Mulanje.

On Saturday, Laura, Lena, and I took a little day trip to Mt. Mulanje in the southeast of Malawi on the country’s border with Mozambique. We took the only transport available to us, the minibus taxi, and what we were told should have been about a twenty-minute drive turned into two hours. There were even chickens on the bus at one point. It is all part of the Africa experience!

There is little touristy information available here so we didn’t know exactly what to expect when arriving in Mulanje, though we had heard that it is a must see. It did turn out to be very beautiful – we decided that it resembles Jurassic Park because of the bright green tropical forests. It turned out we couldn’t do more than walk around the little town at the base of the mountain when we got there because we didn’t realize that the mountain is quite large – a third the size of Mt. Everest actually – and you need a guide and a few days to hike to the top. The area is also known for its tea estates; however, they are all closed on the weekends so we struck out all around. I think we might try to plan another visit so that we can stay somewhere on the mountain, hike, see the water falls, and go tea tasting at the tea estates!

Despite the other failures, we did stumble upon possibly the nicest restaurant in Malawi, Mulanje Pepper Pizza. It was very unexpected because I just don’t think there is a market here for upscale dining. The place makes homemade stone oven pizzas out on the veranda so you can sit and watch them. They also had homemade chocolate cake that I am still dreaming of. Considering the food choices here are quite limited, it was exciting to find a ‘fancy’ and Western meal for a change. As you can imagine, this place is also a gathering spot for white people living throughout Southern Malawi. I would guess some even drive a bit of a distance to eat there once in a while. Anyway, there were more whites there than we have seen in one place since arriving! We met a really nice Norwegian who has been living in Blantyre for years teaching at the local university and he was able to give us a lot of advice on touristy activities we must do while here which was very helpful and got us excited for the coming weekends. Malawi is a strange place for white people to live and so I think that the whites that are here form a tight community and help each other out.