Breakfast was edible but still pretty horrible. It consisted of buttered bread, “chips”, a fried egg, sausage (which Bhav didn’t get because they’d ran out) and what can only be described as a salad. The chips, if you can call them that, had been boiled in oil which is quite popular in Malawi and were dripping with the stuff.
After breakfast we explored the town and I bought my first souvenirs, a pair of feet shaped candle stick holders and a giant letter opener. I’d so far resisted the urge due to the added weight to my bag but they were small and light. Bhav came away with an elephant calendar and handmade postcards.
We wanted to head further south that day to Blantyre so we had to fit our trip into the plateau in before lunch. Our one way taxi ride up the hill cost MWK 3,000 (1,000 more than the previous nights accommodation!) so we were keen to try and walk or hitchhike back down.
Our guide (we were told there was a path but they encourage people to take a guide as the paths aren’t marked) also sold souvenirs but promised he could get us round in 3 hours so we weren’t running behind our self imposed schedule. The walk was pretty strenuous to begin with but got a lot easier, the cool climate helped. We soon discovered that our Queen (Elizabeth II) and Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie were driven up in Land Rovers during their visits. Both had vantage points dedicated in their honour. In my opinion Queens’ View is the most impressive, although with the low mist covering the town below they weren’t as impressive as they could have been.
When we were walking onto Emperors’ View we realised that we were the only people there, except for a guy trying to sell gem stones and minerals mined from a nearby hill. He was one of a number of people waiting in random places trying to sell things (the others mostly selling locally grown fruit like yellow brambles, strawberries! and mulberries) there problem being that we were the only tourists. After our trek we bought some strawberries, mostly because of the novelty of being able to.
Our walk started off at the hotel and went in a loop via the dam of the artificial lake that supplies the town bellow with water and back to the hotel. The luck we’d been using up obviously hadn’t run out as Andrew, the Sri Lankan owner of Carolinas (the hotel we’d eaten in at Senga Bay) drove straight past us. He ended up buying us lunch in the hotel restaurant and driving us to Blantyre and dropping us off at the door to the hostel.
We decided to do a bit of exploring before it got dark as near the hostel is potentially unsafe at night. Blantyre’s City Centre isn’t very interesting and felt more like a town. The city did give us our first experience of street kids, with 2 of them quickly latching on to us and murmuring something (probably “give us money” in Chinchewa). After 10 minutes of trying to shake them off they started walking into us and blocking our path. This continued for a while until the larger of the 2 suddenly kicked me in the leg. After running off they quickly reappeared with rocks and started throwing them at us. Bhav was hit in the shoulder and decided to point her finger and tell them off. It wasn’t until a local came to our aid and threatened them that they went away.
Since we arrived back at the hostel in the dark and that it had a reputation for attracting wealthy locals and expats to its bar we decided to eat there. Big mistake, after a 2 hour long wait (long even by Malawian standards) for our food and trying to talk to the manager about it we were treated very badly. If you’re ever in Blantyre don’t go to Doogles.

Bhav and Sostein (our guide) – Tired from climbing Zomba Plateau.