Worldwalker

I find that back at home, things are proceeding apace. My wife is working on all fronts. On top of the usual tasks involved in maintaining the familial infrastructure (not made easier by living between boxes), a million things need to be prepared for the move, Manou is no longer in daycare, Renée needs glasses (this is the result of a medical check-up she’s getting in preparation for getting her into elementary school in Arlington, another thing Sonja’s taking care of). She’s apparently okay with that and my wife manages to get glasses for her by the very next day, which actually look quite nice on her. But of course the kids in her school, predictably, behave like children do when they can – mean-spiritedly ganging up on those who seem vulnerable. I catch part of her breakdown on my cell phone towards the end of a business meeting (we had a mix-up on what times I would be available, given the time difference). I return to the meeting with a heavy heart.

Later, over the weekend and after that, I am somewhat reassured by the fact that there’s a bit of support there. My mother baby-sits on Friday evening so Sonja can go out with a friend and she sounds more relaxed the next day than she’s had in a while. My mother-in-law comes to visit (and possibly pick up Manou for a couple of days), and helps out as well. Of course, this also drives home how much Sonja is giving up with our move – at least to begin with (when things will likely be hardest), there won’t be any such support structure in DC. While I switch jobs – both jobs come with a support structure. I worry. Not that that helps.

So I try to do something helpful instead. Contacting daycare in the area of where we live seems impossible by email – their server rejects my emails, no matter what address I send it from (including my work email back home, which I try via remote access). I’ll just call them tomorrow via SkypeOut (boy, those Estonians are on to something). I research cars (one of the first acquisitions we’ll need to make when we get there). We’ve decided we want a possible third row seating for the extra space and – particularly – the ability to take in our car, along with the family, our visitors, of which we hope to have a lot. I even spend some time looking at the Audi Q7 – apparently the only seven-seater available in the US with a modern European diesel engine. Yes, much better fuel efficiency than any of the competitors. Just nicer all around, too. And more than twice as expensive as what we were thinking of, and not available used (the diesel engine only hit the market this year). We’ll see.


On Saturday we are being taken out to the lake on someone’s boat. It’s an overcast day and supposed to start raining around two in the afternoon. But we’re closer to the equator than Germany, and a kilometre higher up in elevation. So I liberally apply SPF 30 to head, neck and shoulders (from the sparse supply being passed around) and SPF 16 to my extremities. And I wear a hat.

Well, until we get to the place where we’re told the water is nice to swim in. There’s still more than 8 m of water underneath the keel at this spot according to the nifty gadget near the tiller, so I dive right in. The water is of a welcoming warmth – just cool enough to feel refreshing but warm enough that I’m sure one could stay in it for a long time. It is a very, very relaxing morning and I can feel the tense knots in my stomach relax.

Everybody remarks, every once in a while, ironically, how hard life is and how we love MEs (Mutual Evaluations). It’s funny, because I’m sure everybody is just as aware as I am that we’ll be working all of tomorrow, Sunday, and though we’ll have much of Monday to ourselves (it being a local holiday), I know we’ll all be poring over our notes for much of the day. But the upshot of this is that by contrast, the day is even nicer. And it’s about as nice a day as you can think of. Caipirovskas are being passed around (big cooler on the boat), one of our team is making sandwiches, and I manage to climb the boat from the water at the front and jump off from its top (it’s not a big boat, maybe 6 m long). It’s a wonderful chance for everybody to let down their hair (so to speak). And yes, besides being aware of all the work we have done (I’ve clocked nearly a day of overtime in the four days we’ve spent here) and still need to do, we are also aware that none of us (save possibly the owner of the boat) would be out on a lake in Brazil today if it weren’t for our jobs.

We manage to avoid the rain, but we’re still back in the hotel during the afternoon. And I have a severe case of sunburn. Two of our team (who spent time lounging around in the open while I had decided to cover up again) have got it even worse. So I lather as much moisturizer on my body as I can and then sit in front of the laptop trying not to touch anything except with my fingers.

Sunday is work from morning to evening. For lunch we skip over to the food court again, have something mediocre to eat and go back to work. We finish at seven and go out to eat. Too much meat, too many caipirinhas. But we earned it, we think.


Simultaneous translation is a weird thing. I know it’s hard to do for the translator – I’ve had to do it myself for two days in a row and found it extremely exhausting. And I didn’t even translate everything that was said, editing what I heard for relevant content, which our translators aren’t allowed to do.

