Malawi – Stuck in the Mud

February 1-3

Hello everyone!

Rainy season is upon us once more, and seems to have come with a vengeance. I think it shows Malawi at its most beautiful – you just have to make a bit more of an effort to get to the wonderful countryside. Especially when your car gets stuck…

Being helped out of the ditch by a tractor

Twice.

Trying to steer from the outside

Our friend Bill won the Mud Run at Kuti last year and was given a weekend stay for 6 at the national park as a prize. Eleven months have passed since that event so it was time for Bill to cash in. We were kindly invited along.

Getting ready for a muddy run

Kuti (the green blob to the right of the picture)
is Malawi's smallest national park

We’ve been here before, in 2017. It’s changed a bit since then – the ostrich has passed into bird heaven and the dining area has been renovated. Oh, and there seems to be a lot more mud this time.

Plenty of monkeys still reside in Kuti

The dirt road up to the gate was challenging, with Bill’s car seeming to swim through some of the larger pools of water. Heavy rain during the 90 minute car journey had clearly passed through Kuti, leaving the ground saturated and creating wide, deep puddles of brown water.

The swollen river, which you cross on the way to the gate

It was after passing through the park gates, which have recently been reinforced due to people stealing the wood, that the fun really started. After slowly slipping and sliding along for a few kilometres, the car finally slide into the bog on the side of the track.

There are clues to what lay ahead here...

The car did well to make it as far as it did!

Our friends, following behind in a Land Cruiser, drove past shouting gentle mockery in our direction. Karma took its revenge on them about 100 metres later.

Karma

With fading light and drizzly rain, I ran the remaining 2 kilometres to the reception desk to ask them for help. Help came in an interesting form…

Going barefoot was faster - and definitely saved my shoes!

Clearly, this happens a lot at this time of year at Kuti. The tractor boys knew exactly what to do and we were soon on our way. Once they'd given Hannah and I a lift back to the cars, of course.

The rescue operation was actually quite quick

Predictably, the weather was spectacularly unpredictable over the weekend. We went on a Saturday morning run which often turned into a walk due to the slippery terrain. My rather worn shoes were very unhelpful, so I decided to call it a day at 6 km, rather than the 18 km others did.

The earlier phase of our run - you can tell
because our calves aren't caked in mud

Running through Kuti National Park

It wasn’t just the mud that stopped us in our tracks, however. We were stopped in awe as we saw a herd of wildebeest storm across the dirt road in the distance. You can't see them in the video I took but you can see what we think was a sable antelope bounding along in the other one.

The most common animal we saw was the last common one in the alphabet, and one with my favourite collective noun. Dazzles of zebra were found outside reception…

Hello, I'd like a double with an en-suite...

…on the walk/drive to our villa…

Zebras are truly dazzling animals

…and right outside our villa.

Drinking from our drain

They even proved to be an adequate alarm – I was woken at 5:30am by the sound of licking on the concrete outside the front door.

Rise and shine!

All of this had to end of course, meaning we had to once again brave the mud rink to get out of Kuti. Once again, Bill’s car couldn’t quite skate in a straight enough line. This time, however, we opted against the tractor and tried to push. We'd released air from the tyres to aid our drive - as you can see from the picture below, we drew quite a crowd when we pumped them up near the main road.

Whilst waiting, we played football and frisbee with the crowd

Eventually, after building a mud wall and creating tracks for the wheels, we were on the move once more, our mud-caked legs and feet on their way back to Lilongwe. We want to make more of an effort to get out to see the beautiful greenery of Malawi during this rainy season, and Kuti was an excellent, fun-filled start.

Us with the tractor boys

Love you all,

Matt