Chalet 4

RS: The remaining stretch to Chelinda was long, dark, and rugged. There was no chance we would have made it with the little gas we had left. We had to drive excruciatingly slow to negotiate the gaping holes in the road.

Eventually we made it to camp. It was hard to follow the sign posts at night and we ended up knocking on the wrong door to check in. Luckily, we knocked on the door of the pilot whom Prince Daniel suggested could pick up a tire for us in Mzuzu.

The pilot was a Canadian ex-pat named Christian. We told Christian we were trying to check in to the chalet we had reserved but that we couldn't seem to figure out where to go. Christian was very accomodating. He spoke in a calm, soothing voice and patiently pointed us in the right direction.

We also explained to Christian the trying circumstances that brought us to camp so late and apologized for bothering him. He empathized with our plight and told us it was not uncommon for people to experience car problems on the road to Nyika. He also told us that he was not making the run to Mzuzu the next day but instead was heading to an island in the middle of Lake Malawi. However, he told us the camp had its own mechanic yard that could probably patch our tire.

Very sadly, about two weeks after having this conversation with Christian, we read this article in the news.

With Christian's help, we found the main lodge at camp where a British ex-pat who runs the Nyika Safaris tour company that operates the Chelinda camp got us sorted and into the self-catering chalet we reserved.

JP:
While pulling up to the lodge, we drove by the chalets and joked that we didn't want to get Chalet 4 because it was off on it's own and looked a bit scary in the middle of the woods (you have to understand, we had quite an evening already and besides the road, we had absolutely no idea where we were ... DY: plus Nyika has giant turtles that run like Carl Lewis). Guess which chalet we got? That's right, Chalet 4. But when we got up in the morning, it turns out Chalet 4 isn't so scary after all.

2 bedroom, 1 bath and a fireplace, it was much more than we expected. We even had the help of Dominic, who was essentially a butler, to keep the fires going (the fireplace as well as the fire for hot water) and cook our meals.

Here's the fireplace:



Here's the wood burning water heater:



And wood burning stove:



RS: This place was about as cozy as they come. I think all of our expectations were low after a roommate of Squeezy's in Lilongwe had pooh poohed the place and suggested it was overpriced. We were all really excited to discover the place was so nice.

Comically Good Luck

It has been about 2 1/2 hours at this point. It's completely dark and we have no means of communicating with Dan or Jon.

Finally a car drives up in the same direction we're headed. I flag them down. "Have you seen our friends?" Sure, they're with us. People come streaming out from every direction of the car. Finally, Dan and Jon emerge.

JP:
While I tell Mellissa and Katy the story of our last few hours, Dan, Ryan, and a number of guys we rode with start changing the tire. As a gesture of goodwill, we offer our pit crew beers which they devour in a matter of minutes.

RS:
The man I would learn to call Prince Daniel soon takes control of the situation. He grabs the tire-changing kit and starts to remove the flat tire. He embarrased us with how quickly he was able to erect the jack, and in the dark no less (so that's what that extra piece to the jack was for . . . Oh, I get it . . . ).

Dan and I help as Prince Daniels places the tire they had borrowed from a car they had found up on blocks at Mr. Mhongo's camp. When we start to tighten the lug nuts, we realize that this tire is a different size than the others; the lug nuts don't fit completely flush against the wheel. It's pretty close, though, so we think it should hold until Chelinda.

Now, about that gas. By the time our second tire went flat, I think it was pretty clear to us that we were very unlikely to make it to camp on the little amount of diesel we had left. The gauge was on empty so our only hope was that the gauge was wrong.

So Dan negotiated with Prince Daniel for us to use some of the diesel they were taking up to sell at the Chelinda camp. Prince Daniel was very accomodating; he didn't think twice about letting us use it.

So, in a matter of seconds, someone retrieved a 25 liter container of gas from the back of Prince Daniel's truck and Prince Daniel jury-rigged a plastic bottle into a gas nozzle.

We also developed a plan: Prince Daniel and his crew would follow us the rest of the way to Chelinda to make sure we got there alright. The next morning at 9:00 a.m., he would find us to reclaim the tire. We were to get another 25 liters of gas from the Chelinda camp and give it to Prince Daniel in repayment for the amount he let us use. Prince Daniel also told us about a pilot at Chelinda that makes a run to and from Mzuzu everyday. He suggested we find the pilot and ask the pilot to pick us up a tire in Mzuzu.

And just like that, we were back on the road.

Now, let's review. We were stranded on a dirt road in the middle of a seldomly touristed national park without a tire and without enough gas to get to the nearest town that might have a tire. Jon and Dan happen upon a group of workers who are heading up to the camp we're trying to reach with the purpose, in part, to sell the extra canisters of diesel they're carrying. They take Jon and Dan to a garage near the Nyika gate where they find a car that's similar to ours up on blocks with a tire to spare.

