Madzeka hut & the descent

Madzeka hut, where we spent the night on the mountain, was very basic. It had two rooms, one with the fire and two tables with benches, and one with piles of plastic covered thin foam mattresses and a cupboard full of kitchen utensils. It was apparently built in 1932. The floor boards had little gaps between them where the wind came through.

We decided to sleep in the room with the fire, because that would be warmest, and placed the plastic covered mattresses all over the floor to try to keep out the wind.

Around 17h00, we were informed that there was a bucket of hot water in the "bathing room" for us.

I suppose it's aptly named, being a room in which you may bath yourself, as opposed to a room which contains a bathtub. Maybe the word "room" was being used a bit loosely, as the structure lacked a door. Anna was the brave one who went ahead and tried it out first.

It was almost an exhilarating feeling though, the warm water and the cold air. Also, it felt good to be clean after the long walk. I put on layers straight after my bath, including long johns underneath, to keep the warmth in.

The "toilet room" did have a door, which didn't close, but luckily the entrance faced away from the watchmen's hut.

If it had been warmer, we would definitely have swum in the beautiful river near to the hut, costumes or none. Maybe next time.

Despite Anna's worst fears, we survived the night without freezing to death. (She had recently been on a mountain in Zimbabwe, in a tent, where she'd had a bad experience.) Since we were in our sleeping bags by 20h00 and only climbed out around 8h00, I'm sure the porters and watchmen thought we were very lazy people. Also, I think the porters were in a hurry to get back down to the bottom and get paid. As soon  as he spotted some movement, Freddy knocked on the door to see what time we wanted to leave. In the end, he was almost packing our bags for us! He cleared out all the dinner dishes and took them to be washed. Then made sure everything was packed away, and we barely had time to convince him to take us on a short detour.

We went via a nursery, which the hut watchmen also look after. It was a very short distance from the hut. In the nursery, they specifically grow a type of cedar found only on Mount Mulanje. It's called Mulanje cedar. (What else?) Obviously the trees are cut down for fire wood, as well as crafting of household goods and tourist souvenirs. The wood is light and has a very distinctive pleasant smell. The nursery is an effort by the Malawi Forestry Department to make sure the resource doesn't run out. Unfortunately, the trees take ages to grow, the bigger ones we saw in the nursery were about 15 months old and less than 30cm tall.

The above picture was taken outside the nursery, by the old hut watchman. I gave him a very quick tutorial on how to use my camera and told him that we wanted to see the mountains in the back ground.  I think he did quite a good job!

Next, I told him I wanted a picture of him too. He ran into the nursery and fetched some of his trees to pose with! There was a younger man, who seemed somewhat cognitively challenged, who helped the old hut watchman. I'm not sure if he's formally employed or just there to do the heavier work which may be getting more difficult for the old man.

We made it down the mountain in about 5 hours. The down is easier on the heart, but harder on the knees. I really felt like Freddy and Maxwell would've run down the mountain if it wasn't for us. They generously stopped at a nice spot for lunch, even though they didn't eat any lunch. They had left their left over food for the hut watchmen. Freddy told me that the old watchman can make it both up and down the mountain in one day. If, for example, he needs supplies, he will go down to the village and back up in the same day. Much respect to him! It's more than I could manage.

The view from our lunch spot

We were happy to make it down in one piece. We stayed over in Mulanje (the town) that night (Monday) at a place called Kara O'Mula. The rooms were pretty basic, but after the mountain hut, an indoor flushing toilet and hot water shower felt like luxury to us.

While it wasn't 5 star luxury, the staff were friendly and helpful, they definitely went the extra mile. We asked about laundry, because all our dirty clothes from the mountain smelled of fire. The clothes were fetched from our room and taken to be washed. We realized the next day that everything had been hand washed, including heavy jeans, because most of the stuff was still wet! Either the washing machine was broken or they didn't have one, but didn't say they couldn't do our laundry. (Or it could've been that the person doing the washing didn't know how to use the washing machine. They still made a plan though.)
The next morning when we arrived at our vehicle to leave, there was someone cleaning the windscreen and wiping away the leaves.

From Mulanje we headed to Thyolo, through more tea estates. We had to make it to Cape Mc Clear, Lake Malawi, by that evening (Tuesday), because we had booked to leave for Mumbo Island on Wednesday morning.