Ben Hikes

With every pedal stroke Mount Mulanje emerges more and more out of the haze. The highest point in Malawi is not so much a lonely mountain and more a massif with multiple peaks towering over the plains below. Weather permitting we will be climbing the highest of these peaks, Mount Sapitwa (3002m), over the next three days.

John, our wiry seasoned guide, explains that Sapitwa means “Don’t go there” in Chichewa. In a time before peak baggers like us arrived en masse here, spirits used to live on the mountain. They left food out and if people ventured there and ate it they would disappear. Nowadays the spirits can’t put up with the babble of tourists and have moved to quieter parts.

The hike up to the first hut involves 1700m of elevation gain. Easy peasy for Ben, quite a big day for Lina. But she holds her tongue when the urge to complain surfaces. Our heavy items are carried up by Dixon (our porter) so we are just hiking with a light daypack. In contrast, the women and children who pass us on their way into the valley are carrying huge amounts of firewood on their heads. Their shoes are dangling from the branches since you just have better grip barefoot.

The mountain is a place of many meetings. A South African family has a similar pace to us so we leapfrog each other a couple of times. By chance we also meet Ilia and the Chipatso crowd again and celebrate a happy reunion. A little while later we come across some young Belgian engineering students who are on a short break from installing an irrigation system in a remote part of Malawi. One can sense a hint of embarrassment in our voices as we tell them about our yearlong holiday.

After a strenuous few hours of hiking – alleviated by the scenic views – we reach the first hut. The scent of a cedar wood fire for cooking and washing awaits us. The hut is plastered with posters about “Saving our Malawian Cedar”. As so often we just shake our heads and sigh, then claim the corner next to a broken window as these mountain huts can get quite stuffy.

After a somewhat chilly night’s sleep that is frequently interrupted by the one snorer (out of 13 people) we shiver out of our layers for a windy sunrise. The gusts only pick up strength as we head up to the peak of Sapitwa. This last stretch is more a scramble than a hike, way more challenging than we had anticipated and we’re quite glad that John is showing us the way and helping us overcome the bigger boulders.

We spend just enough time at the peak to soak in the expansive views and for John to tell us the stories of the three people that died on the mountain. We count two cases of stupidity and possibly one murder mystery. On the way down we cheer on the engineers. Being young and Belgian they don’t have much mountain experience and this is a tough one.

Back at the hut we gorge ourselves on stale bread and white chocolate KitKats and celebrate the arrival of the victorious Belgians. We then stretch our tired limbs and grumble up again as we still have at least three hours of hiking and lots of elevation loss ahead of us. Dried mango and pineapple and the thought of a veritable feast of canned beans and nsima for dinner see us through to the second hut. This time we sleep like stones and no amount of snoring disturbs our exhausted slumber.

The following morning Lina can only hobble down into the valley on her blistered toes and with thighs as sore as they have never been before. She soaks her poor hooves in the icy stream while Ben washes off the mountain grime with a group of Chinese tourists snapping selfies. Back at the trailhead we say goodbye to John and Dixon. We are tempted to say that we wouldn’t have done it without them.

We pay for our smelly clothes to be washed and they are hanging up to dry just in time for the endless afternoon rain. We were not quite prepared for this after months of dry season weather. But having to wear moist clothes to bed to dry them out seems like a fair price to pay for excellent weather on the mountain.

We are very grateful (and slightly incredulous) that hiking and cycling seem to require different muscles. Otherwise Lina wouldn’t have been able to cycle the next 70km to Blantyre – the last big city in Malawi – as she can hardly walk. But the little excursion has reaffirmed our love for hiking (not that this was necessary). Cycling is great as a mode of transport, especially in Africa, but hiking still rules.