Day 145: Africa Wild Truck Camp and Lodge

We want to hike and fall into the pensioner trap :-))

Without a guide, nothing is possible here, and they don't seem to trust us with a challenging hike. So we just walk a bit through the tea plantations up the mountain to a few pools – with a table and chairs for lunch. Perhaps we didn't specify precisely enough what we wanted beforehand. But we get a little exercise anyway. So, all good.

The landscape is beautiful, the mountains impressive. Tea as far as the eye can see. Trees are being felled, slats and boards are being sawn, charcoal is being produced – soon there will probably be no trees left. The felling is illegal, but no one is doing anything about it. Nor is anyone doing anything about the overexploitation of sand from the riverbed.

Coal and wood are carried from the mountain to the valley on people's heads – the people are carrying enormous weights. Our guide tells us that a sack of charcoal is about 10,000 kwatcha. That's 5 euros at the official exchange rate. The daily wage of a family.

We learn a little about tea: It's been cultivated here since around 1880. Older tea bushes develop leaves with significantly more complex flavors. There are tea bushes on the farms that are a hundred years old. The three top light green leaves are picked. The largest is for black tea, the smaller one for green tea, and the still-open tip for white tea. Malawi is arguably the seventh-largest exporter of tea. Where it's going, however, remains somewhat unclear.

Back at Africa Wild Truck, another surprise awaits us in our inbox: Becky's car insurance has gone up by 1,000 euros. In a flash, we get an insurance change underway with the fantastic employee from Jahn and Partner. Our free afternoon is gone, but we're glad we can still get it done.