Month: September 2018

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Summer 2003 Adventures in Turkey, Borneo, and Denmark Part Three: The Turkish Riviera and Ruins

The third installment of my travelogue from the past. 

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In my “treehouse” room at Olympos

I had one day in Olympos.  I took a short trip to the beach.  I had also planned to see the chimera, the eternal flame of legend, but the overnight bus trip did me in.  I was too exhausted and missed the nightly tour.  The following day I departed with a group on a cruise from Olympos to Fethiye along the Turkish Riviera.

The cruise was on a boat with 19 people, 15 guests and 4 crewmembers. Maybe taking a 3 night/4 day cruise doesn’t sound that crazy, but for me, trapped on a boat with a bunch of strangers, potentially extremely annoying strangers, was enough to make me think quite hard about signing up for this adventure.  In addition to my own skittish nature about swimming in large bodies of open water.

From Olympos the tour operators picked us up and drove us some hours away to Myra where we were able to do some shopping and banking before boarding the boat at Adriake harbor.  We then sailed to Pirate Cave where there is a large grotto in the water.  We jumped off the boat and swam to the cave. This was my first real test, swimming in open water in a dark cave without my glasses.  I figured there was safety in numbers and always stayed close to someone else just in case there were a shark, maybe it would bite them first…. The cave was pretty cool and we swam there perhaps 20 minutes.

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The view from Simena Castle

Later we sailed by a sunken city.  It was certainly sunken as we could make very little of it.  And we could not swim there because it is against government rules, so we just slowed down as we passed it.  It was not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be, but I did enjoy the stop at Simena Castle, though I was the only person from the boat with the exception of the Turkish couple to go up the castle. What a shame because there was a fantastic view from the top of the castle ruins.

We sailed on to another cove where we dropped anchor for the evening.  There was expected to be a multi-boat nightclub on the water, but we were the only boat in the area.  I was grateful.  As an introvert, older than most of the other passengers, the thought of a nightclub I could not escape filled me with dread.  When we ended up having our own party on board with CDs that other travelers had brought, much more my speed.

On the second day we had some swimming in the morning at Fishing Bay and then headed to Kas where we had a few hours on land.  It was quite good to be off the boat, but I could swear the internet cafee was rocking back and forth.  Before returning to the boat I hired a guy on a motorbike take me to the Roman theatre ruins.   I bought myself a package of potato chips and a Bounty candy bar to enjoy on the boat, but came to regret that later as the next few hours reminded me of “The Perfect Storm” and I lost my chips and candy bar over the side of the boat…  I was doing real good gulping air and watching the waves till I saw another guy lose his lunch and then well, it was only a matter of seconds.

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The boat anchored at Butterfly Valley

The crew warned us there might be a similar bumpy ride the next morning, but they passed out motion sickness tablets like candy and I had mine all ready for when the engines started the next morning at 5 am.  Popped it in and slept like a baby the entire journey to Butterfly Valley.  We had a bit of a swim before some of us headed into the valley for some hiking. There were only a few butterflies but some amazing views as the narrow valley walls soared above our heads.  I enjoyed the walking, but once we reached an approximately ten-foot-high wall with some dodgy footholds, slick with trickling water, and a really shredded rope, I called it quits.  Everyone else made it up, but for some reason this wall filled me with fear.  I could only imagine being stuck half way up with all these strangers.  So, I stayed down and ate fresh sunflower seeds from a flower the Turkish couple had picked till the others came back.

Next, we arrived in Oludeniz, dropping anchor by a large rock that separates the sea from the lagoon, making quite pleasant swimming waters.  One of the crew scampered up the rock, and jumped off what seemed a really high perch.  Of course, this only spurred Mr. I-Must-Do-Everything-First-and-Best-from-New Zealand to try his luck. I bet he was sorry he did not think of the jump first.  Then the captain of our boat dove off the rock, then another passenger from the boat.  I was starting to itch to go up there too and I dove off the boat and swam over to the rock.  Making my way up the rock without glasses and without shoes (ouch) I found myself up on the rock with what seemed an incredible distance between myself and the water.  I felt really scared; however, it seemed even more difficult to turn around and climb back down.  I jumped off the 12-meter perch screaming the whole way, landing bottom first.  Ouch.  But I was redeemed for not doing the climb earlier that day.

