Saturday we decided to rent some kayaks and go out to the island by ourselves. I realized in the morning that I had lost my sunglasses at some point the day before and an inquiry of the boatmen we had hired yielded no results. I guess keeping track of sunglasses for four and a half months in Africa isn't to bad, I was kind of half expecting that I would lose them at some point during the year anyway. Unfortunately this was only the first of the things to be lost (well, technically second since Jacquie had lost 1000 phone units on the bus on Thursday – about 10 dollars worth). The kayaks were the sea variety which I had not used before but I got used to having a rudder fairly quickly. Megan rode with me since she had no idea what she was doing and the other two girls had at least kayaked before. I had a Ziploc bag in my pocket containing the extra money we had brought with us since we were not sure what the price for kayaks was and sometime during swimming around it slipped out and will probably make some future visitor quite happy. At least it was only 4000 MK (about $24).
The sunset that evening was very picturesque and the girls all posed in front of it to do glamor shots. Back in our room Jacquie and I watched The Invention of Lying or at least Jacquie did. I feel asleep about half an hour in, but I've seen it before.
Sunday we took some kayaks out again and this time the girls rented snorkeling gear as well. The Araujos had taken some kayaks out a little while before and we met up with them at a small beach on the far edge of the bay close to where there is a narrow gap between the mainland and an island. The night before there had been a storm which had stirred up the water a good deal so it was a bit cooler and not very clear. We taught the Araujos little girl (who I think is about 2) how to splash people and after spending several hours snorkeling and relaxing on the beach headed back toward the lodge. This time Megan and I had a different kind of kayak where we were sitting on top instead of inside and there were holes in the seat that went all the way through for water to drain out. A few time I had rocked it just to freak Megan out and one of the times Jacquie saw it and shouted that they wanted to see us tip over. So I promptly obliged, much to Megan's dismay. The lake felt a lot bigger when we were swimming in it just hanging on the the kayak a kilometer from shore. It took us three tries but we managed to get back into the kayak and even beat the others back to shore.
Monday morning we finished packing up and met the taxi the manager had arranged for us the previous night to take us to Monkey Bay. It ended up being a minibus instead of a taxi and they tried to charge us extra since supposedly the rate for minibuses was higher but after arguing for a few minutes they accepted the prearranged rate. Everyone kept saying that we could take a minibus from Monkey Bay to Mangochi and from there get a “big bus” to take us down to Blantyre but, come to find out, we hadn't accounted for the Malawian tendency to just say “yes” to any question posed to them especially if they want you to buy something from them or hire their services. But first we must backtrack to our exciting trip from Monkey Bay to Mangochi. While around in Monkey Bay we had a pickup driver try to convince us that no minibuses were coming and we had to go with him for several hundred Kwatcha more than we knew the price for a minibus. After a few minutes a minibus did in fact come contrary to his protestations and we piled into it along with several Malawians and two other azungus (any one they think looks different, for all practical purposes it can be translated as “foreigner”). We started off toward Mangochi but a few minutes in the minibus suddenly jerked and we started swerving and making all manner of noises that should never emanate from a vehicle which is enjoying good health. It turned out that the back left tire had blown out and we had been scrapping along on the rim which now had a rather large flat spot on one side where several centimeters of metal had been left behind to adorn the last few hundred feet of road.
While the minibus did have a spare tire they naturally had no tools with which to put it on. We waited around for about 20 minutes until they were able to hail a car that loaned them the tools they needed. Finally back on the road but in a few minutes we come once again to a stop, although this time much more gracefully. We ask what is going on and discover that we are apparently leaking break fluid. We all find this very comforting. The driver decided to keep going and eventually we did reach Mangochi alive. Once in Mangochi we tired to find one of these mythical “big buses” and every person we asked told us to follow them and they would take us to a “big bus” but clearly they made no distinction between “big bus” and “mini bus” for that was all there were. Now I think that what we should have asked for was a “coach bus.”
We finally managed to pick a minibus, the crowd of people around us screaming in our ears to come with them was overwhelming to say the least. We ended up once again being with the only two other white people around. This time we sat next to them and enjoy some conversation until they got out at Liwonde. It turned out that he was a retired physics teacher from the Netherlands and he and his wife (who was oriental and never said a word) were spending a couple months traveling Africa. He was quite interesting to talk to and it helped the time pass at a significantly increased pace.
When we finally reached Limbe we caught a bus to Malamulo and collapsed for the rest of the day.
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