy our tickets. It was literally one woman sitting at a green plastic table in a parking stall of a parking lot. So bizarre. We bought our tickets, got in the tuk tuk and headed back to the Chitenje market to pick up our clothes we had made at the beginning! We went to the tailor, looked at them, and took them to Peace Corps to try them on. Holly had to get some medicine from her doctor as well, she had been feeling even more sore and worse than me. She grabbed her medicine and we all tried on all of the Chitenje for each other to figure out what we still needed to be fixed. I definitely need all my pants to be taken in in the leg, and one dress in at the waist. One of my other dresses was perfect! We love them so much. We got that all sorted out and decided that Holly was going to go back to the hostel (she really was not feeling well) and Meg and I were gonna drop the clothes back off at the tailor to get fixed while we were gone. 


We dropped off Holly and got to the market. Meg and I went in, dropped it off, I bought another 2 meters to use for a cork board at school, and Holly called asking where we were. We jumped back in the tuk tuk, got two more tuk tuks and went back to Crown, the hostel. Meg and I got there, grabbed our bags, as everyone was also checking out, and we got in the tuk tuks and headed to the bus. We got the bus and there were so many people! Bec and Holly ran to the store to grab snacks (as our lunch) and the rest of us loaded the bus up and got seats. Every seat was packed and they were tiny seats. We all were sitting pretty separate from each other. I was in an aisle seat, next to some old man.


This was the longest bus ride, ever. Sitting cramped with this stiff neck/back was the absolute worst. We left at noon and did not arrive to Mzuzu until 5:30. We finally got to Mzuzu and got a taxi to Joys, the hostel we were staying at. Holly was not having life at this point and started bartering with the taxi drivers who wanted us to pay way too much, and eventually she just gave up and we got in one and went. Joys was cute and they had so many dogs! All the cute dogs to play with. We put our stuff down and walked to Umunthu, another hostel to have dinner. Everyone says it is the best dinner. And oh my god, it was. Another Peace Corps volunteer was there, uh….. Brimble I think his name was. His last name. With one of his friends, Ben, who is originally from Seattle but has currently been a journalist the last four years in Israel. We all grabbed beers, ordered food, and started playing Phase 10.


Oh my gosh. When we asked Brimble and Ben if they wanted to play Phase 10, Ben responded very strongly and was like “I hate phase 10! I tried to avoid it at all costs” and everyone was clearly thinking like…”Whoa dude…just a game” Brimble then asked about the game, finally realizing it was a card game. Turns out, Brimble and Ben thought we said FACE TIME. We all started busting up. Asking Brimble, what did he think we were going to do, FaceTime each other and turn our backs and talk??? Like what?? We were dying. Ben said he definitely heard FaceTime too- and of course we inquired as to why someone could have such strong feelings about hating FaceTime. We died. Then we taught them Phase 10 and played during food and drinks. Holly and I had the best dinner. We split a three cheese peppaew, salad, and fries. It tasted like the best thing we have eaten this entire trip. It was amazing. 


We played late into the night, finally all of us walking back to Joys and Brimble and Ben heading to wherever they were staying. We got back, I blogged for a bit, and then everyone crashed. 
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Day 11- Zambia

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This morning we got up as planned for our morning drive. We went and had breakfast, which was even more delicious. During breakfast, a server came to us and told us our safari driver was in the back. We were confused. Then we realized it must have been Mophy. Holly. Immediately asked our server, who was lovely, to get his manager because he wants to talk to him. We finish breakfast, head out front, only to find the manager out there with a man we don’t recognize. Apparently, Mophy had hired a driver to come pick us up. The manager of Croc Valley was not having it. He told the driver to call Mophy, which he did, and the driver gave the manager the phone. He told Mophy that we were not getting into the car with his driver, but getting into their car and that we would be back and 10 and that Mophy can meet us then. They hung up. 


Apparently Mophy has done this many times before, dropped people off late at night and then picked them up very early and not paid. The manager told us he got us a private car and we got in. Our drivers name was Akim and he too, was just as fabulous as Simon. We headed out, with Bec and Mitch singing some Lion King tunes to keep us awake. The Lion Sleeps Tonight to be exact. It was too early for any of us to be awake, so we found this very entertaining. 


Guess what we saw first? Elephants! More beautiful elephants. Only one of them was missing a tusk. Akim believes this is probably a result of just fighting to break food off and eat it, the tusk got worn down and broke. We saw loads more of impalas. It was amazing to watch Akim and his tracking skills. Things I know but did not think about. He was watching where vultures were circling in the sky, watching the way impalas were moving and jumping, and following prints on the ground. We were driving and all of the sudden Akim jeers to the right and speeds up. He says that there must be a leopard on the other side of the flatland. When we asked how he could tell (as the impala were standing still-it appeared) and he said that though the impala were not moving, the impalas that who were essentially the scouts (so only a few of them) were jumping up and down. This is how the impala alert the others that there is a predator near. We raced over and low and behold- we found a leopard! It was so incredibly fun. We followed her around. He told us that this particular leopard was a daughter of Alice- one of the parks oldest leopards, who had passed away. We followed her around for a bit, seeing if we could watch where she goes. We drove around for a bit, saw more of the variety of birds the park is home to, and drove by some of the whitest of white people on a safari. I too a photo of them because it made me laugh. THEN came across the most RANCID stench of all time.