In the middle of nowhere we came across a group who had at their disposal an extra canister of gas and a spare tire to fit our car. That's pretty good luck if you ask me.

Good Luck and Godspeed

So we blew our second tire of the day no farther than 5 km inside Nyika. Just as we started to celebrate our good luck and look forward to getting to camp, our car fails us again. This time we've got no spare. We've got just about no gas. And we've got about an hour before the sun goes down.

The good news is that we're not all that far from the gate. Maybe they have a radio or something there.

We all get out of the car to inspect the tire. Sure enough, this thing is flat.



The only sensible thing to do is split up and look for help at the gate. If we run, we can probably make it there and back within the hour. So we decide that Jon and Dan will go the gate while I stay back to keep an eye on the womenfolk.



Dan and Jon take off with fleeces, a bottle of water, and two head lamps. Katy, Mellissa, and I stay behind with the car. Dan and Mellissa have cell phones that they've been using in Malawi, but the battery on one is drained and there's no reception to be had out in these parts. Dan takes the operable cell with him but we've got no way to communicate with each other. Mellissa, Katy, and I will just have to wait . . .

JP:
So Dan and I start back to the park entrance, where we entered the gate by the small village. It's about 4:30PM, the sun set the previous night around 5:30PM. We realize we need to pick up the pace if we want get there before it's dark so the two of us begin a cycle of running and walking, running and walking (running the flat and downhill, walking the uphill portions). I don't know how fast we were running nor how much distance we covered but it took us about 40 minutes to get back to the gate, stopping to talk to some guys working at a little construction site (weren't able to help) and waving hello to a bunch of kids asking, "give me my money!" [DY: JP clearly had previous trail running experience. I could barely keep up with his clip.]

As you would guess, the person at the gate was rather surprised, maybe more perturbed, to see us again so soon, especially on foot. Dan proceeds to explain our situation and she responds by telling us the following:

1. There is no phone line
2. There's a radio but it's turned off, we can turn it on but it won't be of any benefit since they've turned off the radio at the other end
3. There's a lady in the village with a cell phone we may use but we'd have to negotiate with her ...
   

Brilliant! Within minutes, we find this lady with the cell phone (which she keeps in her cleavage) and the gate guard explains to her in a local language why two azungu are asking to use her phone. The peanut gallery of villagers that has formed around us finds this absolutely HI-larious but she agrees to walk with us 1km down the road to where her cell phone receives a signal. But before doing that, she sends a young girl to fetch her coat. Meanwhile ...



RS:
Katy, Mellissa, and I are having a grand ol' time of, well . . . you know . . . umm . . . sitting on our arses waiting for Dan and Jon to return. Actually, it was quite relaxing. We sat in the car and chatted it up. Now, I can't speak for Mellissa or Katy, but I was completely convinced that we'd be spending the night in the car. And this was just fine by me. We had food and water with us as well as all of our clothes. No one was around to bother us, so I was sound as a pound.

About a half hour after Jon and Dan left, we spotted a truck coming down the hill back towards Rumphi. We quickly brainstormed about what to do. Ultimately, we opted not to call attention to the fact that we were a separated bunch of five azungu in an expensive 4-wheel-drive vehicle with all of our stuff in the back who were positively stranded in a remote section of Northern Malawi. We let the truck pass us by. We figured, apart from not wanting to advertise our vulnerability, they really had nothing to offer us if they were heading in the opposite direction of where we needed to go. Plus, with a plan in place, it didn't seem smart to deviate without means of communicating our audible to Dan and Jon.

We'll just wait right here . . .

***

JP:
Alright, so Dan and I are waiting for this lady's coat to arrive when a truck pulls up and stops at the gate as a number of people spill out of the back of the truck. Not confident with our plan of walking down the road with the cell phone lady, we cruise up to the truck to see where they're heading when we meet Prince Daniel, the one in the group who speaks the best English. We discover that they're going to Chelinda lodge, exactly where we're going, so Dan explains to Prince Daniel our problem and he agrees to help, telling us to hop in the back and they'd take us back to the car, we'd just need to make one stop. (I was relieved, at one point, Dan said I might have to go back alone, in the dark, back to the car to tell the others what's going on and that he would stay there to figure out how to get a tire.).

Dan and I jump into the back with about 7 or 8 others, one of whom is pregnant, sitting on bags of something and cans of diesel fuel (did we tell you that we were also running out of diesel?).