But it’s also hard for the recipients of the service. I look at the person speaking Portuguese, with the headphone on over one ear. While he’s speaking Portuguese, I actively listen to the English translation in my other ear, while I try to ignore the Portuguese translation of everything that I myself am saying, which I get on the same ear. It’s a strange flip-flopping of acoustic attention that I sometimes manage without conscious effort and at other times find very hard to do even with conscious effort.

One of our team calls it “the zone”. It’s where I go when I’m fully absorbed in the work I’m doing. I’ve heard it referred to as “flow” before, I think. I’m not aware that I go so deep into it in any other circumstance as I do during Mutual Evaluations. When I’m in it, I can work with the lopsided headphones giving me simultaneous Portuguese and English all the time, while conducting a structured interview and at the same time skim-reading unfamiliar legal texts the relevant portions of which I’m looking up as I go along (picking key words from the answers I hear and using the laptop’s “find” function to skip through every instance of that word in the text in question). I don’t know if I work any better than others when I’m in that zone. I’m too far gone into it to be able to judge what I did or how I did it afterwards to compare it with others. I just know what the information is that I got (and that everybody else seems to be quite happy with the way I’m doing things).

Today I’m told there was a veritable storm outside while I was asking questions, with the rain creating a white-out in which one couldn’t see the building across from us. I was not aware of this in any way, shape or form while leading the interview and am surprised to see the streets are wet when I’m done and we break for lunch.

This whole thing seems to cost no effort at all while I’m doing it. But I’m spent at the end of the day.


Emily says doing an ME is “like putting together a dysfunctional puzzle”. I find this an astute observation – a very apt description. To begin with, there are way too many puzzle pieces – dozens of laws, dozens of regulations, dozens of circular letters and other forms of guidance, a random number of statistics, at least some of them mutually contradictory.

In the beginning, a lot of pieces don’t seem to fit. And the assumption is that it is because we haven’t found the right way of piecing them together yet. But some of them actually don’t fit, because the system isn’t perfect. So you worry about these pieces for days, asking about them here and there, much like worrying at a loose tooth or the scab over a wound.

The more pieces finally fall into place, the more pieces go from the “not found yet” to the “affirmatively missing” category. We go from a very bad understanding of a financial system of unknown quality to a much better understanding of a financial system of a known quality. Which is a challenging experience. And then we write a report. Another challenge. Much less interesting, but not necessarily less hard.

Working here is again different than it’s been in the past. Sitting away from the translation booth means sitting closer to the (open) window, which provides a very welcome, though slight, breeze of (slightly) cooler air. It’s really nice for a change – until a car with a bunch of loudspeakers mounted on it stops outside and blasts music and what sounds like a commercial at the building we’re occupying. Speaking loudly over this noise to be heard is hard, turning the headphones up loud enough to hear the (simultaneous) translation over the noise from outside and the raised voice of the speaker an exercise in frustration, if not futility.

Luckily, the car moves on after a few minutes.

Then comes back for a few minutes.

This goes on for a while. We’ll have some comparative quiet, then it comes back. When I decide to investigate, I’m told it’s someone from a labour union, appealing to workers to join in a strike. So it’s a political protest, and no one can do anything against it. I feel that it impacts the quality of life of our work significantly.

For lunch, we go out to local restaurants which cater to all the other lunch-seeking workers in the office buildings around here. Food is fast and cheap (and okay). At least I’m not forced to live above my per diem rate, which is good. Walking to and from the restaurant is a welcome chance to stretch one’s legs. It also affords a glimpse of Brasilia from street level. The infrastructure is worrying, particularly when passing underneath bridges which show crumbling fissures in the places where the concrete supports meet the roadbed of the bridge or the ground underneath. I’m not sure if I actually see rust leaking out of any (presumably) reinforced concrete structures, as the ground Brasilia is built on must have a rather high iron content – construction excavations are bright red, while paths trampled across otherwise grass-covered earthen embankments look like livid scars crisscrossing the city’s tissue. And there are many of those – given that pedestrians did not appear to figure into the architect’s plan of the city (way back in the 50s when cars were the next cool thing), I notice these improvised walkways everywhere. So the city adapts – but the adaptation seems destructive. Together with the crumbling infrastructure, which does not appear to have seen maintenance in the 50 years since the entire city was rammed into the ground over a construction period of a mere four years, this casts a depressing pall over the place. Or maybe it’s just me.