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Gearing up for the jump

Then came the paragliding.  I had planning to do it for some time, and since I had told everyone on the boat I was going to do it, I had to follow through on it.  Oludeniz is supposed to be one of the best places in the world to do this as gliders launch from a huge mountain just by the beach; There is great wind and fantastic views of the beach, the lagoon, islands and mountains and sea beyond.  It is one of the highest jumps in the world.  The jump starts at 6,500 feet high, but after jumping one is literally lifted more, higher and higher until even the jump site seems very far below.  It was terrifying and exhilarating.  Yet, it was the drive up the mountain that was even more frightening.  All the paragliders sat in a covered flatbed truck, with benches on each side.  I sat in the very back, facing the gaping opening.  Initially as we speed up the snaky road up the mountain, it seems alright.  But then there is no tree line, no guard rail, hardly any road wider than the truck to maneuver, and it is dusty and rocky and they are still driving way too fast, and as one looks ahead to the next curve it appears that if we went straight we would just fly off the mountain. I spent the last ten minutes of the truck ride with a white-knuckle grip on the bar of the back of the truck muttering small prayers to any god that might hear me. The woman across from me refused to open her eyes.  I noticed similar praying and death grips around the vehicle. Jumping off the mountain seems like the easiest way down.

The launch pad is a rocky gravel slant ending in nothingness.  We were paired with our jump partner (this is a tandem flight), given gear to dress in, then someone barks some instructions at us:  “When I say run, you run.  Just run as fast as you can.  Do not sit or stop running until I say sit.  Then sit and stop running.  Okay ready?”  Wait, I ask, let me confirm this, I run when you say run, and sit when you say sit? Yes.  Ok.  Then my partner beckons me down the rocky slope to get hooked into the chute.  I beckon him to come further up the slope, I mean, come on, it looks dangerous going so far down the slope, I don’t want to slip down the slope and die before I get my paragliding opportunity!  He beckons to me again.   Ok, I will go down the dangerous slope to get hooked up to my gliding partner, then he yells RUN! and I run as fast as my little legs strapped to a seat and a man can and off we go lifted into the air….

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Oludeniz as viewed from my paragliding adventure

And all I could think was Wow!  Wow!  Wow!  Oh my god it is beautiful.  Oh my god, why am I up here?  Maybe I should go down.  No, it is great.  And for 45 minutes we were airborne and the scenery was amazing and I was ever so glad that I decided to do this.  Although in total, including the terrifying drive, the adventure was but 1 1/2 hours, it was so amazing.  Scary, crazy, and amazing. Then once we all touched down we were taken by boat back to our yacht to have banana and chocolate pancakes delivered by a pancake making boat.  Sweet rewards. More swimming, a nice dinner, and a quiet last evening on the boat.

The final day was uneventful.  More swimming in the morning and a trip to Tarzan Bay where we could swing on a rope to jump in the water, but I only got rope burn after one pathetic Tarzan jump. It was just fun watching Mr. I-Must-Do-Everything-First-and-Best-from-New Zealand try to come up with new Tarzan swing combinations to impress us all.  He failed miserably and it made me rather gleeful.  At 2:30 pm we arrived in Fethiye Harbor and I ran off the boat as fast as I could.  I was glad to leave my companions behind me.

I spent the afternoon and evening in Fethiye, all by myself.  The town is nice enough, though very touristy.  There seemed to be plenty of excursions from the town and it might have been nice to stay a few days, but I had an overnight bus to Selcuk departing at 11 pm.

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At Ephesus

My overnight bus deposited me at the Selcuk bus terminal at 4:45 am.   I went straight to a pension someone had recommended and fell asleep for several hours.  Later I caught a ride to the ruins at Ephesus.  The ancient Greek city is truly amazing, most especially the library and coliseum.  There were probably some other treasures to be seen there, but with the heat and the crowds, I mostly followed the herd, still spending almost two hours there.  I then walked the three kilometers back to Selcuk.

I also went to see the smaller historical sites of Priene, Miletus, and Didyma.  They were in a more ruinous state, but perhaps more romantic for that, still the temple of Apollo at Didyma is amazing. It was never finished, so in a way, one can imagine that one is still in the past, as it was, back in the Greek heyday. The columns were massive and part of the ceiling still exists, though a very small part.  But it was worth the tour, even if just to see that temple.  Kind of sad that I just wrote this brief little part about a major historical site, perhaps one of the best in the world. I have no excuse. They were incredible to see.

I returned to Istanbul for a few more days and then returned to Southeast Asia for the next incongruent part of my summer travel.

