Man Camp 2

FYI: A bunch of new pics are up, including many pertaining to the topic of this post.

I got back yesterday from this year's version of Man Camp (see April 2009). Me and three other guys (Greg, Enrique, and Terrence) went to a place called Nyika Plateau. It’s a National Park with basic African animals like zebras, kudu, leopards, warthogs, etc. It doesn’t have the big stuff like elephants or hippos, but the main attraction is the landscape. The plateau is a part of the Great Rift Valley, and it sits up at about 3000 meters with rolling hills that reminded me of the Palouse of eastern Washington. We took our bikes on this trip, and it was certainly an adventure.

On the first day, three of us had to take our bikes on a minibus (“Be careful slamming that door over my bike!”) and then a big flatbed truck to a dusty town reminiscent of the wild west called Bolero. We reached Bolero around noon where we meet up with the forth stooge of our foursome, had a quick lunch, and hit the dusty trail with our overloaded bikes.
Then it was a six hour ride up through the mountains. It actually wasn’t much of a “ride” since we spent most of the time pushing the bikes and gear up the steep terrain. It wasn’t easy, but we were all in good spirits and the landscape was absolutely beautiful. We wanted to get to the park gate that day, but we weren’t really sure about the actual location of it. We asked a few people along the way how much further it was, but we couldn’t get a straight answer (I hate to sound prejudiced, but Malawains (or Africans) don’t have a very good sense of time and space). The sun sets pretty fast in the mountains, but we managed to make it to the gate right at sun down-DEAD tired. We didn’t have enough energy to start a fire and cook our rice and beans so instead we just bought some warm Fantas and cookies from a small store near the gate. The Fantas went down well with the booze as we sat in the grass under the stars chatting about the days exhaustion and the uncertainty ahead.

It was a cold night, as most nights are at 3000 meters. We woke up late, found some water, started a fire, cooked up some rice and beans, and ate with our hands on borrowed plates (oops! We only brought one set of plates and silverware.). After the previous day’s struggle, we weren’t exactly looking forward to the 60 km bike ride through the hills that we had planned for the day. This was a trip of great luck and fortune (there were many things that could have gone wrong, or gone much worse, but turned out OK), and the luck and fortune started out that morning. As we finished tearing down camp, grumbling about the trip ahead of us, a truck pulled up to the gate. They were passing through the park on a road that gets very little traffic, the same road we were about to set out on. We quickly befriended them, asked them for a ride, and crammed the bikes and our bodies into the truck. They managed to take us 40 km down the dusty road, and then we went our separate ways.
By this point, covered in dust and squinting in the mountain sun, we were in much better spirits, and the 20 km bike ride was a breeze. We rolled into our destination in the early afternoon. The destination was a little forest/village in the middle of the park called Chelinda.

We stayed at Chelinda for four nights. It made a good base camp that we could come back to at the end of our day trips. We were fortunate enough to stay with a guy from the UK that is working there as something like a forest conservationist. From the beginning, we planned to camp, and thankfully, that didn't happen. It was very cold with rain every night, and we (especially me) didn't bring warm clothes. But it all worked out because our host allowed us to sleep inside his rustic log cabin by the fireplace. During our day trips we trekked around the park either on our bikes, on foot, or in the back of the truck. We climbed mountains, walked through rain forests
, watched some guys repair a bridge
, and chased around zebras-among other things. We had a lot of fun...except one afternoon.

One day we biked about 30 km from Chelinda to climb a mountain in the northeast section of the park. We arrived around mid-day and climbed to the top where we had a lunch of raw sweet potatoes.
From the top was a gorgeous view down the escarpment of the Rift Valley, and it was just clear enough that we could see Lake Malawi. We didn't stay up there too long because we wanted to leave ourselves with enough time to get home before dark. It was an easy ride going back. It was mostly downhill, as we were coming from one of the highest points in the entire country. The four of us got a little spread out so that I could only see the two in front of me when at the top of a hill. After riding for about a half hour, I was consistently looking back for Terrence behind me-I consistently didn't see him. At the same time, the other two were getting ahead of me so (in a bit of a hurry) I didn't wait up for the last guy. Eventually, I caught up to the two in front at a bridge crossing a little stream that was running full through a steep valley. We relaxed while drinking cold mountain water and waiting for the slow poke to get down there. He didn't arrive.

By that time, we had only covered about 10 km, with 20 km more to go to reach Chelinda. After waiting for Terrence for a half hour, we decided that one of us should go back to look for the straggler. We were thinking that he either hurt himself so that he couldn't ride his bike or he was having problems with his bike (hopefully just a flat tire, which we could've easily fixed). Greg rode his bike back up out of the valley with the tool kit and some water. We were becoming even more spread out as it was getting colder and later in the day and no way to communicate with each other.