Other things are depressing. I’m not at liberty to discuss details of our Mutual Evaluation, but the Brazilian code of criminal procedure is a matter of public record. We are told it was written under the impression of twenty years of military dictatorship, which goes a long way towards explaining the endless, tortuous (from a prosecutor’s vantage point) appeals process. There isn’t a period of limitations for criminal proceedings, there are three – two of them can be retroactive. So if a criminal proceeding is brought, the prosecutors need to go by the standard period of limitations, which is based on the maximum sentence for the crime being prosecuted. But if the sentence handed down is less than the maximum (which is usual), a shorter period of limitations applies – retroactively. Which means that the verdict made in the third instance (after two appeals) can mean the case (retroactively) lapsed between the first and second instance. Final verdicts against rich defendants are therefore very much the exception to the rule. If I was a prosecutor here, I think I would have killed myself some time ago. There are certainly enough tall buildings around to jump from.

Back in the hotel, I manage to figure out what to do about the air condition. There’s a window unit in the bed room, and one in the room with a table and workspace in it into which the door opens. They sometimes make quite a racket when turned on, sometimes run relatively quietly. They have two settings: On and Off. The setting that works best for me is “off”, on both, with all the windows and both doors onto the small balcony wide open. At night, that’s pleasantly cool. During the day, I wouldn’t know – I’m never here during the day.

That may change on Monday, which is a holiday here (which is why we're working all of Sunday as a team, consolidating notes etc.).

To Brasilia

Apparently you can’t go to Brasilia en directe. It’s a twelve hour flight from FRA to Sao Paulo, where I get at five in the morning local time. The flight is with TAM (a Brasilian carrier). I find that my mind is too packed up with private emotions and the many, many things relating to our move to DC to work, so the long flight would be a perfect opportunity to watch a movie to take my mind off things while nursing a drink and going to sleep. Unfortunately, TAM’s entertainment collection is severely limited. I sleep anyway, wistfully thinking of the fold-flat seats in the Cathay Pacific flights. I wake up for breakfast with a migraine. Great start.

Breakfast is at three in the morning. Touchdown at five. At Sao Paulo, I have to claim my baggage, carry it through customs and recheck it. It makes what appeared to be an ample layover barely functional (plus, I’m only barely functional). Then it’s on to Brasilia. Getting out of the plane I first notice that I’ve arrived somewhere else – the air is different, as is the smell. Rather humid, too. Temps are in the 20s, which is nice.

Getting to the hotel takes a while, I’m there at noon, which is three in the afternoon German time – I’ve been on the go for nearly 24 hours. I check email (and respond), then takes some more headache medication and fall onto the bed for an hour and a half. After what may have been an hour of restless sleep, I meet the team. There are eight of us, evenly split between the sexes. One of us speaks Portuguese – I believe we’ll be relying on her a lot.

The meeting room in the hotel is small, and makes up for this by not having windows. What it does have is a background noise sounding like a very, very large washing machine very nearby. Welcome to Brasilia.

We have dinner after our work meeting (I’m starved). It’s seems strange in that the women are having wine, whereas all of the men abstain claiming headaches (mine’s reduced to a residual strain, but I’m not taking chances). In fact, one guy also came out of the plane with a migraine and apparently spent the afternoon throwing up. Gender equality appears to be biting us in our collective butts. About time.


The room we’ll be working in for most of the two weeks here is semi-air-conditioned, which is good enough I guess (though I sweat a little in my suit). Better than being cold. I have the translator box right next to me, which means that whenever someone from our team is asking a question, I have someone speaking Portuguese into my ears. One of the Brazilian gentlemen speaks so loudly, that I can barely understand the translation in my headphones, because dialling it up loud enough to drown out the speaker is painful. The translator translates English into Portuguese inclusive of the accompanying gestures, which means that I have hand waves in my peripheral vision a lot.