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Summer 2003 Adventures in Turkey, Borneo, and Denmark Part Two: Central and Southeast Anatolia

The second installment of my travelogue from the past. 

From Istanbul I took the overnight bus to Cappadocia.  There is apparently a rule in Turkey that a man cannot sit next to a woman he does not know. Given my Istanbul tea and carpet experiences I certainly understood, but I imagine this rule often ends up creating some hilarity as it did with me.  On the bus a man sat down next to me.  When the bus captain noticed he went in search of a suitable candidate to switch with him.  I was the only foreigner on the bus. He found an old woman in the front of the bus, and convinced her, VERY reluctantly to switch with the guy.  As I watched the woman muttering her way towards me with a gait that suggested a walk to the electric chair, I was not feeling so enthusiastic either.  Especially as she reminded me of the witch from Hansel and Gretel and I expected her to want to put me in the cookie oven too, her obvious disgust at having to sit next to me plain as day on her pasty face. Then her daughter, who looked remarkably like the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz, came back and in a grumpy sort of passion drama dragged her poor mother back to the front of the bus, leaving the seat next to me empty and much confusion as the whole bus keenly observed the unfolding events. No one wanted to sit next to me.

5278870-R1-023-10After much discussion in the front of the bus a young woman with her child came to sit with me.  When I saw them coming, I thought oh good, oh wait, no, not TWO! But yes.  It seems quite common to save money by buying one seat for mother and child, even when the child is 10 years old, as was in this case.  But they turned out to be quiet seat mates. The problem instead were the two women seated behind me, with their two children, probably 5 or 6 years old, on their laps. They complained bitterly about me putting my seat back because they had children and they would be unable to sleep.  As if it is my fault they bought two seats for four people!  So, the kids kicked my chair, I think at the instigation of the mothers, while they pretended to scold them.  But I did not relent. I was boxed in, but no way was I going to sleep at 90 degrees on an overnight bus if I could put my seat back.

My favorite part of Turkey is Cappadocia.  One may find Greek ruins in a number of places, and beautiful beaches crowded with holiday goers are even more aplenty, but Cappadocia, is really a one of a kind place. In all the countries I have been, I have not been anywhere else quite like it.  Some places of the American Midwest might come close to it, but not quite. The Midwest in my mind has hues of red, but Cappadocia is all white and cream and dusty. The bizarre rock formations created over eons by water and wind are not to be found in the American midwest. Top that off with underground Christian cities and cave dwellings and churches and you are starting to realize the wonders of Cappadocia. Smack dab in the middle of Turkey, it seems to rise, or rather fall, from the Earth suddenly from the highway.  First you are looking out a bus window at flat plains and farmland, suddenly there is a volcano in the distance, snow covered, and then the Earth seems to fall into valleys and cliffs and fairy chimneys and desert brush. Then you have reached Cappadocia.

 

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Ballooning over Goreme

Strangely this is all I wrote about Cappadocia, this favorite location.  I stayed in a cave hotel, my room built into the rock face, the floor covered in thick Turkish carpets, a low table for tea.  For the first and last time, I had a small radio with me and I can remember catching BBC World broadcasts in my cozy cave room. I took a tour around the area.  I took my first hot air balloon ride and succumbed to the charms of my hot air balloon pilot, remaining in Cappadocia several extra days with him.  I took tours of the area during the day or walked the town and shopped and hung out with the pilot when his work day finished.  But he wanted to give up traveling, my upcoming return to graduate school, and move to Turkey.  That was not to my liking. 

 

From Cappadocia I joined a three-day tour further east.   We stopped at Maras where Turkey’s famous ice cream originates; it is a sticky hard concoction of heavy goat cream with the consistency of frozen cream cheese, hard enough that it had to be cut with a fork and knife, but soft enough to melt lazily in one’s mouth. And on top was sprinkled shaved green pistachio.  It was delicious and yet there was something I did not quite like about it. I think it might have been how very heavy it was.  Like a rock it lay in my stomach, its overly cold temperature gave me those chilly ice cream headaches down my spine.

