We arrived in Blantyre around 11:15 am and I took a taxi to Doogles, the hostel I had tried to contact by email. As you can see, I was getting a little more generous with myself, allowing more taxi rides and luxury buses. Somehow I thought this would help to improve my overall condition, physically and mentally. If nothing else, it simply made me feel better.

Luckily, Doogles had a dorm bed for me but claimed they never got my email. Well, the way their office was “organised” I wasn’t surprised to hear that, although I doubted that it was an internet problem. Overall, Doogles was certainly not the best or cleanest hostel I stayed at, but it was the only one in Blantyre, plus it could have had some charm if it had been maintained properly. As most hostels, Doogles also had a bar and a kitchen that offered some food, so I had lunch there. This is also where I met Emily, an English girl in her early 20s. She had spent three months in Uganda, teaching English as a development aid volunteer, and was now travelling for a few weeks until she would return to England at the end of July. Finally, a young woman travelling in Africa on her own! By now I knew that this was really rare and I figured that it would be great if we could do some stuff together. Emily also wanted to go to the lake but only after a few days hiking in the mountains south-east of Blantyre. Those of you who know me well are very well aware that I am absolutely NO hiking fan. Then again, this was my chance to gain a travel companion! We went to the main bus station just outside Doogles to figure out how to get to Cape Maclear (on the lake) and to Mount Mulanje where Emily wanted to go tomorrow. Both trips would require several mini-buses and basically take all day. I still needed some time to think about what I wanted to do, so I returned to Doogles whereas Emily continued her walk to the city centre.

After having spent five hours on the internet (thank God for inventing MSN!) at the one and only computer that worked at Doogles (out of three), I had dinner with Emily (Greek salad, what a delicious change) and we started to make plans. I agreed to join her on Mount Mulanje and afterwards, we would be going to the lake together. She wasn’t sure whether she could afford a diving course but Cape Maclear – according to Lonely Planet “the closest thing you’ll find to an Indian Ocean beach in inland Africa” – was certainly worth a visit anyway. I knew that this decision would pretty much change the rest of my itinerary in the sense that I wouldn’t have enough time anymore to go on the tours I had planned to do in Botswana and Namibia. On the other hand, I had reviewed my budget and was pretty shocked about the amount of money I had spent so far. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think any of the money I spent was wasted but my savings reduced much faster than I would have thought. So in the end, it was also a question of whether I could still afford the tours I had in mind. I didn’t want to stress and do things in a hurry nor spend a fortune on more safaris. Hiking in the mountains instead, cost close to nothing and I was really glad to have found someone to travel with. Based on these reasons I took the decision to take things a little easier from now on, spend more time in Malawi and skip some activities later. Looking back, I don’t regret it.