Frank in Africa ‘08

hey hey visitors of my site (350 unique visitors and counting), how are you people doing…?!lots has been happening since my last post, my last post ended with me saying I was gonna climb this mountain, which I did, I could type 3 blogposts about just that trip, but I really don’t have the time or energy for that, so you’ll have to do with the short version of the story for now… me and Beer decided to take the day off and climb the mountain, we had hoped for some sort of path to the top, we were wrong, after about 15 mins of climbing (following a rainwater drainage pipe) we came across 2 young african girls wearing slippers/sandals who were on their way down, which made me feel like some sort of tourist wearing my leather boots, we asked them if there was a path, they said no. after following the pipe line for another 10 minutes or so, and avoiding huge bumble bees (red with black) we heard a lot of water, there was some sort of water storage and filtering plant halfway up the hill, there was a little man made path next to the fence which ran up hill for about 20 minutes, after that there were no more paths, so we started climbing, after a few minutes beer yelled “Ants”, he wasn’t wearing any socks and was getting eaten alive by these ants that bite and dont let go, Beer had to go back and I decided to keep going by myself (which as everybody knows isn’t a smart idea) so I pulled up my socks all the way to my knees and started climbing, after about 30 minutes the spiked bushes and trees turned into white rocks, boulders, really big ones, and it started to get really steep, but I decided to keep going, the view was already amazing and I could see the top. I took lots of pics of the view and these strange blue reflective bugs that were everywhere… I reached the top, which was a total vertical piece of rock that was to high to climb, and drank my water before going back…going uphill was the easy part, downhill was terrible, I ended up with lots of scratches and wounds on my arms and legs from the plants, I even fell and almost broke my leg, but the adrenaline was flowing and I felt great, on my way down I heard water, and I figured it was the water plant we came across on the way to the top, but it ended up being a waterfall/river which was awesome. there was a lot of water coming down, lots of strange birds with white tails and mushrooms, it was such an unexpected and awesome sight that my wounds stopped hurting and everything was great… I made it home before dark, satisfied but tired.not much else happened in Zomba, just the usual walking to the internet hotspot and back, and working on the webisodes. there was an open air concert of Blaxtar (the dutch hip hop artist) and Gosple (the malawi hip hop artist) and it made it verry clear to me that people arent ready for hip hop yet, they didn’t care, there was no excitement and we (the white people) seemed like a better circus attraction…after a week of Zomba we took a busride back to Blantyre (where we landed, the capital) it was a bumpy ride, and the rappers were singing the whole time, not just hip hop, also other stuff, some of my requests were awesome, seeing Blaxtar do a Methodman impression was crazy…Yesterday we checkin into this new hotel place, its basically a construction sight, they promised us silence but well… this is africa, after finally getting a room and unpacking I tried to hang my mosquito net but I couldnt get the lil screw to grip the ceiling, so I asked for a hammer, after 10 minutes this guy came back with this rock he had picked up somewhere and handed it to me, the hammer didnt really work, but its 1 of those little experiences I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life…no pics today…they still need to be sorted… 

Tags: Malawi //