We headed to the 7,000-foot-high Mount Nemrut, where the enigmatic stone heads of King Antiochus’ ruined temple dedicated to himself stands.  We stayed in Kahta for the night, waking up at 2:30 am to leave the hotel by 3 am, to arrive at the summit for sunrise.  The sunrise was a small disappointment as it just popped up suddenly from behind the mountains where it had been hiding.  At least the sun did pierce the bitter cold of a mountain morning.  There was little temple left, but its ruinous state made those pieces still relatively intact all the more amazing.  It is indeed a beautiful location, fuzzy brown grass covered hills rolling all around and not much civilization in sight, except for all us tourists crawling all over the mountain. King Antiochus, created a cult of personality around himself, claiming that he was both a descendant of King Darius of Persia and Alexander the Great of Macedonia, thus manufacturing himself a perfect lineage of East and West.  We were also able to see a fantastic stone relief of this king’s father shaking hands with Heracles, at Antiochus’ father’s tomb, over the entrance in beautiful Greek the inscription could still read almost as clear as day. It was amazing.

 

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Sunrise on Mt. Nemrut

It was a whirlwind day with Nemrut mountain and then Ataturk Dam, then on to Sanliurfa, a biblical town, perhaps one of the oldest towns in the world. Historical/ biblical sites are all around the town with the legendary pool of sacred fish perhaps the one with the most draw.  King Nimrod attempted to cast Abraham into a fire but the fire turned to water and the wood to fish. The fish remain, hundreds of them.  They are holy fish, it is said if someone eats them they will be blinded. So, they are fat and happy fish.  Sanliurfa is a place of pilgrimage for many people, especially from Syria and Iran.

Lastly, we visited the bee hive houses of Harran, an ancient commercial center just 16 kilometers north of the Syrian border.  The architectural style of these adobe homes has remained unchanged for about 3,000 years.  The dark brown clay houses with thin chimneys, which lend them the bee hive name, are cool inside, that was especially good since it was broiling outside. There was also a ruined fortress through which some local children guided me and two Turkish sisters. We were supposed to stay for the sunset there, but for some reason the guide made the decision to head back to Urfa early. This was actually only one of many, many changes the guide kept making, and it was actually starting to wear on my nerves.

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The sacred pool of Sanliurfa

My tour guide, old enough to be my father, maybe even a grandfather, took a “special” liking to me. Probably as I was a single woman traveling on my own, but that is a poor excuse for his behavior.   On the first evening when we arrived in Kahta he tells me it would be better if we would share a room. What? I mean, why?  He tells me that the three Turkish sisters and one daughter will have a room, as will the other two Turkish sisters and the Dutch couple, that leaves me, the driver, him, and the Japanese guy. Uh, yeah. So where does this lead me to think that Mr. Guide and I should be sharing a room? I ask him why he doesn’t share with the driver. He says the driver will not be coming with us to Nemrut in the early morning and he doesn’t want to wake him, so he needs his own room.  Uh, right. So why ask me and not the Japanese guy? I tell the guide I just don’t think it is a good idea, I really should have my own room (after all I did pay for it you jerk!). I was really upset by this lack of professionalism and the fact I had two more days with this guy. And no one else on the tour seemed to have noticed these advances.

The second night he asks if I would like to walk to Abraham’s pool with him. I tell him I am tired. He tells me it will take just 10 minutes to get there, maybe 30 minutes total round trip.  I again say I am tired; he insists it is something special to see at night.  I think, “Why should I not see this lovely place at night with the pool backlit and all the families strolling alongside it because of this guy? When will I be in Urfa again?”  I agree to go for a little while.  The pool is lovely in the evening.  The lit arches of the 800-year old Halilur Rahman Mosque reflect in the waters.  But on the way back to the hotel he tries to hold my hand.  Creep! I sort of freeze up and my hand goes limp and cold. He drops my hand, and continues showing me some special things about the city on the way back, a mosque, the special way the balconies are built, but now I don’t care, I only want to get back to the hotel. We should have had a half day to explore Urfa on our own, but we didn’t, because he changed the schedule.

No incidents on the way back to Istanbul, but now I am bristling.  It is a real shame that such a lovely trip had to be ruined because this guy.  Not only the harassment, but he did not stick to the original itinerary so he could rush back and meet another tour group.  Still, I wanted to get back.  I had a 10 pm night bus to Olympos to catch.

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Summer 2003 Adventures in Turkey, Borneo, and Denmark Part One: The Istanbul Tea-Tour

In the summer of 2003, after completing my MA degree in Singapore and before returning to the second year of my other Master’s program in Monterey, CA, I took off on a seven-week adventure through Turkey and Denmark, with a side excursion to Borneo, because if you are visiting places that are nowhere near each other, why not just throw in another completely random destination? I had initially planned to travel for at least a month in China, but the SARS epidemic and the Singapore government response (required deposit to pay for 10-day quarantine after return from travel to a SARS-affected country), forced me to find another country or countries to visit.  