Enrique and I waited in the valley for another half hour, with no sign of the two of them. By this time it was 4:30 (sun sets around 6), and we still had 20 km to cover. Any heat in the mountain air was quickly fading away as the sun got lower in the sky. The other guys at least had long sleeve shirts, but I only had on a tee-shirt and shorts. For this reason, Enrique and I decided that it made most sense for me to head back to camp and look for help (for all we knew, Terrence could have broken his neck or been abducted by poachers-but we had no way of knowing, and the sun wasn't going to wait for us to figure it all out). I sped to Chelinda, trying not to crash my own bike going down the rugged trail. I rolled into camp with just enough light to avoid the potholes and crevasses on the poorly maintained trail. Luckily (again), I found our limey (a new term that I learned that means British person) host right away, and I explained the situation. It was obvious that the only thing we were going to do was take his Land Rover out to try and find the guys.

About 5 km out of camp, we saw a set of bike reflectors in the distance. As we pulled up, I was excited to see Terrence pushing his bike down the road in the dark, but one thing wasn't right-he was alone. With a big smile on his face, he was happy to see us as well. I asked him where the other two were, and he responded, "What other guys?" I quickly realized that he was completely fine, and the problem was that he took a wrong turn somewhere. He explained that he hadn't seen anyone else all afternoon, and that he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere early on. He figured that we would just continue back to camp without him so he didn't try to backtrack once he realized he had taken a wrong turn. However, we did make an effort to try and find him, and two of us were still out in the middle of nowhere looking for him. He jumped in the back of the truck with his bike, and we continued on, looking for the other two.

I figured they would be together by that time somewhere near the bridge. We went in that direction and eventually found them together, pushing their bikes through the darkness. Understandably, they weren't in a good mood, and it was funny (to me) to watch them drill Terrence with questions about the hell he had been up to and Terrence answering bashfully. By the time we got back to the cabin, everyone was happy again because there was a fire, hot dinner, and wine waiting for us. Plus, we had a great story to tell.

Eventually we had to leave, and leaving Nyika turned out to be just as difficult as getting there, although this time we were going down the plateau instead of up it. The limely helped us out again by offering to bring our bikes back to Mzuzu, a small city (big town?) in northern Malawi that we pass through a lot, and where it would be easy to pick up the bikes. It made sense for us to ditch the bikes, assuming we had the opportunity, because there are two ways to get off the plateau. We could have gone out the way we came in on our bikes. This would have taken two days to get back to Mzuzu. The other option, which we chose, was to hike down the escarpment and somehow find a ride back to Mzuzu. The advantage to this second option was that there was a chance (not a good one) that we could get back to Mzuzu in one day. Wanting to see something new and always in a hurry, we chose to hike out.

The limey's generosity didn't stop. He gave us a ride to the end of the trail early in the morning. This shaved about three hours off our hike. We were now on our own, the three of us hiking down the mountain, in the cold fog, on a lightly used trail that was difficult to navigate. As we descended, it got hot fast. The trail was rugged and slippery, and sarcastic jokes were made about why we didn't bring our bikes along. It was exciting later in the morning when we saw a sign of civilization, terracing on the mountain. It was even more exciting when we saw a road in the distance. But the road was still a long ways off. We didn't reach the road until the early afternoon, and we had to walk a ways before we had any chance of finding some kind of vehicle. Eventually, we made it to a small village where it was market day where there were a few trucks waiting to take the vendors home, but none of them were going in a direction that was convenient for us so we had a few warm Fantas and discussed the situation. Someone spotted a big truck filled with coal (this village is near a big mining operation) and we went over to ask if they could help us at all. Fortunately (again), they were going straight to Mzuzu that evening, and they agreed to let us ride with them (two in the back on top of all the coal and two in the cab).
Driving with a load of over 30 tons (on two trailers) up over a mountain range on a poorly maintained road at the end of the rainy season isn't easy. The glassy eyed driver managed to get us all out alive, and by dusk we were on the main paved road. This was a relief until I realized that the truck didn't have any headlights (or maybe it did, but I have heard that Malawian drivers have a belief that it saves gas to leave the lights off). On coming cars could see our running lights, but we couldn't see ten feet in front of us. I was sure that this was the point that our luck was going to run dry, but we somehow managed to get to Mzuzu alive. We spent the rest of the night drinking cold beer and retelling our adventures to anyone that was willing to listen.

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts." Rachel Carson