Return to the Cape

I went back to Cape Maclear this last weekend with Nick and some new friends that he had met in Blantyre. Thomas, Maura, Bert, and Joanna are medical students currently doing a rotation at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre. Joanna is English and the other three are Dutch. They’re all really nice, and perhaps the nicest thing about them was that they picked us up in their rented car and drove us to Cape Maclear. It was great to ride in a car, even with 4 in the back. Matolas are fun the first time, after that they’re just plain miserable.

We got to spend 2 nights on the Cape since we had Monday off for Martyr’s Day. There were lots of azungu (white people) on the cape for the weekend. There was even a big party at a bar on Saturday night where I got to relearn how to associate with multiple non-Africans at once. The highlight of the weekend was a kayak trip around one of the nearby islands. We saw an African Fish Eagle (about the same size as a Bald Eagle) catch a fish and eat it in a tree right next to us.

We noticed a flat tire, on our car before we had to take off again. (Not surprising with these roads.) Luckily we met an extremely nice Indian guy, who was born and raised in Malawi, that helped us out. He not only put on the spare for us, but we had lunch at his house, and he got our tire fixed for a non-azungu price. (Malawians tend to jack up prices about 200% when they see a white person.)

Our car troubles didn’t seem too bad in comparison with another group that tried to drive to Cape Maclear in a 2 wheel drive car. After driving through a river in the road, the bottom of their car had about 4 inches of water in it, but still worked fine!