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View from Galata Tower

Immediately after arriving in Istanbul I was in for a surprise.  A visa on arrival for Americans cost $100.  I did not have that kind of US cash on me, so I had to take out money from an ATM.  The woman at the visa counter told me the charge in Turkish Lira would be 160 million.    In my rather jet-lagged blur state I was like, uh, what?  Did you say 160 million? At the ATM I counted the zeros multiple times as I did not want to take out $1000.  All around me other nationalities are paying $20 and the like.  The upside is I am an instant millionaire.

After this initial shock I have found Istanbul to be really wonderful.  I visited Topkapi Palace, the home of the Ottoman Sultans and family.  The Harem was perhaps the most interesting.  The location is spectacular, at the edge of the Golden Horn, part of the European side of Istanbul but also on the Bosphorus.  Simply breathtaking.  I also went to see Hagia Sofia; to say it is an architectural wonder does not do it justice.  The Blue Mosque was also on my list.  It stands just across a park from Hagia Sofia, the two buildings facing off against each other, both beautiful.  The Blue Mosque is perhaps most beautiful at night.  I also went across the Golden Horn to the other part of European Istanbul and visited the newer palace of the Sultans, where Kemal Ataturk died in 1937.  Also, a visit to the Galata Tower.  On my second day I did take a one-and-a-half-hour boat trip down the Bosphorus and stayed awake for most of it.  I was having such jet lag and it hit worst at 3 in the afternoon when the trip started. Then the lovely sunshine and I was fighting to keep my eyes open.  But I saw enough to be impressed.  Maybe someday I will move to Istanbul…

5278900-R1-055-26I meant to visit the Grand Bazaar and a hamman (Turkish bath) but I never got to either because each day I had to pass the Carpet Man Gauntlet. Seriously.  I have not met any Turkish women but I have made lots of Turkish male “friends.”

As I stepped out of the Basilica cistern I was approached by a man asking me to visit his travel agency, where I was served apple tea, flattered, and cajoled into looking at tour options.  After I made it out of the travel agency with promises to be back that night to pick up a sample itinerary, I made it only a few steps before being invited into a carpet shop. My first of many. So many.  Here they served me apple tea and then Turkish tea. After more half-hearted carpet sales, flattery, and inappropriate questions I headed out to the palace  As soon as I left the palace and on my way to the Blue Mosque though I was again waylaid. Tea in another shop. An offer for dinner. I hid in a nice place for dinner, but no sooner had left when a guy walking his dog stopped me.  He told me to come with him for some tea.  I said no. He said he just needed a friend and he would be heartbroken if I left on my own. Well, I left.  A second or two later another guy stops me by telling me I dropped some money.  Just kidding he says, but where are you from?  As I hurry away he is calling out something about having tea together…But of course my single status cannot remain for long and I am stopped by Murat (who also sells carpets) and he asks me to, you guessed it, tea, but I tell him I am going to the sound and light show.  Of course, he says he will join me.  I do not argue.  It seems futile.

5278900-R1-045-21The second day was about the same.  I have drunk more tea, seen more carpet shops, and been invited more places than ever before.  At one carpet shop two guys bought me a kebab lunch and a taxi driver gave me a free ride.  He kept driving alongside me as I walked up a hill toward my destination.  I said again and again I would walk.  He asked again and again to drive me.  Eventually I relent and sure enough he drove me to my destination.  I declined to join him for tea.

I would be remiss not to tell the story that I have regaled many of my friends.  The strangest of the carpet store adventures.  Perhaps one of the strangest of my travel tales. It started out normal enough, being asked in to “just look” at some carpets and to sit and have some tea.  I made myself clear – I had no interest in buying a carpet, could not afford one and did not have a home to put one in.  I had a cup of tea and made small talk.  I was invited to the second floor of the carpet shop, where there were even more carpets laid out in piles and on the walls, but there was also a sunlit corner sitting area.  There we sat for yet more tea.  And then, and I have no recollection exactly how this bizarre event came about, I found myself sitting with the store owner massaging a lotion on my face!  It makes me laugh every time I think about it.  I think he said he had some wonderful Turkish moisturizer and would I like to try it?  It smelled like lemon pledge.  I sat for a few seconds, my eyes closed, the sun streaming in, the slow rhythmic circles on my face…when my eyes flew open and I thought, what in the world?!… I stood and hurried down the stairs and out onto the street. 