I am not as well prepared as I’d like, what with other events going on, so was trying to prepare for the second half of the first meeting (which is going to be my show) during its first half. I find it impossible. I manage my part anyway, even finishing on time. I find that my own show was actually less impacted by the distractions – when I conduct a structured (well, semi-structured in this case) interview, my mind can operate with most filters in place. I ask a question, all I need to concentrate on is whether I’m getting the answer. But while trying to prepare, I sort through notes and try to skim-read large amounts of text, which is a much less straightforward process. It seems to require being more open-minded, which makes distractions hard to bear.
Lunch consists of the little snacks they had meant for our morning coffee break (which we didn’t have, we worked through the morning, which is probably going to be par for the course). I mention my problem due to my location at the far end of the table and someone from the secretariat volunteers to switch places with me.

I am somewhat relieved that at our after-work work meeting in the evening (when we meet as a team after the day’s work with the Brazilian delegations), she is rather more adamant that it’s impossible to work in that seat than I was (wouldn’t want to be seen as a wimp). We plan for a different seating arrangement from then on, sitting closer to the windows.

There’s not much time left in the day when we finish, and we haven’t had dinner yet. We walk to one of the few places around the hotel that are accessible on foot. Brasilia is a planned city, laid out in the shape of an airplane (with the government agencies in the cockpit). This fascination with modern transport seems to have led the architect (who lives in Rio de Janeiro) to forget pedestrians…

There’s a mediocre food court in the mall, where I get a bit of mediocre vaguely Asian food from a buffet (priced by weight – at least it costs less than my per diem rate).

Knowing the effect of not moving for weeks at a time, afterwards I (barely) muster the energy to visit the gym for a (brief) run. I am lathered in sweat within minutes, which I can chalk off to altitude (Brasilia is a good km higher than Bonn), having had a rough couple of days or just being out of shape. I’m too beat to even care which.

This is a placeholder. I distinctly remember writing more about Singapore (quite a bit, really) but it must be on the *other* laptop. I'll upload it here when I get my hands on it.

Singapore is hot. We’re one degree north of (meaning practically on top of) the equator, so the weather is a very humid 30 degrees C or so, with little seasonal variation. Not my cup of tea. Particularly when wearing a three-piece suit. I soon notice that jackets are frowned upon by bankers around here and will happily leave my jacket at home the next time I head for the bank. Until then, I sweat a lot whenever I’m outside of a building, with the concurrent shivers whenever I enter an air-conditioned building. The latter remind me of the U.S.: A/C is invariably central, and invariably set to an intelligence-insultingly low setting. Everybody freezes inside. And, just like in the U.S., everybody accepts this screaming affront against the environment, efficiency, health care and common sense with the bovine lethargy usually afforded the weather. Unless, I guess, you’re German, in which case even the weather can get you riled up.

Maybe it’s because it is, in fact the weather (indoors). And maybe it’s only Annette and I (and the auditors) who object to it because we’re German. Hmmm. Still, there are so many things fundamentally wrong with making it artificially cold (rather than cooling it to a pleasant warmth) inside that it beggars description. Maybe that’s why people don’t mention it.

Unless, of course – getting back to the original subject – they’re German. The two young ladies sent here on behalf of the auditing company we hired to do the (lion’s share of) the on-site inspection arrived here a day early and put their foot down: they would not be able to work in an ice-box. And lo and behold, a technician was found who made sure that the (allegedly centrally controlled and invariably set too low) A/C only cooled the room a little – to a pleasant early summer warmth. Wonderful.

Going outside (say, for lunch) is like walking against a wall of oppressive heat and humidity. Sweat begins to be visible within a few minutes spent outside (less, if they’re spent in the sun). There are tropical trees in the streets between the skyscrapers, which are otherwise filled with a teeming mass of people (and lots of cars, don’t forget the cars).

We grab lunch in a place which mirrors this. At the “hawkers”, there are lots of little food stalls which sell their various foods, all visibly graded by local authorities according to the hygiene standards found at the last inspection. (Everything I see is graded “B” – I don’t find any examples of the other two supposedly possible ratings, but don’t spend much time looking, either.) Having ascertained some food, one then seeks to find a table somewhere in the mass of tightly placed tables and chairs that make up a sort of food court. Not easy to do. What’s also not easy is to keep one’s tie (or long hair, if so equipped) out of one’s food when the fans, all set to maximum output, rotate one’s way. The fans are everywhere, but there’s only so much cooling you can achieve by making hot air move around faster…

Singapore airport is like other airports. Small surprise there. Immigration controls are an exercise in frustration tolerance – there are several lanes of people, all serviced by one person each. The lane we choose is by far the slowest – for a while we watch as the efficient young man in charge of the lane to our left checks, on average, four people in the time it takes the one ahead of us to check a single one, while noting that he clearly checks whether the picture on the ID matches the face of the person proffering it, whereas the slower gentleman appears to be sleepy enough not to open his eyes at all. We switch lanes only to witness the escalation procedure in case there’s a problem with an ID: the efficient young gentleman gets up and escorts his current object of attention to what I take to be the location of his superior officer – not to return in quite a while. A few other irregularities later we manage to be allowed into Singapore. Phew.

