The Nightmare Continues

(50km)

S 11º 36’ 73” – E 34º 18’ 28”

We woke early, under already darkening skies… I walked around taking some photos, and was surprised to see Allan hurrying down the path from the track above… “Hey Dude, we better get out of here before the rain starts, or we’ll be stuck in this Godforsaken dump…” I agreed at first, but just as we started packing our gear onto the bike, it started to rain…heavily… Not one of those strong drizzles, but really hard rain… We were snookered… We walked dejectedly back to the reception area and sat wondering what to do… I did not want to attempt the hill just outside the lodge while it was raining. I could not see through the visor or my windshield when it was raining heavily and usually had to open my visor a bit to see properly… It was fine when travelling at speed down a tar road, but when you were crawling along, down a steep gravel road littered with holes and rocks, you needed to see where the heck your front wheel was heading…!!

We sat discussing our options… Allan’s concerns were getting to me, and I suggested that if he thought we were in serious danger of injuring ourselves on the way out of here, then we should try and find a truck we could hire to haul the bikes back to the tar road… This was impossible, as even the staff doubted that a truck capable of carrying both bikes would make it to the lodge!!!

Tackling the nasty hill outside the lodge in pouring rain…four guys holding me steady….

Allan was by now highly agitated, preferring to take a chance, “rather than stay another minute here”… We got some of the staff together, and in pouring rain prepared for the attempt on the hill… It was not a very long stretch, but as the photo above shows, it was steep and slippery, with water cascading down the little gully in which we had to set the tyres to get any traction…

Allan went up first, with the guys pushing him up most of the way. They were barefoot and were slipping on the wet surface as they huffed and puffed their way to the top… Then it was my turn…. I took a few deep breaths, chose my line and let the clutch out, taking the revs up as far as I dared, hoping that I would not have the front wheel come up off the surface…

I stalled the “Big Fella” near the top, and had to grab both front and back brakes to stop from sliding backwards down the hill… I got it started again and we went smoothly up the rest of the slope. We rode on, the three staff members from the lodge following us for another 500 metres, showing us the best lines through the mud or around the large rocks… We took our time getting down the hill, slipping and sliding for most of the way… I rode down first and tried to take a few photos, but my camera lens got so wet that I gave it up and put the camera away…

Allan arrives at the bottom of the hill, soaked to the bone and with a bad case of the mutters….

Now that we were down on level ground, and after giving each other a few high fives, we still had to negotiate a small wooden bridge and deep pools of mud in the village itself… We got through these and then looked for another place to stay… All the while the rain beat down… We were sent down a narrow path by a local who promised that the “load was in pelfect condition”… Foolishly we believed him, and I once again took the lead and after a few hundred metres sank down to my hubs in mud… Looking ahead, I could see another steep and rocky hill ahead… I got off my bike and hurried back to stop Allan from following me. The guy who had advised us was still standing there, and taking him by the scruff of the neck, I led him back to where my bike was stuck, and informed him in terms which he clearly understood, that he would be helping us get my bike out and turned around…

He called for a few of his friends and after a marathon session of pushing and pulling, we finally got the bike pointed in the right direction. With a few choice profanities thrown in our “guide’s” general direction, I rode back out onto the tar road and informed Allan that I would see him in Mzuzu… I had had enough of Nkhata Bay… He took one look at the expression on my face, hopped onto his bike and followed me out of town… It was goodbye and good riddance to Nkhata Bay…

After getting stuck in the mud seen behind me, we got the bike turned around and I headed back for firmer ground….

We cleared the police checkpoint outside town, and then stopped to take shelter in some curio stalls on the side of the road. It was raining too hard to ride, visibility down to only a few metres… We sat eating cream crackers and chatting to the woodcarvers, until the stream that flowed past the front of the hut began to diminish… We rushed to put on our wet helmets and jackets and headed out on the M5 to Mzuzu… Allan rode ahead, as he was kitted up first… I struggled to catch up to him, as I wanted to remind him about the “bathtub pothole”… I could not remember which side of the road it was on, as we often rode on the wrong side to avoid obstacles in the road… The rain was not helping either… I knew that if one of us hit that particular pothole, it would be the end of our journey…

I saw Allan’s brake lights come on and watched as he swerved violently to the left, missing the enormous pothole by mere inches… I rode on past it, knowing that I probably would not have seen it in time at the speed I usually rode at… I was very thankful that Allan was in front for a change… From this point on we were able to ride faster, the rain slackening off a bit as we reached the higher elevations around the town of Mzuzu…

This kombi was not leaving Nkhata Bay anytime soon….

We stopped just outside the town and took a few photos. We were relieved to be away from the shores of the lake, where looking back, we could see dark thunder clouds hanging over it for miles to the south of where we sat… The views into the valleys showed areas where mudslides had occurred, tearing out large trees and whole sections of the forest, flinging them further down the steep slopes… Huts had been washed away, belongings lost, and the people in the area were not the happy smiling Malawians we had become accustomed to… Clearly they had been having a hard time of it in recent days…

We rode directly to the Sunbird Mzuzu, sister hotel to the Ku Chawe Inn in Zomba, and Allan set about negotiating rates with them, wearing his fake “News Correspondent” badge… He advised the manager that we were touring the world with World Rider TV (He also had a laminated “badge” for this!!!) and were writing about the places we had been to… The rate was reduced from $140.00 per room to $60.00 per room, and we happily checked in. We were also allowed to park our bikes right in front of the hotel doors, in the area clearly marked “No Parking”… We were after all “Honoured Guests”…!!

In keeping up the pretence of being with “World Rider TV”, I asked if there was a reporter in town, to whom we would be willing to give interviews. Within a short space of time, a young man arrived with paper and pen and interviewed us in the lounge area for the national newspaper… We had huge fun giving him some serious comment about Malawi, as well as some tongue in cheek replies, which he dutifully wrote down for publication the next day… It took an enormous amount of willpower on my part to keep up with the pretext… I whispered to Allan that he should refrain from mentioning “Dr. Banda” as this was a sensitive subject in Malawi, with half the people we spoke to believing Hastings Banda was a saint, and the other half believing that he had ruined the country… I wasn’t sure which half was conducting the interview…!! I also had to ride back through Malawi to get home, and did not want a “persona non grata” stamp in my passport!! We retired to our room after this and were granted celebrity status for the rest of our stay…

The sun shone brightly that afternoon, and we hung most of our biking kit out to dry from the windows of our room. The housekeeping staff must have reported this state of affairs and we later received an offer from the manager, who suggested that we send all our clothes to the laundry for a wash… We agreed that it would be a good idea to do so… Later that evening we enjoyed a good meal in the hotel’s restaurant…

I took photos of the village near to the crest of the mountain leading to Mzuzu…

It had been a long and wet day, and we were both sound asleep by 10.00pm… Before I dropped off to sleep, I wondered what conditions were like at the Butterfly Lodge and was thankful that we had made the effort to get the hell out of there when we did… The sombre weather was having a rather negative effect on my moods, and I felt a bit “out of it”… I thought about home, and the people urging me on to my destination on the edge of the Indian Ocean… I was a little more than a thousand kms from Dar es Salaam, but I was tired…very tired…

© 2008 TBMH