The lake is big deal in Malawi. Similar to people who live in states or countries near a body of water, Malawians are dependent on its resources and proud of the joy it brings people. Yeah, yeah...it's a lake. Great. It's a great lake. But this lake is more than just another big lake. It's hard to explain. First of all, it's huge. Wiki says it's the third largest, second deepest lake in Africa and the eighth largest lake in the world. It's also reported to have more fish species than any other body of water. And, it's beautiful. At least in the north, where there are green hills, mountains and cliffs surrounding it. There's something that's peaceful, productive, dirty, yet pure about it...all at the same time. But still, I can't really do it justice.
So we arrive at the lake. The huts we stay in are right on the water. The weather isn't too warm, but we swim and relax anyway. On the first full day, we hope to catch a boat ride in the afternoon, but a friend and I decide to go for a run first. We looked at the map of trails and the description of each path and decide to try the Bulungu Hill path. It's described as a 12k hike that requires water, food, a guide and an early start. Of course, we're running not hiking so we figure it might take us 1.5 hours...two at most. No problem. Well, we got lost. We got lost good.
After about 45 minutes, we stopped running straight uphill and then intermittently ran every so often when we had energy, through villages, planted fields...until we realized we should probably try to start conserving our energy. As it happens, Bulungu Hill might be a bit misleading as a name. I would call it Mount Bulungu or Bulungu Big Tall Ridgelined Hike or something more accurate like that. We were told that the view is beautiful--a 360 degree lookout of the lake and surrounding mountainous areas...if we could find it. We never found it. What we did was walk along the ridgeline...all the way to the other side of the range in search of it. We also were told about an easier way down the mountain back to Nkhata Bay from the top. So we decided to try to look for it. Also never found it. We did find the longer way back to town. The ridgeline took us through a bit of a jungle, down a ravine, along some fields and finally, to a village. As we rounded the bend to the village, we heard voices (the first in ~2 hours) and were excited, relieved, etc. The voices belonged to children playing in a stream. They were not as excited to see us. In fact, I'm pretty sure they probably wet themselves with fear.
Our encounter went kind of like this: We round the bend, saw the kids and wave. They froze. Then they stared at us for 30-45 seconds. Their faces turn from frozen surprise to fear. Then the wailing started. So much wailing. I had no idea two little kids (maybe 3 and 4 years old) could conjure so much noise! We waited and let them find their parents and safety. We debated what we should do next...we certainly couldn't turn and head back the other way to avoid meeting up with the parents of these kids since we had been wandering for a total of 3.5 hours at this point. So we had to follow them through their village and face the wrath of an angry mother.
We were first properly greeted.
Woman: "Hello, how are you".
Us: "Fine thank you. How are you?"
Woman: "I'm fine, thank you".
Us, to each other: "Maybe we'll be ok. Hopefully she's not too mad".
Us, to the woman: "We are sorry. We were walking and were lost. We are so sorry we frightened your children."
Woman: "Azungu! What! AZUNGU! You make the baby cry SO much! Why you make the baby cry so much! Give me money."
It went something like that. We managed to escape, make our apologies, see the children calm down and learn which direction we should take to Nkhata Bay ("that way, but very far"). Once we finally found a dirt road, we were very excited. From the dirt fire road, we were able to see that we made it to the other side of the "Hill" and there was no sign of the lake. That killed our excitement, until at about hour 4, a Red Cross truck with a truck-bed full of teenage boys came cruising on by. They stopped and asked us where we were going--not the same place as us, but they offered us a ride back after they dropped off the boys in the back of the truck. Hooray! Great.
Our excitement returned...and it grew! The Red Cross truck was on a community outreach visit. The teenage boys in the back of the truck were HIV peer counselors who had just done an educational intervention in some villages that day! It gets better. The nurse that we spoke to in the cab of the truck, upon hearing we were from the US, announced that he wanted to go to the US to study Epidemiology! It was the perfect rescue. We exchanged contact info and while I may not be able to do much for him, will try to help him through the application process.
We missed the boat ride from Nkhata Bay, but had a great time that night and the next moring before leaving. We failed, spectacularly, to complete the Mayoka Challenenge (2 people rowing a dug-out canoe from the patio around the floating dock, without falling in). Both of us were only in the canoe simultaneously for about 30 seconds!
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