I feel a little strange writing all of this now.  Two things come to mind – one is a tweet the State Department sent out about safety overseas.  It read: “Not a 10 in the U.S? Then not a 10 overseas.” They caught a lot of flack over it and quickly deleted it.  But it really is so true and something that people traveling overseas should really think about.  When I was traveling in Turkey I was still relatively young, in shape, attractive.  Yet the attention I received was really abnormal.  I was suspicious from the first but entertained some of it because it IS flattering, and also it became very obvious that the only way to avoid a barrage of unwanted attention was to accept the company of one person for a period of time.  The lesser of two evils.  The second thing that comes to mind is while this was perhaps an odd reversal of what may happen to men when traveling and hanging out in particular venues, it was also an extension of how many men feel they are perfectly free to insert themselves into women’s space.  I could not be left alone.  And I accepted at first out of politeness – a courtesy I certainly did not need to extend to any of these strange men – and then out of sheer exhaustion.  I genuinely loved the city of Istanbul.  The history, architecture, culture.  And yet these interactions took up my time and while I took them in stride and found both the humor and the story in it, I wonder how different my trip would have been had I been able to just sightsee without these interruptions? 

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Restoration on the Lower Lake

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Beautiful early morning view of Lake Malawi from Sunbird Nkopola

It was a long summer.

I mean, weeks and weeks and weeks of covering for other positions empty during a transition gap, different duties due to a dearth in staff, and the unexpected because it was summer and we were short staffed and by Murphy’s Law this meant an uptick in political, economic, and consular activities.  It is one thing to anticipate it, but another to live it.  Do not get me wrong–I am not lamenting the work, much was quite interesting–but I was envious scrolling through the photos from weeks-long Home Leave or vacations of friends.  I might have had a wee bit of uncharitable, or rather undiplomatic, thoughts when a colleague told me in mid-August how he was so ready for a vacation, six weeks after returning from a month off in June.   It took a great deal of my diplomatic training to just smile and say “I hear you!” and not trip or shove him.  Diplomacy is such an amazing art.

It will still be six more busy weeks before C and I take off on a much deserved out-of-Malawi mommy-daughter holiday, but I decided that at least for the Labor Day weekend we would get out of Lilongwe, tackling some place on my Malawi bucket list.

Lake Malawi is the third largest lake in Africa and is sometimes called the “Calendar Lake” as it is approximately 365 miles long and 52 miles wide.  On the western shore of Lake Malawi, about ten miles north from where the lake ends, narrowing drastically as it flows into the Shire River (pronounced Sheer-ray), lies the small lakeside town of Nkopola.  This was our destination for the weekend.

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The road through the high hills

Malawi is surprisingly hilly (surprising to folks like myself who prior to arriving had little knowledge of African geography).  The country sits at the southern end of the East African Rift; the north and central western portions of the country an undulating series of hills rising and falling between 2,000 and 5,000 feet above sea-level.  I decided instead of heading east and then south, we would first head south on the M1 and then just past Dedza, which skirts the Mozambican border, turn to bisect a high hill range towards the banks of the lower lake.

I had heard the road would bend and curve, yet I was still unprepared for the serpentine twists that with each turn would reveal yet another stunning view of the stark, yet beautiful, countryside.  Little traffic (there was more foot traffic than vehicles) meant I could stop on the road now and again for a few moments to snap a photo or simply gaze in happy astonishment at the vista before me.  C too gasped occasionally from the back seat.  This road took only about 40 minutes of the three and a half hour drive, but it stands out in my mind.

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Rooms built against the rock face

We arrived at the hotel just at lunch time and happily checked in, finding we had been assigned one of the unique rooms built into the face of rocky outcrop fronting the beach.  The rooms themselves were nothing to right home about.  There was a decent queen sized bed, a nondescript desk, and a too large chair that would not push under the desk enough to allow easy passage between the bed and desk.  Outside our window a large cactus obscured almost all view of the beach.  But you could hear the waves, see the bright sunlight glinting off the cacti thorns and a brilliant blue sky between cactus spines, and C breathed in deep and declared the air to be fresh and clean.