The hippo carcass!


The very one we saw the night before. We could smell it this morning and it was AWFUL. We pull up to so many cars and finally get a look. There are about 10 lions around and eating this hippo carcass. It was insane! Two male lions and probably about 6-8 female lions. Eating, laying around sleeping, just in and around this hippo. It was gross and amazing all at the same time. We stayed there for a while, watching all of this go down. I had my binoculars out so we could all get an even closer view. 

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We left the lions to see another elephant, more impalas, and lots of zebras and hippos. We had a blast with Akim. We asked him loads of questions about his job, his time in Zambia, and animals. He was insanely knowledgeable about the wildlife present in the park. He told us his family was part of the tribes that were indigenous to the lands that now cover the national park. Back in the 30’s I think he said, there was a bad case of leprosy throughout the area so people began to leave. Eventually, they cleared everyone out and decided to declare the area a national park to preserve the animal life. He has spent his whole life around the animals and has been a guide for the park since the 90’s. He loves his job. We stopped to have tea and biscuits again, this time with just a view of the river and some elephant bones, which is where he shared all of this. 
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We left the park and on our way back turning onto the road to our hostel, a truck with POLICE written on it turned in front of us. We knew this had to do with Mophy. We arrived back to see the manager and Mophy sitting at a table. We see the police walk up and now there are alike 6 people from the police department, Mophy, and the manager. We walked up hesitant, to say the least. The manager told us to wait and he would be with us. Meg went to the bathroom, Holly and Bec went to go put things down, Mitch and I decided to play pool on the tiniest pool table of all time. Of all time, because it looks like instead of making a standard size pool table, they made one suitable for kids, but are using it for adults. We had to hunch over far, which was not fun with my stiff neck I have had for two days now. Poor Mitch was leaning all the way over. I lost, hard. The billiard balls were awful and the table was off balance! Lol! When Holly and Bec walked away, we all saw across the pool where they were headed, Axon! They stopped to talk to him for a while. Mitch and I also ran back to the rooms only to find giraffes near our site in the distance!
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The manager called us over and asked us to say what we needed to Mophy. Holly went off. She gave this great first speech that I wanted applaud afterwards. She basically just told Mophy about how he was screwing us over, taking our money, taking advantage of this place, these people, us, etc. Mophy at first tried to talk and started with “No, no, you see” and Holly was like “Don’t tell me no! You can’t tell me I don’t feel how I feel” and went off again. Mophy was quiet. The manager and all the police deceives sitting around were quiet and just looking around, away, anywhere but at Mophy and Holly. Ultimately, Holly told him she did not feel comfortable driving in a car with him and did not want to see him anymore. She explained we wound find our own transport back to Malawi. Bec went off on him asking about our park entrance fees that he stole and did not actually pay for. It was intense. Overall, Holly told Mophy to go away, literally, and that she did not want to see him ever again. 

From there we began trying to figure out our own transport and cost. Ultimately, we actually ended up asking Axon if HE would drive us all the way to Lilongwe, but not with Mophy. We agreed on a price, that was cheaper than a car, and got in. Axon drove us all the way. The only time we were nervous was getting back into Malawi. Apparently sometimes the health inspector checks for the Yellow Fever vaccine, which I did not have. When I looked online it said “If you are coming from a country that has yellow fever, you will need proof of a vaccine. This excludes residents from the United States” so I did not think I would need it. That would have been accurate, if I was entering Malawi from the U.S. this time. I was entering it from Zambia, which means technically, I would have needed that vaccine. Whoops. But it was fine, there was no health inspector there that day, and we moved along. More car rides! It was not actually as far. Maybe four hours total.

We got to Lilongwe, checked into our hostel, and decided to get some Chinese food. Holly realized that one of her Peace Corps friends was staying in the same hostel (actually a few doors down). We all called Bonaface again, squeezed into the car and went to the restaurant. Next to this restaurant was a karaoke spot where you can pay to rent a room. If you have ever done karaoke in Koreatown, it’s kind of like that. We rented this room AND had our food brought to it. It was a total flipping blast. We sang all kinds of random music. The worker even told us that he has one song he likes to sing and sang it for us. He sang “London Bridge is Falling Down” which cracked me up. It was honestly the LAST song I ever expected this guy to sing. I wasn’t even sure I knew all the words to this song and was impressed that he did. We ate, sang, and laughed. Cleaned up and walked back to the hostel. We even saw a prostitute. To bed we all went.