The Metro is a lot like Tokyo’s only – not. The trains stop with their doors at predetermined places, which are marked on the floor. Which is where the similarity ends. In Japan, there was a simple line indicating where the doors would be, and the waiting people lined up in two orderly lines to either side of it, so that the disembarking passengers could easily get off. Here, there are clear lines, with arrows, indicating where to stand and where not to stand, which are followed by – some.

In general, there are a lot of signs. “Watch for unaccompanied baggage” – “watch for suspicious persons” – “mind the station gap” (that’s the gap between the train and the platform, maybe a hand’s width wide – and a local hand at that, which is small), that last remark also repeated on the loudspeaker, followed by “please mind the closing doors”, and out of the metro, there are signs like “watch for cars from the left”, “watch for cars from the right”, “be careful when crossing the road” or explaining how a traffic light works. By the time we reach the hotel I’m sick and tired of being told what to do and what not to do.

Singapore is also like Japan in that I appear to occupy roughly the 90th percentile in height around here. And not like Japan in that it’s clearly a melting pot of people. I learn later that about 40 % of Singaporean residents weren’t born here, which is a stark contrast to the rather homogenous (and declining) population base in Japan. Although apparently Singapore’s is declining only marginally slower than Japan’s. I’m told the Singaporean authorities (a monolithic one-party autocracy) have decreed that they need to double their population base in the next 20 years or so. Not sure how they’ll go about doing that, though clearly they’re not used to taking “no” as an answer.

Our hotel isn’t far from Orchard Road (in fact, the metro station called “Orchard Road” is the one we use, about a 10 minute walk from our hotel), which apparently is Singapore’s prime shopping location. Which means that there is a huge amount of shops and malls around, from Armani to Kentucky Fried Chicken. It’s impressive in its sheer overabundance (as are the huge video screens which run commercials non-stop, with loudspeakers that make themselves heard over the din of the road noise), but fails to entice me in any way, shape or form. Apparently Singapore has nature as well, but I guess I won’t be seeing any of it until the weekend.

Malaysia Airlines into Singapore has the most annoying piped-in music going on all through the flight. Annette, my coworker with whom I'm on this business trip, describes it as „soothing“. I appear to be tired enough that it has some of that effect on me and pass out for most of the (short) flight. Had I been awake, I'm pretty sure it would have infuriated me.

The flight is unremarkable. Malaysian Airlines, though they share a business lounge with Cathay Pacific, did not elect to go for the cool diagonal arrangement of seats that I liked so much (particularly because of the seats that folded entirely flat). So we make do with the not-quite-flat position I'm familiar with from other flights (including the sensation of inexorably sliding downwards during the night).

I got up at 4 a.m. again, to make my day long and myself tired, so that I might convince my body that it's really night already once food is served on the airplane, to easier reintegrate into the local diurnal cycle once we're there. Having slept for only three or four hours, I manage to go to sleep rather quickly (maybe the Champagne helped), but curiously find myself wide awake after I wake up a few hours later. Curiously, because it's now affirmatively night time back home in Germany, and my current understanding of jet lag should have meant that I would now be tired. Maybe my body considered the sleep nothing but a well-deserved (longish) afternoon nap. In which case I have a *long* day ahead of myself...

We come into Kuala Lumpur at the end of the local night – it's still dark, and the lit city provides a brilliant panorama. We don't have a long layover here, so head straight for the local lounge. Which is something else entirely. Not overly ostentatious, but quite noticeably different from the way business lounges tend to look in the Western World (from my yet limited experience). Kuala Lumpur greets our coming to the East with a truly brilliant sunrise. We sit and enjoy the view for a while, before heading to our connecting flight.

takes his up front money and runs off to buy provisions. He returns in less than the 45 minutes he advised, now sporting a windbreaker, a plastic bag and a half-litre bottle of water. The plastic bag apparently contains his provisions for the weekend.

