It’s a rather bad sleep with mosquitos and waking up to quite a lot of children noises. We take a very slow start - not in any rush to get to Dedza until the afternoon. We each breakfast on the bench in the sand and a couple terrifying spiders make their way onto our heads.
Books come out and some hammocks are enjoyed. We slowly begin packing our bags - something that we’ve become incredibly good at. Then it’s time for the last swim in the lake. It’s warm yet slightly tainted from last night.
The bags are packed. The goodbyes have been said and we’re ready to go. We’re heading off to The Dedza Pottery studio which is about two hours away and excited for the mountain pass that will take us the last 10% of the drive.
And as we leave Mufasa we stop. Jordan has suggested that I take a look at the small wooden tractors that they are selling on the side of the road. I stop for curtesy’s sake, but without much desire of buying anything… UNTIL I SEE THE TRACTOR. It’s a perfect scale replica of a frontend loader with ingenious functional hydraulic pistons made from wood. I must have this (I love tractors).
We get back on the big road with all the potholes and I have fun avoiding them. The roads are relatively quiet and safe except for one SUV with a GP registration that flies past us, over potholes, at about 160km/h.
Just before the pass begins we stop for a Fanta, Coke and rest of the bum. We admire the many chicks running around and I test out the “Munthu Wamkulu” (big man) phrase on a couple young kids with much success. Then we hop on the bike excited for the pass.
The road heads straight into two sets of ever larger mountains. The ones further off are washed out with grey and the nearer are martian orange. The road snakes it’s way up and up with some truly sharp hairpin bends. Metta handles it all so well and we go up there with a maximum speed of about 40km/h.
The views of Malawi grow magnificent as we climb the mountains. Valleys extending indefinitely int the direction of what we think must be the lake. Every now and then there is a small wooden craft display on the side of the road. It’s truly a beautiful drive.
After the pass we’re almost in Dedza. It’s just a short drive to the rather fancy Pottery Studio that we’re going to be staying at for the night. Large face brick buildings with clear chimneys for the kilns loom overhead and we head into the reception with a great display of lovely crockery and ceramics.
We are shown our rooms and then head back to the restaurant for a late 4pm lunch, I order a coffee without realising the time. Two older British women approach us and lock in for a chat that they draw out for some time. The older one has been working in schools here for over forty years and tells us many stories of past pupils and Malawi back in the day.
We get our food and it definitely is one of the more fancy meals that we’ve eaten. I have a local beef and vegetable stew with nsima that is truly amazing. After lunch we play a game of backgammon.
We take a stroll to look around the vegetable garden and try to identify everything that is growing in there. Then we are quite shocked to see that the shower has hot water, and proceed to have our first hot shower in Malwi.
Nighttime sees us exhausted and in bed. I want snacks and somehow - through a scrunched up thinking face - remember that there was a cashew and coconut brittle that we had been saving for a moment just like this.