These last few days have been simply amazing. I finally got to do some traveling.

I headed off on Friday to the town of liwonde-where I went on a safari and had an amazing time. The weather was great and it gave me a chance to see a lot of animals out in the wild. Getting to liwonde was such a fun trip. I opted to travel via mini-bus which basically is a van crammed with passengers. I find that buses like these while sketch at times are the best way to get the total malawian experience. after all the vast majority of people cannot afford luxury buses, or have their own personal cars. The trip went through some amazing parts as we worked our way more south. passed through rolling foothills with amazing views through miles and miles of farmlands. One could see the farmlands dotted with mudhuts and little children standing by the roads watching out of curiosity and waving their tiny little hands yelling hello hello as the buses passed by. we passed small towns... farmers standing on the side of the road selling their produce to passengers from the van window. potatoes, corn, tomatoes, garlic, sugar cane, carrots.

The trip took about 5 hours but didn't feel long at all. From liwonde originally i thought i was going to head down to a mountain so i could do some mountain climbing however i heard rumors from other travlers that the mountain was very slippery from recent rain. Being somewhat random and whimsical at times i randomly decided on sunday morning that it would be my last day in liwonde and headed to zomba. The trip to zomba was once again amazing. great views passing by tea plantations. zomba was the former capital of malawi. located high up at the base of a plateau. the only problem was when i arrived in zomba it was pouring down rain. My goal was to reach the plateau and the two options i was debating between was 1. climbiing up the 8km to the hotel or 2.taking a taxi up. i'm not a fan of taxi's. they are so boring, but huddled at a gas station to escape the rain i encountered my 3rd option. right in front of me was a car rental place. only problem was i didn't bring my license or photo id, but figured i would give it a shot. within 10 minutes i was offered a 2007 toyota corolla as my car rental from the day.. no ID needed, no cash up front nothing. i was shocked. it only costed me 5000 kwacha or 50 dollars.

headed up the plateau which was quite and experience. the steering wheel was on the right side and i was driving on the left side. plus it was raining and utterly foggy-- what a great day to learn driving european style. unfortunately the views going up sucked b/c of the fog however i finally made it to the hotel sunbird which is a ritzy hotel located high up in the plateau. there met some really cool british girls who were doing their medical rotations in blantyre at the queen elizabeth hospital center.. had a nice chat with cups of hot chocolate. and decided to call it a night.

next morning was greeted to the sounds of baboons jumping on the room. had breakfast under the watchful eyes of 4 baboons who kept inching their way closer to see if they could get a bite to eat from me. alas i decided not to finish my scone and i held it up and get this.. the huge baboon walked up to me and grabbed it from my hand and then climbed up a tree. I swear monkeys are just like human beings. all the other baboons were watching but then i realized i made a mistake to give the first baboon my scone b/c on my way back to my room i was followed by 5 baboons walking close behind me and another 2 swinging up on top of the trees. i close the door to my room and i heard a knock--looking through the peep hole the baboons were knocking on my door. oh great. what is this. all of a sudden i thought of the movie "the birds" you know the alfred hitchcok movie and wondered if they would make a movie out of

my death... "the baboons". finally the coast was clear and i ran back to the lobby. The sun was finally out and it was a beautiful day. I opted to go for a hike hiring a guide. It was a great 5 hour hike through the plateau, through rivers, waterfalls, finally making our way to the "queens view" and the "emperor's view" which overlooked the town of zomba underneath. simply breathless. very surreal. went through miles and miles of pine trees, cedar trees which surpisingly were all imported plants donated from various parts of the world. On my way back it got really foggy again and we simply could not see in front of us. every now and then random ppl would pop out of the mist to sell us various indigenous berries like rasberries. it was real spooky and for 5 miles this kept happening. random ppl popping out of the blinding mist and fog to sell us fruits.

finally felt it was time to leave the ritzy hotel of the sunbird. I had passed by a trout farm on my hike and saw that they were renting out small cabins. on a random whim, i felt what a wonderful experience it would be to live in a trout farm for a night. It was quite the experience-good and bad. although i did catch my dinner for the night which was surpringly (not quite) trout and over open campfire which i did not start --- one of the forest rangers did--- i cooked--basicaly burnt my trout.

the cabins did not have hot showers... ice cold water-- and i ended up going canoeing in the waters.

finally it was time to leave zomba and wanted to see blantyre which is a city further south--just out of curiousity.. Blantyre was underwhelming however a much bigger and more city feel than lilongwe. stayed at a place called doogle's which was the backpackers hangout--- but felt like being antisocial and called it a night. Finally the next day, i caught a bus to lilongwe which was quite the experience. i chose a bus which i thought was going to be a decent one--big, reliable and would get me to lilongwe at a decent time. unfortunately i soon realized when the bus started to pull out of the terminal 1.5 hours late that this was a local bus---that ppl on an extremely tight budget use-- no wonder it was so cheap. i smelled burning rubber one hour into the trip and then a pop. i soon ralized we had a flat tire. there were at least 90 passengers on the bus. 4 people to a seat with passengers standing up. we all got out of the bus and waited while the tire was fixed which took ages. luck would have it that we happened to stop right by a rural school for children. Let me tell you.... a big white bus with a flat tire was a cause for excitement for these children. Files and files of young children ran out of their small school hut classrooms yelling and running towards the main road where we standing.... looking at amazment at the bus... and supringly STARING at me waving their hands saying hello hello hello at least a million times. it was so adorable. finally the schoolteacher came out and with a branch shooo'ed everyone back into their classrooms. the bus was finally fixed. but the craziness of teh adventure didn't stop as i witnessed all kinds of interesting ppl board the bus. This one guy boarded the bus randomly with a bible in hand and for the next 2 hours he YELLED verses from the bible. i mean yelled. finally 2 hours later he asked for money collection and left. geez the things ppl do to make a living to survive i guess. i had another bible dude board the bus but thank god he didn't yell on the top of his lungs. while this was going on the person next to me looked at me and grinned "praise allah". oh great now this guy thinks i'm muslim. i pretended i didn't hear him so i just nodded. this was not the right time to tell this dude i'm hindu--after all he could be extremely radical and i could just be lost somewhere on the road to lilongwe--->next time you would seem would be for ransom on a taped video with someone putting a knife to my neck. but i digress. for the next 4 hours i saw hillarious things. a woman with a baby goat, old ladies carrying their local produce potatoes etc in bags and then finally once we got closer to our destination ppl started boarding the bus with chickens in hand in fact one lady had a box of young chicklets.

needless to say i was relieved i arrived back around 5:30pm. in one piece safe and sound. all in all a great trip.. a lot of memories--hillarious ones.

Tomm is my last day in malawi