(again, the pictures are here: http://tinyurl.com/mo9x9p - that should be all of them now.)

We head up the slope, on the “Top Skycable Path”, which heads up at a steep angle and becomes steeper still. Its name derives from the cable coming down off Mulanje, which was put there to bring things (particularly timber) off the mountain more easily. It's not currently in use, however. I'm told the engine broke. Two YEARS ago. It's a government engine, and the government seems to have more important things on its mind (can't say I blame it). So the planks are being carried down the way they used to – on the heads of porters.

Which has got to be a darn tough job on this slope. I am glad for my ultralight carbon hiking sticks, letting me do part of the work with my arms and speeding me up the slope. I wonder for a (little) while whether I might have to slow down for my guide, but after realizing that my comfortable speed is what it is, he matches me without apparent concern. I consider that armchair tourists probably don't opt for a mountain hiking tour much, so there's likely an inherent self-selection process involved which means he only gets to guide people who are reasonably fit. It later turns out that the Mulanje Porter Race follows the path which we've decided would be my (our) goal for the rest of today, tomorrow and part of Sunday (with the exception of the peak-bagging excursion up Chambe Peak). And that Vincent ran it. In borrowed running shoes. In 2 h 45 min. Two weeks ago.

So if I decided, for whatever reason, to try running up this hill (with my nearly 12 kg pack, according to my updated Malawi Packlist spreadsheet), Vincent, carrying a small plastic bag in one hand, could have easily matched me while carrying on a commentary of what we were passing by, and continue doing this long after the (very short) distance I'd be able to keep it up before collapsing. I am very, very impressed. The new record for this year, is 2 h 05 min – for a 27.3 km distance with about 1300 m of elevation gain in the first fifth or so and a corresponding loss for the last quarter of that distance. On semi-maintained trails. Ouch.

We get to the top relatively soon. There are moments which feel eerily similar to trudging up Kumotori-san again. Again (as in Lamington, down under), the objective similarity ends with me going uphill. It's broad daylight, it's hot, there's a lot of vegetation around and I'm not even alone.

But the mental state is similar. I zone out, seeing only the next few steps ahead and while I keep taking them, there are always the next few to replace the ones I just took.

I contemplate that there are two sides to this phenomenon. On the one hand it's a loss – it becomes a little treadmill-like, with me being less aware of my surroundings than usual (no snide comments necessary, thank you, I've heard them all) when I've undertaken considerable effort to do this in these particular surroundings. Surroundings, however, which at least partially necessitate this concentration on the immediate. The paths I like are less than entirely flat, less than entirely level and less than entirely even. That means a (not too small) part of my attention is taken up looking at my feet or, rather, where to place them. This necessitates looking down, which means I don't see much else.

But there's a side effect to this. Because the trail is the way it is, I have to adapt every step to it, making this something more than a purely repetitive act, like walking from the hotel to the Reserve Bank, which I feel is merely an act of locomotion (however pleasant the day and interesting the surroundings may be). This requires attention, and effort, and a degree of determination, which makes it an altogether different experience, which is why I believe it deserves a different monicker from “walking” (though yes, I think the observation that “hiking is just walking where it is okay to pee” is funny).

And the effect on my brain is that while part of my attention is fixed on the bit of trail ahead of me, the rest of my mind is free to wander. In reducing external input to the few feet ahead, all the background clutter daily life usually involves is reduced – the many things my brain must filter out to be able to function fall away naturally, allowing my mind, my soul, to expand into the void.

A bit over the top? Perhaps. I don't know. I do know that doing this allows me to stretch my mind, much as it cramps my legs.

And I don't zone out completely. Every once in a while I take my bearings (good excuse for catching my breath and taking a sip of water), and enjoy the scenery stretching out behind me. It looks just as high as my legs feel like they've walked. Not that I've been doing this enough to be able to tell how much elevation gain I've made based purely on how my legs feel – but my legs feel like I've climbed a *lot*, and my vantage point sure is a lot higher than where we started.

