Rumphi, Malawi: Continues to Lack in the Milk and Honey Departments

We had perused the Rumphi section of our Lonely Planet guide and noticed there weren't a whole lot of options for places to stay. The first place recommended was a guest house that Dan and Mellissa had stayed before when they were in town for Dan's research. They said it was pretty small but clean enough. We're not all that picky at this point.

So the mechanics dropped Mellissa, Moya, Jon, Katy, and me off with all of our stuff at the guest house. The front area was a pleasant outdoor space where a few people seemed to be enjoying a drink or two. It looked promising. The "lobby" wasn't as inviting. It was illuminated by a harsh green florescent light and contained a single couch and chair in an otherwise barren room.

We walked up to the attendant. "Are you still serving food outside?" No. "Okay, well, we're five people. Do you have any rooms to accomodate us?" No, we're completely booked.

Great.

No fear, Moya was on the case. He said he knew of another guest house down the road. He told us to hang out in the "lobby" with our bags while he checked whether the other place had any rooms available.

About fifteen minutes later Moya returned. The other place had no space for us. He also tried another place but to no avail. He knew of one other place that was a little bit out of town. He said would try to get a hold of them by phone. He went outside to make a call.

I thought we were going to have to plead with the guy up front to let us sleep on the couch and floor of the lobby. At this point, that idea did not particularly bother me. I was tired and wanted this day to be over.

Moya came back after another five to ten minutes or so. He said he finally got a hold of this place outside of town. They were sleeping over there but his calls eventually got someone out of bed. Thankfully, they had rooms for us.

So Moya hooked us up again by grabbing a friend of his from the bar we were in earlier in the day for lunch to drive us up to this place we would stay: Matunkha.