Traveling with Sarah is a lot like you would expect it to be. We're always 45 minutes late and covered in bugs. We've unionized the servants, and set up a recycling program for the country.

just kidding. about the recyling program.

let's see. I arrived to see Sarah about a week ago. We headed to Liwonde National Park to look for bugs. and elephants. We decided to take public transit to get from Lilongwe to Liwonde. (don't worry, just to be a little more confusing, there's also a Liwongwa too - headed there tomorrow) This seemed reasonable at the time. Heck, it seems reasonable now, it's just that none of you will agree with us on that small matter. Anyway, we headed for the luxury buses because.. well, okay, we admit it. We couldn't figure out where the non luxury buses were. The bus was supposed to leave some time between 7 and 7:30 am so when we arrived at 6:55 it was pulling out. We run after the bus, with all of our belongings strapped to our backs. All of my belongings consist of a Minidisc recorder, a pack of Minidiscs and a mic. Skip clothes, they just get dirty anyway. 2, maybe 3 lbs of weight. Oh, and my malaria pills. Sarah has brought everything, including the kitchen sink - wading boots, hiking boots, 2 bug nets, a bug light, a camera the size of a honda civic, plus 782354412 jars. Catch the bus. Ride the bus three blocks. Sit at the next stop for an hour and a half. This is so Malawi time. Everything opens at 5, but no one is there at 9. yes. The bus is pretty empty for the first three blocks. Pretty luxurious, I must say. Then at 8:30, 893475732 more people got on the bus. By ON the bus, I mean that the first 25132 got into the bus and the remaining ones got on the bus. But you know, all in all, pretty comfortable. Only 3 chickens on board, people were nice, no one was carrying rotting meat, and I couldn’t personally see any of the goats.

Took lots of pictures – my digital camera was the coolest thing ever because you could look at the pictures after taking them. Everyone wanted to see what they looked like. Bought bananas and shared them and now we have many new best friends. And pen pals in Malawi. Let us know if you want a Malawian pen pal, we have plenty. Some kid borrowed my “Lonely Planet Guide to Malawi” and read the whole thing.. It was all good.

The bus ride took 7 hours.

Arrived at Mvuu resort 3 hours late. They seemed mystified. “you did what? You took public transportation to get here?” and had the servants carry our bags to our rooms.

If you’ve ever seen temptation island (the reality show), which I haven’t, but there’s a point to this story, just wait.. there’s an episode where the guy and the girl or the guy and the girls, or whomever, go off to a resort thingy to spend a weekend in Belize – on the mainland, not the island… and the people are roughing it because they have to live in little cabins around a lake. And I know about this place because I spent the night there one night (it’s a long story), but anyways, the point is that this place is just like that place on Temptation Island. Little bungalows everywhere.. but in this case, you aren’t allowed to leave your little bungalow without an armed guard because there might be marauding hippos lurching through. Hate it when that happens.

(sarah steps in: )

Sorry, at this place in the story I have to interrupt, because Christi slept through the whole thing…What would Christi know about marauding hippos!!! The first night, we went to sleep, or rather some of us went to sleep and then woke up a few hours later to large grunting noises that seemed to be coming from the end of the bed. By loud grunting noises I mean like a tractor with a clogged fuel injector. So I was trying to sleep, but it really sounded like the thing was going to come in, so I sat up terrified in bed (keep in mind, there is no electricity, so I can’t turn on a light, and it’s pitch black) It wasn’t really clear to me that the hippo was not in our room until he/she started rubbing against one of the posts which caused the little bungalow to sway. At this point, I decided to wake Christi. Christi decided that the hippo was not able to get through the plastic screen separating us from him/her, and promptly fell back to sleep. I on the other hand stayed up all night, my eyes peeled to the darkness in the direction of the hippo sounds. At one point, there was also a warthog in the camp, which was a grateful distraction from the hippo. All this time I was thinking, where are the people who are supposed to be patrolling for hippos to keep them from knocking over bungalows. Three hours later at four in the morning, a guard armed with a flashlight, came and scared the hippo away. The next day, I overheard the ladies who were in the bungalow next to us say to the guards, “There was a hippo next our room last night” At this point, I interrupted and said, “Actually, I think the hippo was IN our room last night”, and the guard started laughing, and said, “Oh, so you were the ones in bungalow five!!!!”

