Poly Storms Mount Mulanje

Many adventurous stories have been told about the fun that one finds on Mulanje Mountain. Unfortunately, most of these adventures have been undertaken by foreigners, mostly Westerners. So when a grouping of Malawi Polytechnic students, calling themselves Hikers Alliance, decided to take a break from the library and hike on mount Mulanje, the members did not know how much fun, adventure and memory making that was awaiting them atop the Mulanje massif.

The fifteen group comprised of Gibson, Henry, Lydia, Annie, Johali, Eve, Kondwani, Madalitso, Mandie, Grey, Isaac, Ndagha, Gloria, Richard and Nesta

We departed the school campus on Friday at around 1200 hours, heading for a three day hiking adventure on Malawi’s Island in the Sky. By 1500 hours, we were ready to start climbing from our base, the Likhubula Forest lodge. We started the ascending, knowing that we would arrive at our final destination, Hopes Rest Cottage, in six hours time. Whew.

Slowly but surely, we were on our way up the mountain of mysteries. Everybody in the group was highly excited with the adventure. However, just after passing the first stream, that was also the first slope, everybody could not hide it, but sit down to catch a breath. Resting at least three times in an hour, we took the pace of the slowest climber amongst our group. This is the rule when hiking Mount Mulanje.

To the surprise of the whole group, our tour guide, Kondwani Chamwala who is also a student at the college himself never sat down whenever we rested. He told us he would sit down when we are half way to our destination. At last, he sat down with us at a place called pa ma Caves.

I guess the name was derived from the caves that are at this place. That was when darkness fell…halfway our journey. Utilizing the torches we were provided, we slowly climbed, run out of water, and refilled our bottles at a river called Namunyemunye.

After what seemed like eternity, we heard voices from a distant Laughing; our guide told us the voices were from our porters, who overtook us at Namunyemunye, chatting with the guard of the cottage. Finally, we were there, after a climbing of five hours and thirty minutes.

We took our bath from the warm water the guard had prepared for us, then we prepared our ‘supper’ before going to sleep.

Saturday morning. Everybody was up 0800 hours, despite a tiresome climbing the previous day and night. A pleasant surprised us all. Having arrived at night, nobody knew how beautiful the cottage and its entire surrounding was. It was a natural phenomena.

The house is said to be built in the late 1880’s by missionaries as a resting place when they climb. We were amazed when told that we woke up above 2000 meters above sea level. That morning, we prepared our braii meat as we were scheduled to take a tour of the plateau that is called Lichenya plateau, on which we were on.

Saturday afternoon. Having being nearer to the sun, the plateau was hot. We left for………….peak and the beautiful Linje natural pools.

It was a refreshing sight we found at the peak. We had an aerial view of Mulanje, with tea plantation estates in a scenic view that included the M1 road up to somewhere in Luchenza. We lucky enough we were that when the day suddenly became cloudy, we found ourselves in an island, above the cloud. Literally, the clouds were beneath us that we could no longer see the aerial view, but being above clouds.

Then came the refrigerator cool Linje natural pools. The water in the pools are crystal clear that one might even drink without problems. We swam, admired nature, swam and ten sun bathed.

Back at the cottage, in the evening we had our braii. Under a cloudless sky, we chatted till we lost track of time and retired to bed, to prepare for our descending the next day.

By 0900 hours on Sunday morning, we had our prayer, and the journey back to the world began. Using the same root, we also refilled our bottles at Namunyemunye River, whose waters we discover were also crystal and unpolluted, just like at Linje pools.

Further down, we detoured to have a final swim at the famous DziweLa Nkhalamba Pools. At the more-than-sixty-meters-deep pools, we found a group Western tourist.

These pools, with a history themselves, provider tourists with a refreshing swim with its cold waters. The pools also provide a platform for diving, as they have a natural diving platform that is at least ten meters high.

After close to six hours of descending the famous mountain, we had a finger licking good lunch at the Likhubula Guest House before our driver came to pick us up, back to the polluted world.

All members of the Hikers Alliance agreed that it was a rare opportunity to hike the Maulanje massif. It has been agreed that the Alliance will be back to Mulanje mountain, this time nothing less than Sapitwa.

All members have their own experiences on the mountain jolted down on http://www.hikersalliance.blogspot.com and the group is found at hikersalliance@imapmail.org