We make it to the Chambe Plateau in good time. It's reasonably flat (just rolling enough not to be boring, though my legs wouldn't mind the boredom right now) and the path follows a large firebreak, so it can't be missed. Not that the firebreak seems to have done much – all around us are the sings of the monstrous devastation a huge wildfire three years ago left behind. None of the vegetation comes higher than my hips, and all around us stand the burned trunks of trees like blackened teeth. Combine this with darkness slowly falling as the sun sets behind the mountains surrounding the plateau (though still a good bit over the horizon beyond that) and it creates a hesitant, awed attitude as though entering a majestic mausoleum through which Vincent and I walk in companionable silence.

We make it to the Chambe Hut in 3:45, which is well below the four and a half hours I was told to expect, but my pleasure at this feat is tempered by the knowledge that Vincent must have done this bit in less than an hour only two weeks ago. I'm still happy to arrive before it gets really dark (though I'm well equipped for night hiking – and pretty much any other eventuality that might come up, including sleeping out of doors in temps below freezing).

The hut I'm shown has two rooms, one of them with chairs, tables and a fireplace in it, the other with bunk beds and a handful of rather ratty looking foam mattresses. Vincent takes his leave to go over to the other hut, where the guardsman resides (and, it turns out, the other guides also bed down for the night). It so happens that there are only Germans in the hut tonight – Robert and Oliver, who study political science in Stuttgart, and Christian who studies geography in Tübingen, though currently in an exchange program with Stellenbosch University (South Africa).

I am usually opposed to mixing with other people from home when abroad, feeling that it detracts from absorbing the local colour. Also, this whole “white tourists in one – large – hut, black guides in the other – small – hut” uncomfortably smacks if not of racism, then at least of colonialism. But we all did pay for the privilege of sleeping in this hut (while the guides appear to be exempt), so I guess the sleeping arrangements are part of the service. And I've been mixed up with people speaking nothing but English (or Chichewa) all week, so it actually feels good to express myself in German again. Plus hiking up here has brought Thomas D.'s immortal lyrics back to mind:
“Siehst Du den Horizont?
Direkt über'm Boden fängt der Himmel an,
und wäre ich dort,
so würde ich wetten, dass ich ihn erreichen kann.
Doch hier hat es den Anschein,
bin ich dafür zu klein …
[…]
… und ihr seht mich als Punkt am Horizont verschwinden,
um ein Stück weiter hinten
mich selbst zu finden.”

Not something I can find words for in another language. And yes, they all know the lyrics as well.

It's a comfortable evening around a crackling fire. They share the food they already prepared with me, I share my large bag of salted peanuts which provide the perfect counterpoint for the (atmospherically cooled) beer the hut's keepers provide (in small amounts, at a not inconsiderable premium for having carried it up here).

It's such a well-rounded evening in pleasant company that it's nearly indecent. My compatriots have travelled widely (and sharing experiences from my – business – travels of the past years, it appears I am now perceived to have done so as well) and share stories as well as factual information. I learn that the average life expectancy of a Malawian citizen is below 40 years. I have a very uncomfortable moment as I consider that my guide may not live to reach my age. I then realize that the figure given represents life expectancy at birth, and once you adjust for a high infant mortality rate, the average life expectancy of someone who already survived to his mid-twenties is of course considerably higher. But somehow any positive outlook brought about by a high infant mortality rate fails to console me. But via only slightly less depressing subjects like Bilharzia (Schistosomiasis) and its possible concern for us (or lack thereof), and on from there to intestinal problems and our reaction to various foreign cuisines, we manage to span a broad band of subjects. In fact, the light topics much outshine the gloomier ones tonight, in stark contrast to the dark hut (no lights here) only slightly illuminated in our corner by its small, but welcoming fire.

The night ends with Christian and me standing outside under the stars (the mists part enough to allow Christian to point out the Southern Cross to me again – and explain how to find South with its help, that being not nearly so simple as simply locating it). We spend an hour or so (we've both brought enough warm clothes to stand the chill) quietly sharing various travel-related experiences. The stars shine above, and shower more falling stars than I have wishes for.


After a bit of an experiment at making breakfast (turns out the plastic of the folding dishes I'm testing becomes less flexible in the chill, making it snap apart) I have produced a goodly portion of noodles with a thick, overly salty sauce (that's how the powder came out of the bag). Thinking
about how much sweat I produced yesterday (a lot!), that's probably not bad.

