 |
Kilimanjaro Trek 2005 | |
sam and pippin |
||
 |
||
|
||
| Kili Home :: Previous Journal : Next Journal | ||
|
||
October 29, 2005
We're at Chinthecthe Beach tonight, again on the shores of Lake Malawi and again stunningly beautiful. I have to confess that when I first saw the schedule was to have four days at the beach in Malawi, I wondered how we would fill our time. But that isn't a problem now that we are here! In fact, there is never enough time, no matter what we do. When we go to town, there is not enough time to ever finish running errands and when we get to camp, we have a short time to swim or sit on the beach and then the day is over. Tomorrow we have another full day off, so I've signed up to go on a village walk in the morning, and horse riding in the afternoon at a nearby campground. I wouldn't normally sign up for horseback riding but when they said at the end of the ride, you take the saddles off and ride bareback into the lake, I was hooked.
Anyway, today has been pretty quiet so far, after getting up early and heading to Mzuzu for a couple hours of resupply. It was a really nice city - the people were very friendly and very few hassled us, it had great supermarkets and a huge open air market that sold absolutely everything in piles on the ground or on rough wooden tables. From anchovies to lingerie, you could find it there! I would have liked to spend more time there looking around, but I only had a few minutes to accomplish my mission, so I had to stay focused on that. Apparently it's tradition to have a dress-up party on this part of the trip, so everyone pulls someone's name out of the hat and then must go and find a funny/crazy outfit for them to wear at the party, which also involves a huge bowl of alcoholic punch. I saw one of the other trucks having their party a few nights ago at Chitimbe Beach, and their focus was all on cross-dressing in skimpy lingerie and it was pretty hard on the eyes. So I stated up front that I reserve the right to not wear anything I find offensive, and several people agreed with me. Our cook and driver also stated that they would only participate if there were no women's clothes involved, which I'm sure they've had plenty of in the past, and I expect they're pretty tired of it by now. I actually pulled Steve's name from the hat and had absolutely no idea what to get. I ended up with a loud yellow shirt decorated with red chili peppers, plus a pair of dusty old sunglasses. They actually say Ray Ban on them, but somehow I doubt they're the real thing for $2.50. I gave my salesman quite a surprise when I pulled off my own sunglasses to try them on, and they saw I also had regular glasses on underneath. They kept pointing in astonishment and saying, "2 pairs!" Lots of people saw me shopping and came running up with leather pants, lace camisoles and tiger-print tops, but since nothing was in my size, I had to pass on the bargains there as well.
This afternoon, I have been doing laundry, a little swimming and beach lounging, and surprisingly, hanging out with a few people at the bar. This one is significantly quieter than most we've seen, plus it helps that we are nearly the only people here. There is actually another truck from the same company here tonight - they are doing the trip northbound with only 9 people. I have yet to see any show up, though. I'm curious to know if it's better or worse with so few people. Seems like it would be better generally, unless you really didn't like any of the other 8, and then you'd be stuck.
Our truck crew: Hesbon, Lyndal, Steve.