Back to The Mushroom Farm

Claire, Mike Malawi and I were, for a couple of days at least, stuck in Chilinda Camp. Now, there are much worse places to end up having to spend a few days, and we weren’t complaining at all, but our time had come to leave. Luckily for us we managed to hitch a ride with a very friendly middle aged Dutch couple, and after getting dropped in Rumphi, we just had to grab a mini bus to the bottom of the mountain, before making our way back up to The Mushroom Farm where we had left most of our stuff. The ride out of the camp with the Dutch couple was very pleasant. After travelling around Africa for quite a while you get very used to being squashed in mini buses, so when you get a ride in an actual car with plenty of space it feels like a luxury. Once we got to Rumphi and said goodbye to the kind Dutch couple, Mike, Claire and I jumped in the back of a minibus.

A few cramped hours later we’d made it to the bottom of the mountain and were looking up at the hill that we had to climb. The last time Claire and I had to make our way up to The Mushroom Farm, we jumped in the back of the most painfully squashed pickup we’d ever been in, and we were preparing ourselves for a similar experience this time around. However, as we stood there, waiting to see what options were available to us, we saw a pick up come around the corner being driven by a white guy. He was heading up the mountain and he had plenty of space in the back of his truck. Claire ran over and asked if we could jump in. He said yes, we threw our bags in the back and climbed aboard. The next thirty seconds or so were a bit of a blur, but this is what I think happened. After seeing us jump in the back, about fifteen locals who were waiting for the truck to take them up the hill, all came running over and started climbing in. It was chaos for about ten seconds as he tried to drive off, but more and more people kept getting in. One woman jumped in, he’d start to drive away, then another would hurl herself into his truck. He’d stop. Then start driving again, before having to stop as another man threw his bag in the back. In the end, the driver stopped. He got out and shouted at everyone in the local language also saying ‘I am not a bus’ over and over in English. He looked at us and said: “Sorry guys,” and we climbed out. He then sped off up the hill with a bright red face full of pure anger.

Claire and I were gutted. Mike Malawi, who was saying goodbye to us at the bottom of the hill said: “He speaks our language in a not very nice way.” We wondered what the white man was saying to everyone.

After walking around 70km in the last week and a full day’s travelling, and having our potential spacious ride up the hill ripped away from us at the last minute, we were not in a very good mood. I say ‘we’, I think Claire took it much better than I did. We looked at the mountain, imagining the 10km uphill hike that laid out ahead, and said “right, let’s walk it”. It took us two-and-a-half-hours to make it to The Mushroom Farm and in the end it was quite a nice walk, even though we were carrying huge loads and had walked more in the last week than either of us had in years. We were, however, both worried about how awkward it would be when we got to lodge and had to see the man who threw us out of the back of his van. Hopefully, it would be ok. We thought that he would’ve had two-and-a-half-hours to calm down and also thought that he would most probably feel worse than we did. In the end we made it to the top and made peace with both parties apologising and all was well.

So, we were back at The Mushroom Farm, one of our favourite places we’d been to on our whole trip, and got to spend another four or five days hanging out there with Cameron the owner and the other guests. We’d got chatting to Cam who was a cool guy from the USA. He’s roughly the same age as I am and runs the lodge with his sister, who was not there when we were. Cam’s dad is from Essex and they both support Millwall. Weirdly, this was the second Millwall fan we’d met in Africa. Cam also plays football in the local village team at the top of the hill towards Livingstonia, so one evening I was able to go along and get involved in one of their training sessions. On the walk there Cam was telling me about the witchcraft ceremonies he’s had to take part in before matches with the rest of the team. He told me that after losing one game against a rival village one of his team members said it was because the opposition had used better witchcraft. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any first hand.

The training session itself was great fun, however, the warm up was more like full blown fitness training. We were doing sprints, squats, star jumps and more, and by the end my legs were jelly. Still, we got to play a game towards the end which was great fun and I continued my 100% record of playing football in every country we’d been to.

During our time at The Farm we also got to know two fun English guys from Peckham called Dom and Manu. They were volunteering in Nhkata Bay on the lake and were just taking some time off to chill. Claire and I spent a few days just chilling at The Farm with Cameron and Manu and Dom, playing darts, drinking beers and we also got to go and see the lovely waterfalls nearby. We also spent plenty of time with Cam talking nonsense. In fact, one thing we’ve noticed about being away is how often you talk to people about their travels and your travels and where everyone had been etc. Now, there is nothing wrong with this. It is the common ground upon which you all stand, allowing you to get chatting to strangers with relative ease straight away. However, when Cameron, Claire and me, along with Cam’s barman Bishop, got chatting, we spoke about anything and everything making our interaction feel more like a standard one back home. Afterwards Claire said to me that it was nice to just talk about nothing for once. Which it was. We were discussing who we’d choose to be stranded on a desert island with (Bishop chose Queen Latifah), which celebrities we found the most attractive (Bishop chose Queen Latifah) and lots of other random topics. Bishop’s answer to most of the questions was usually Queen Latifah.

Sadly after five days our second stint at The Mushroom Farm had come to an end. We were to head to the big town of Mzuzu one hour from Nhkata Bay and jumped at the chance to grab a ride when we found out that Dom and Manu were driving there! We said our goodbyes to Cam and his staff (though Cam had arranged to meet us for a few nights out in Mzuzu later in the week) and hiked back down the mountain before jumping in Dom and Manu’s car. The two hour drive to Mzuzu was great. We listened to Fat Freddy’s Drop most of the way, driving on mainly empty roads with the sun beaming down. After arriving at Joy’s Place, the lodge we’d be staying in in Mzuzu, Dom and Manu stayed for lunch before meeting up with AJ, the owner of Butterfly Lodge in Nhkata Bay, and headed back to the lake. We’d arranged to hook up with them the next week when we finally made it down to the bay.