The room may not have been all that, but the lush hotel landscaping, particularly on the side of the grounds where are room was located (the other side were ground level rooms and rondavals with much less greenery) certainly made up for it.  Hungry we headed to lunch.  The tasteless interpretations brought to us left so much to be desired, but it being hot and beachy, we had little appetite anyway.  C just wanted to get her swimsuit on and enjoy the water.  Pool, lake, whatever.  We headed to the pool where C quickly made friends (it helps to bring diving fish toys and a giant inflatable sea turtle on which at least four kids can ride), and I enjoyed a book.  I felt inexplicably angry about the lunch service, but I could feel the tension beginning to melt away.

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The pathway to our room

We had a quiet evening.  By that I mean we did little but hang out in our room watching a Marvel movie on the television and dining on the half decent version of room service pizza.  However, a large conference of Malawian auditors rocked on late into the evening, the thumbing music from their venue reaching even to our location at nearly the furthest room away.  Still we slept well.

After breakfast on Sunday we drove the twenty or so minutes to the township of Mangochi.  Once called Fort Johnston during colonial days, it was originally established in the 1890s as a defense post on the Shire as it flows from Lake Malawi and as a deterrent to the Yao slave traders.  Today there are few traces of this colonial past.  We stopped to look at the Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower built in 1901, its dilapidated clock face almost entirely missing, and a cannon from the Gwendolen, the Mangochi-built British gunboat and the largest ship to patrol Lake Malawi. It took almost as long for me to write that sentence as it took to circle the clock tower and read its historical markers.

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Despite its condition, the fact it remains standing and its placement at the edge of town and ahead of a bridge over the Shire, make it worth at least a cursory visit

C and I then headed over to the Lake Malawi Museum.  I only know of three museums in all of Malawi and I have been to “museums” in developing countries before, so I had set the bar appropriately low despite the surprisingly high marks on Google Reviews (six reviews giving it an average of 3.8 stars out of 5).  As we approached the single story ranch style building, which resembled a cross between a warehouse and a home, a sad metal playground consisting of a slide and the cross bars of a swingset without the swings in the yard to the right, it was not immediately clear it was open or operational.  The wide concrete slab in the yard likely a parking lot for cars that never come.  But two individuals, a thin older man and woman, sat on the porch next to the open door, giving more the impression of squatters than museum curators.  As I read the entrance fee of 500 Malawian Kwacha (USD 70 cents) and tried to hand over the money to cover both C and I, the man informed me in garbled English that the museum, though technically open, had no electricity.  I said that was fine, we would still go inside, figuring some windows would still provide some light.  But there were no windows and the darkness inside was near complete.  Not wanting to miss out on one of the major attractions of Mangochi, I asked the man if he had a light.  He pulled out a small torch and I lit up the flashlight on my phone and together we made our way through the tiny museum, past sad dioramas of Malawian wildlife, a replica of the deck of the Gwendolen, and a pathetic aquarium.  Well, if it had had fish it would have been poor, but the four small tanks empty of water and life did not even rate it the name “aquarium.”

As I handed over the money and thanked our torchbearer, and turned to leave, I mentioned to C it had been a waste of time.  She however insisted we go back inside one more time!  She said she had not seen enough of the boat deck, though I noted given how dark it was, it was hard to see anything at all.  She was adamant so we had a second visit.  C gave the museum 5 stars; I give it 1/2 a star, due in a large part for the amusing adventure of going through it in the dark.

14

Beach view from the rockface stairs (the monkey on the roof also enjoying the scene)

Not relishing another poor lunch at the Sunbird, we had lunch at another nearby resort and then stopped at a wide expanse of dirt where dozens of goats were lazing about.  C dubbed it “Goatland” and boasted that she would easily catch a baby goat and implied we would then toss said goat into our car in and add to our growing menagerie.  Though I made it clear we would not be making off with some villager’s goat, I am glad C is not as good at goat catching as she proclaimed.  We then spent several hours on the beach – C playing in the surf and in the sand, with myself again reading a book.

The following morning I felt completely refreshed.  I took some time to just breath in the lake air and listen to the soothing sounds of the lake waves and the twitters of morning birds.  The restorative powers of a beach, nature, rhythmic swells, felt almost overwhelmingly strong.  Once again I felt surprised how even a few days of a change of scenery could do so much for my spirit.  C and I snuggled for a bit; how I love sharing these moments and places with her.  Then we packed up for the trip home.  Even the drive made me happy.