Zomba - a hike, a horse, solitude and variety of the food kind!

My next and last stop in Malawi was in a place called Zomba, and if I'd had more time I would have quite liked to stay longer... if only for all the amazing food. I could not believe the variety of fruits and vegetables and even herbs that were on offer at the market! Why what can be grown there or on the overlooking Zomba Plateau is not exported out of the town I do not know. I had heard that you could get strawberries there (which was very true) but this was not my sole reason for the visit. I'd also heard that a trip up onto Zomba Plateau was beautiful and that you could go horse riding there, so I thought I'd take a look.

I decided to try and get a ride up to the top of the plateau as I was told it was a long and steep walk, but I discovered that a taxi cost a ridiculous amount of money, even by English standards, and that no public buses went up there. I did however make friends with the guard at my guest house who very kindly managed to get me a free lift with the staff bus for a posh lodge which was at the top of the plateau. This not only meant that I got up there in comfort for nothing, but it also meant that one of the kind members of staff showed me all around the lodge and it's wonderful grounds. Sadly she didn't offer me the eat as much as you can style buffet breakfast though.

My day on the plateau was not a day when I felt like being sociable. So with photographs on my camera of two different looking and not at all detailed maps from guidebooks I'd managed to borrow along my trip, I set off declining the offer of a guide to try and find a waterfall. This proved to be surprisingly easy as I just walked in the direction I thought it should be in, which fortunately it was, until I heard water. I then spent quite a while climbing down to where the sound was coming from and then followed a river and lots of smaller waterfalls upstream until I got to the big one. At each waterfall I came to I wasn't sure whether it was the big one, but at the big one it became clear that this was it as a couple of other tourists (funnily enough from Salisbury - near where was once my home) were there with their guide. With new found confidence in my way finding abilities I then decided to try and find a peak to climb to the top of to get some views. I headed to the highest one I could see, past yellow berries, a snake, another random Cedar Tree nursery and up a smooth rock face to the top. Except this wasn't really the top, and no sooner had I got to where I'd thought was the highest point, I saw a higher peak a bit further on. This peak really was the highest around and on the top was a big tower with a little hut placed upon it. No one was around so I took the opportunity to climb the ladder to the top and get out of the window onto a platform that surrounded it, where I could see for miles in every direction. I'm still not really sure what this peak was called but it was a good one!

I then did manage to have a ride on a horse. Perhaps two hours was a bit ambitious after not riding for a very long time, but although I couldn't walk all that normally when I first got off, I did really enjoy it. My horse was big and black and called Zara. Despite her size Zara was terrified of a lot of things, one of which being baboons - a fear I now identify with. This fear meant that any rustling in the bushes was then followed by an often successful attempt to gallop very quickly away. This I did find quite disconcerting but we made it through without any falls and we even had a surprising shower of torrential rain, which was quite a joy to experience after so long without any. I had a lovely walk (once I could walk properly again) back down to Zomba town, the whole time passing the most stunning views down off the plateau across towns and villages and the many purple flowering Jacaranda trees to mountains in the distance.

Every town in this part of the world always seems to be busy and full of people. Most of the time I'm now quite happy with this but sometimes it's nice to be outside and alone. The problem with this is that generally wherever you go, someone will find you and come and talk to you. I often have a song by a band called Bush in my head which goes 'I'm never alone, I'm alone all the time'. I think perhaps only this line fits in with my current experiences of traveling alone in Eastern Africa but it's not at all a bad song to have repeatedly in my head! Anyway, in Zomba I found a botanical gardens. In a past blog I wrote about the particularly unexciting botanical gardens of Dar Es Salaam. Zomba's botanical gardens were the complete opposite. They had a huge selection of plants and trees and different environments and they also had something else - peace and quiet and no people - it was lovely!