The stop we make is to Mr. Mhongo's residence, the park director, who lives just inside the gate down a side road. Mr. Mhongo emerges from his brick home dressed like Dr. Huxtable. After a few minutes (I think they were there to drop off his mail), Dan is summoned by Prince Daniel to speak with Mr. Mhongo. I don't really know what was said since I was still in the back of the truck with the others but basically, Mr. Mhongo said, your problem is my problem. These are the events soon after:

1. Return to the gate to locate local mechanic(s)
2. Head back towards Mr. Mhongo's home to a garage area where they remove a tire from a truck that was up on blocks for repair
3. After loading the good tire in the back, we set off towards our stranded vehicle

So after about 3 hours away, it's now dark, the moon is out and you can barely see into the woods, we finally make it back, pulling up to see Ryan waving us down ...

2nd blow tire + no gas + middle of nowhere = bad shape

You've got to be kidding me.


2nd blown tire ...

No gas ...

middle of nowhere ...



Did I mention that it will be dark in less than an hour and we're in a national park known for its wildlife, including leopards? How about the fact that, according to the register Dan signed at the front gate, we are the only people who entered Nyika today?

[Bang the Gong]

Race Against the Clock

Beyond Rumphi there is not much going on. We pass a number of scattered villages but even these become more and more sparse as we continue on towards Nyika. The road is dirt and it's pockmarked with craters worn through by the downpour of the rainy season that recently ended. Its ragged condition makes our travel slow and jarring.

Neither the isolation of the area nor the poor condition of the road bodes particularly well for our goal of reaching the gate to Nyika by 3:00 p.m.; we need gas and we have fewer than thirty minutes to traverse the slow-going 50 km or so in front of us.

The deeper we plunge into the Malawian countryside, the more skeptical we all become of finding the filling station the police officer and gas station attendant in Rumphi described. Dan has been on this road before and he doesn't remember a gas station. Besides, how could there be a gas station in an area so far-flung from a major town?

Despite our doubts, we spot a filling station in an unlikely location about 20 minutes outside Rumphi. It's a single pump cropping out of a grassy yard next to what apears to be someone's home. We pull onto the grass and into the bay but see no obvious way of dispensing the fuel from the hose or paying for the gas. Dan gets out to ask but no one is inside either the house or small general store across the road. Moreover, after inspecting the pump more closely, we realize that this isn't a station for diesel at all; this thing pumps paraffin oil (aka kerosene). We could cook or heat our house with it, but not power our car. (I've since heard that you may actually be able to use paraffin in a diesel tank, but I'm not sure.)

Now if we turn around it's a guarantee that we'll forgo one or our two prepaid nights in Nyika. We've got about a quarter of a tank left; it's tight but we think we might just have enough to make it to the Chelinda camp. That won't leave us any gas for driving around the park or getting back out, but we've read that there is some diesel to be found at the camp even though our guide book cautions not to rely on the short supplies available there.

At this point, though, we've about run out of options. We press on and cross our fingers both to make it to the gate on time and for our gas to last us to Chelinda.



After another 15 minutes of driving we realize that there is no chance we'll make it by 3:00 p.m. The road is just in too bad of shape.

We thumb through the guide book again looking for any indication that they will turn us away if we arrive after 3:00 p.m. We find nothing. Moreover, Dan thinks the VSO volunteer who told us about the 3:00 p.m. deadline is a bit of an alarmist and may be exaggerating. We figure we might as well try our luck. If they turn us away we'll have to backtrack to Rumphi, but we've got nothing else to do today if we don't make it to camp, so we've really got nothing to lose.

Well, the road is a lot longer than any of us thought. This park is remote. We occasionally pass by a village but, at this distance from Rumphi, even the small villages are few and far between. The good news is that the scenery is stunning and after resigning ourselves to the idea that we'd be late, I think we all relaxed enough to enjoy it.

After another hour and twenty minutes or so, at about 4:05 p.m., we finally reached the main gate to Nyika.



The gate is closed and we're nervous. A sign does in fact say that you must enter the park by a certain time of day, but the cutoff is 3:30 p.m., not 3:00 p.m. like the VSO guy told us in Lilongwe. I'm feeling more confident about our chances of getting in only a half hour or so after the deadline except for the fact that the woman at the gate appears to be closing up shop.

Dan walks up to work his abundant charm.



He goes inside the booth with the guard, which we interpret as a very good sign. A couple minutes later he comes out to the car to get more money for the entrance fee.

Sweet! We've made it.

Dan signs us in on the log sheet and noticed that, curiously, we're the only people to have entered the park today. This place really is out in the cut.

Rumphi, Malawi: Not the Land of Milk and Honey

About an hour after leaving Mzuzu, we reach the road to Rumphi. It's now about 2:30 p.m., which gives us a half hour to make it to the entrance of Nyika before being turned away. We think the gate is about 30-50 kilometers from town, so, even though the paved road ends in Rumphi, we figure we've got a fighting chance of coming in under the wire.

But first things first: we need gas.

We pulled off the north-south highway we'd been traveling since Lilongwe to take the road to Rumphi. After crossing a river, we drive determinedly to the only gas station in town. When we get there, we see that the attendants are meticulously squeezing the station's last drops of diesel into a generator. The only gas station in town has no gas for us.

