Already in Johannesburg, on the way to Frankfurt. I am continuing our English version of our story, now without my other half Kaneli as she stayed behind in Malawi for another 2 weeks. 
We finished our previous story in Mvuu, where we stayed 2 nights, enjoying all kinds of morning, day and evening safari activities, encountering lots of hippos, crocodiles, elephants, antilopes, baboons, gudus, buffalos, zebras etc. As Malawi in general is extremely safe, it was really an experience to stay among the animals and this had to be taken into account when moving from one place to another in the area. It was strictly forbidden to walk alone in the dark, even from our dinner place to chalets, and we always had an armed guide with us for that tiny bit.The other night there was an elephant eating the top of my roof, quite an experience!
I even ended up having an overnight visitor as Kaneli did not dare to change back to her chalet after finishing the previous blog together, we listened to the night sounds of all the animals and decided it is safer to stay until morning :-).
So we took off on the 6th of October to Likhabula, our starting point for Mt. Mulanje. The trip was estimated to last 3,5 hours but took instead 8 hours due to various reasons, for example excited shopping from bus windows. It was pitch dark when we arrived on an absolutely bumpy road, and could barely see a silhouette of the mountains. After having dinner and combining 2 persons' stuff in one bag we had a good sleep, and took off at 7 am to reach the 2200 m high Tuchila hut.
We hiked in separate groups at the end, and it took 9 hours to reach the hut with our last group, in which we laughed a lot during the walk. Feeling at the top was excellent and excited, as everybody was mentally preparing for the next day's hike to the top, which we saw in front of us, a rocky, respectable top called Sapitwa. Some of us slept outside on the ground and myself on the balcony outside, and watched the stars and the clear sky and had butterflies in our stomachs.
And so we took off at 6 am to reach to top on. Ascending time was given as 2 hours, but we were quite skeptical about that to start with (and probably learned already something about our guide's view compared to ours....
The terrain was extremely demanding, sometimes almost 40 degrees vertical, you just needed to grab anywhere possible on the rocky surface and use hands and feet as in real climbing. The path also circulated around bushes, under the rocks, over the rocks and sometimes help was absolutely needed; our guys and guides pushed and pulled us girls every now and then, without them this would not have been possible. It took us 5 hours to get to the top but WE ALL MADE IT!
Feeling at the top was incredible but a bit confused, as at least for me some parts were quite scary on the way. And at the same time I tried NOT too think of the descend but knew it will be ahead. Anyhow champagne and Finnish liquerish were hot stuff on the top, but after some time we then started descending. It took 4 hours for me to get down, and I could not believe I never was able to get up once seeing the path from this angle again. Many times I had to put feet and hands and butt on the ground to be able to make it. One step at the time was the motto, and some cursing was heard in the air.....
Anyhow, what a group, everybody managed to do it, even poor Juhani, who had a horrible stomache problem and puked all the way up. Real Finnish SISU showed there and suprised even our guides I think!
After having dinner at the hut we all were ready for bed before 8 pm. I still had my balcony view and watched the bush fires in the mountains up there, which is really common here. At some point I realized that the fire had spread quite some, but just turned my back. To finish our trip on the mountains, mother nature created a real show for us, as the fire actually spread next to our hut, and our guides had to create a counterfire to stop that. We were assured that this is no problem, and of course had no other choice than believe it. True it was though.
In the morning we started the descend via a smoking terrain. We took a shortcut which descended 1 km in a 2 km path, which was breathtaking by view and killing on our legs :-), especially after previous days climb. On the way down I had a chance to talk a lot with one of our carrier boys (we had altogether 17 carriers, who took the same path as us, but with all our gear and some bare feet!). This Davie is 15 years and collects extra money for school by doing this during holidays. Many of the carriers were studying and one was getting PhD in biology.
Our energy level was close to zero at the end, and almost at the bottom of the path in the village one family offered us a resting spot by laying out a hay mattress for us girls and a plastic chair for our gentleman. There we sat or actually lied and laughed on the ground in the middle of the village with this great and friendly family. Will send a picture of them via our carrier boy as they asked us to do that. They would have offered even lunch, typical Malawian one, sima, which is kind of a porridge dumplings made of corn. Unfortunately we had to continue as others were already waiting for us.
So now I am on my way home, head full of images and thoughts and 1529 pictures in my memory cards - body is tired, but the overall feeling is really happy and a bit confused. It is tough to understand this a(i)dventure is now over. It has exceeded all my expectations, being much more demanding physically and even more eye-opening than ever could imagine. And fun with the KAPUA team. Stomach muscles increased in size because of all the laughter!
Let us see what happens next and how to tie this all together so that one could utilize this experience in the most productive manner for ourselves and Malawi and Africa.
People will now scatter all around Finland as already in the plane, but the spirit will remain, and lots of ideas already in the air for new things together. Fortunately, as we are one family now.
SUPER US, KAPUA 2010 ROCKS!
Greetings,
Erja
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