For those of you that
know me well you'll appreciate this is completely out of character
but in a moment of pure madness I agreed to climb Mulanje two weeks ago, the highest mountain in central Africa, a whopping 3000m!
The five of us set off
on Saturday morning after spending the night at the forestry lodge at
the bottom of the mountain. It was a grueling 8 hour hike which I was
totally un-prepared for. Chris, Briony and Jessica are all pretty fit
and are in training for climbing Kilimanjaro, although I'm sure they
could have easily been up in 6 hours flat they were very kind and
waited patiently as Judy and I struggled up, offering kind words of
encouragement which at times just made me want to hurt them :-)
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| All smiles at the beginning... |
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| Less so several hours in |
On Saturday afternoon
we finally arrived at Chisepo hut atop the Mulanje plateau. The views
were stunning but whether they were “worth it” was still unclear
in my mind. It was much cooler on the plateau but the hut had a
roaring log fire which we sat around and relaxed with a well deserved
beer. Conversation turned to the porters who'd carried our bags up
the mountain and how unbelievably fit they must be, we then started
to wonder what the most offensive item would be that you could
produce from your backpack at the top after they had carried it all
the way; I think in the end we settled on a magnum of champagne
complete with ice bucket and ice!
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| Our porters |
On Sunday morning our
guide Alex took the three sadists up to the top of Sapitwa (the
highest peak) leaving Judy and I to lie in and feel sorry for
ourselves. 5 hours later they returned and we all set off for another
hut (roughly at the same height mercifully) where we'd spend our
second night.
The second hut, Chembe
was much nicer than the first and we had it all to ourselves which
was great. Another log fire and more beer :-)
Monday morning we set
off early down the mountain. It was incredibly steep and not for the
faint hearted as some parts of the path came perilously close to the
edge of large drops. I was much happier going down but although
easier on the lungs it was certainly painful on the legs after a
while
Finally at the bottom
again we went for pizza in the local town, I have no idea how good or
bad it was, I ate it in under 30 seconds!
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| Hard earned |
Full pictures available here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjJZiwHJ
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