Dan rolls down the window and the guys confirm that the situation is as it appears. Now, if we turn back to Mzuzu for gas we'll add two hours to our trip and most likely have to spend the night in Rumphi. From the looks of the town, this is not an attractive option. Plus, we've already paid for lodging in Nyika. Dan is pretty sure there's nothing beyond Rumphi but he asks anyway whether we'll find another gas station before Nyika. To our surprise, one of the attendants assures us that yes, about, fifteen minutes up the road, there's another station with diesel. We should try our luck there.

Dan is skeptical about the claim because he has driven past Rumphi before and saw nothing resembling a gas station, but we press on thinking that this guy must know better than us.

When we reach the edge of town where the paved road ends and the dirt road begins, we're stopped at a police checkpoint. Dan asks the officer about gas and the officer repeats what the attendant had said: about fifteen minutes up the road there's another gas station.

Good. We might just make it.

[Impending Doom Music Crescendo]

Lunch in Mzuzu

Mzuzu is the central hub of transportation in Northern Malawi. We decided to stop there because we knew we could get some decent chow and stock up on groceries for the self-catering chalet we reserved for our stay in Nyika National Park.

Dan (that's Squeezy to you) had been to Mzuzu before and recommended a restaurant called Graceland for lunch. As luck would have it, Graceland was located next to a pharmacy where I was able to pick up bilharzia medication for swimming in Lake Malawi. (You can read about bilharzia (aka Schistosomiasis) here.)

(JP: Outside the pharmacy we met another rastafarian, like our friends Lemon Squeezy and Cheese on Toast, who was selling bracelets. His name was Sweet Banana.)

Lunch was basic but satisfying. Afterwards, we split up to take care of a few important errands.

Dan took the car to the gas station while Katy, Mellissa (i.e., Cheese on Toast), Jon, and I went to the market to pick up food and other supplies (by "other supplies," I mostly mean toilet paper - see Malawi gurgle). We were all focused at this point because time was running tight after our blowout and a lunch that ran longer than we were hoping. We quickly cobbled together ingredients for a few solid meals and picked up a crate of beer.

Dan met us outside with the car. He had checked the air pressure in the tires but didn't get gas at the gas station. He figured, reasonably so, that since the thing to do in Nyika is drive around the dirt roads looking for wildlife and taking in the scenery, we should top off at the last town before the park, Rumphi, so that we would have as much diesel as possible for touring Nyika. So we loaded the groceries into the car and headed off towards Rumphi ...

[Insert impending doom music here]

Blown tire . . . #1

Leaving Lilongwe, once the dense fog cleared,
driving became much easier

JP:
Maybe we should think of a better title for this post, it really just gives it away, OOOOOO!, what's going to happen, a blown tire, I'm shocked. It's like J.K. calling Book 7 something that gives away the ending. Why even continue reading?

Well, you continue reading because you want to find out how it happens, at least that's our hope with our blog, to tell you about our adventure, not just what happened but how it happened. So let's begin:

It's Tuesday morning in Lilongwe and we're off to Nyika. The plan for the day is pretty simple, drive from Lilongwe to Nyika, a few hours in the car and we should be there in no time.

Except, we hit a little bump in the road (only figuratively). Cruising along on the "tarmac"
__________
Sidebar: Things we learned about motoring in Malawi

1. The paved roads are called "tarmac"
2. The roads are used by motor vehicles, bicycles, animals and pedestrians! (no sidewalk and not much of a shoulder) which makes driving at night dangerous, everyone really needs to "share" the road
3. Traffic lights are merely suggestive

OK, back to the post.
__________
So we're cruising along the tarmac when we suddenly experience a bit of a jolt and a kulump kulump kulump sound, I don't remember if anyone said anything but I'm sure one of us said "What the @$&#*???!!!" probably Dan, who did a wonderful job controlling the vehicle as it fishtailed before coming to a stop, Pandretti was very impressed.

The reason behind the blow out, who knows, I think we'll just chalk it up to Africa. [RS: After looking at photos of the blown tire, my brother said it looked like a retread, but who really knows. I sure don't.]

Fortunately for us though, we have two ND graduates, a fine institution in many respects but mainly because of the core requirements for graduation which include:

1. Swimming, all ND grads have to pass a swim test;
2. P.E. for freshman;
   
3. Changing a flat tire (aced it!); and
   
4. Foosball

Changing a flat, no problem. After about 45 minutes (all you had to do was pass, no grades were handed out), we were back on the road. If you don't believe it happened, here's our proof:

Melissa and Ryan enjoying the weather

Blow outs look the same in Africa as they do back home

Melissa, Pit-Crew Chief
Dan and Ryan, Jackmen
Jon, Airgun guy sans airgun