Back to Christi:
We got to drive around in a big jeep and a big boat looking for things. You get on the boat and the guide says “what do you want to see?” and the rest of the people say “elephants! Hippos! Rhinos! Crocodiles!” and Sarah says “Bugs!!!” and I say “everyone shut up now so I can record”

I’m not sure we were the most popular of the guests.

Saw lots of things, collected lots of bugs (more about that in a minute) and made lots of recordings. All like you’d expect.

Except the bugs.

We’re in a tropical zone.

In a swamp.

So, there’s no power in our room, but there’s lights that run off batteries, and Sarah, using her wit, charm, and sex appeal has managed to convince the electricians to rewire the bungalow to accomadate her bug light. The bug light says something on it like “leave on from 6pm to midnight for best results” and Sarah, being totally and completely insane, follows the directions. So, we return to our quaint little bungalow at 7pm.

We can’t find it.

No really, it’s gone.

In its place is a giant swarm of squirming insects. Literally millions of insects, surrounding our.. beds. (And this is where I thank Gene once more for letting me take his mosquito net) There’s even a pile of dead insects about a centimeter deep, not because bug lights kill bugs, just because if you get that many bugs around, some of them will die. (I want an elephant light. I’m just saying)

And of course, to turn off the light, we have to get into the bungalow.

Sarah is of course too busy trying to collect the giant praying mantis and .. yes.

I got bugs up my nose, in my ears, in my eyeballs, down my throat… I really can’t claim to be a vegiterian anymore (okay, I guess I couldn’t before either).. get the light off.. there’s bugs all over our room. All over. Decide to head to dinner because.. well, what else can we do? We sit down, and the british couple next to us who’s been having a discussion about whether, when you are at home, should leave your coffee cup for the servants to clean up, or just do it yourself, ask us if we need any bug spray.

And we laughed so hard we cried.

The couple at the table on the other side flips out because there’s a 4 inch long cricket crawling on their table!! Sarah collects it, and sticks it in a water glass with a salt shaker on top.

Our table is generally avoided for the rest of the evening.

I do think that instead of having attack dogs, or buglar alarms, you should just have bugs.

Sarah thinks they ought to put a warning label on bug lights “do not use in tropical swamps”

Headed back to Lilongwe today. We managed to catch the non luxury bus, which for a small second, I thought might be better than the luxury bus… because it was smaller. Of course, there were just as many people on it. And 40 lbs of dried rotting fish (which got placed on top of sarah, for reasons unknown. And many more chickens. And a church choir. And a flat tire. Or two. And then we ran out of gas. But it only took four hours to get home because we traveled at 200 km/h. And I sat partly out the window because it was much more comfortable. Sarah had a chicken trying to climb up her pant leg for the entire trip. But we got some good recordings of the church choir. Spilled a bottle of orange fanta on myself.

Got to Lilongwe and fell down a hill and scratched up most of my right side. At the minibus site a pickup stopped and offered us a ride, so we took it. Got to area 10, and fell out of the truck, scratching up my right side. Am sunburned and exhausted and in pain and so amused by myself that I can’t sleep.

I admit that it is pretty nice to return home to a typical middle class American home after a long trip. Sarah says. I’m thrilled about clean water. Typical except that we’re behind a 10 foot high barbed wire fence, an armed guard, two sets of metal bars and an alarm system that brings a SWAT team, and the furniture is owned by our good friends, the US Government.

Yes.

Sarah’s cousin doesn’t seem quite as amused by all this.

Headed to some other L place tomorrow to look at lions for four days. If we don’t get eaten by a pack of lions, it will probably be a small miracle.

Cheers,
Christi

- posted by Sarah @ 2:05 PM