Vincent suggests to leave my pack here with the guardsman – we're coming back past the hut after our excursion to Chambe Peak. So I remove the top lid and hip belt of my pack and create a fanny pack from them – happy that I included this conversion option when I had the pack made. I don't need any more repacking – the first aid kit and most of my money are in the top lid anyway, and the snacks are in the hip belt pockets. Just add a bottle of water, and off we go. “Tiende”, I learn, means “let's go” in Chichewa.

I wave goodbye to the other Germans as we leave. Two of them are rather unhappy with their guide, Sam. They hired him before coming to the Forestry station rather than through the good folks there. While he quoted the going rate for a guide, he demanded it up front in total and started claiming, an hour or so into the hike, that the rate is per person guided, not per guide, and that they should pay him “the other half” at the end. They said they'd check that with the Forestry station, which he tells them is closed today because of the weekend. Both of those statements are lies. They weren't set on a course of action when I left them, but it seemed likely they'd dismiss the guide and return without him. While we agree that the way back down to the forestry station is easy enough to find without a guide, we suspect that a similar scenario may be responsible for the apparent death of the hiker currently being sought.

We take off at a good clip. Vincent is visibly feeling cold (it really is quite cool up here now) and happy for a quick pace. He tells me he only had one blanket in the other hut, so once the fire went out he was freezing. I didn't start off cold, so left my warm clothes behind in anticipation of both me and the day warming up as we go along. I am not mistaken in this belief, and also note the effect of altitude, to which I ascribe how quickly my breath goes.

We pass a sign where our path crosses another path, which says “Chambe Peak” and points the way Vincent is *not* going. When asked about this, he explains that the people who set up the sign made a mistake with the arrow direction. Apparently no one considers himself responsible for changing this.

We quickly approach the (Eastern) cliff face of Chambe Peak, which rises steeply from the plateau. Apparently the West Face of Chambe Peak does so all the way from the plains below, making for the longest rock climb in Africa. By various detours we manage to find a route which leads up the mountain. That is, Vincent knows it, and I just follow along – I would never have found it myself. This route does not require rock climbing of the sort I did at Morro di Urca in Rio (which is good, as there are no ropes securing us) but for a large part of the climb we require our hands to ascend. Vincent assures me that we'll be passing by the same places on the way back down, so I leave my hiking sticks behind when it becomes so steep that they are more of a liability than an asset, and we climb the rest. The way up is hard on my achilles tendons – I rarely get to set down all of my foot, usually it's just the balls of my feet which find placement so I'm tiptoeing up to Chambe Peak. This feels wonderfully adventurous – hard enough to be a challenge, steep enough to be exciting, while just on this side of presenting danger to life or limb.

The scenery is amazing. Chambe Plateau and bits of other plateaus are visible from here, many of the peaks stand out in stark relief against the bright blue sky, caressed by clouds. The distant plains lie before us like a giant's playground, littered with toy huts and connecting lines (roads) seemingly scratched into the dirt. I am again amazed at the human eyes' ability to filter out the haze (alternatively, disappointed at my camera's inability to do so), as I seem to be able to make out details much further away than the pictures of my camera indicate. Vincent tells me that in late August or September one gets clear days when one can see all the way to Lake Malawi from here. I really feel like coming back one day to check that out. Maybe one or both of my daughters would like to come as well – time enough, I hope.

The morning turns out gloriously. I am happy Vincent strongly suggested leaving as early as he did (6:30 he had said, it was more like seven when I'd sorted my repacking and we actually started walking). We lie in the sun on the peak for maybe half an hour or so, exchaning snacks (crackers, and the raisins I bought here and some leftovers from Australia that were still in my pack) and brief glances into our lives. I learn that Vincent studies to become an electrician when he isn't guiding. Apparently his dad paid his tuition last year, but got sick and died so that he now has to come up with it by himself. So he's been missing classes for the last week to secure the money for the second half of the semester. It's 14,000 MK per semester (secondary schooling, starting after 8th grade, is 5,000 per trimester while primary schooling is free – where it's available).

When asked what I think about his country, I ask for and learn another Chichewa word: “Kukongola” - “beautiful”.

The way back down is steep enough to require leaning back against the rock, though not quite steep enough to require turning around and climbing down backwards (though I realize belatedly that I would have told my daughters to do just that). So it becomes a matter of evenly distributing the friction between the seat of the pants and the balls of the hands, which get roughed up a little. As usual, the way back down is more painful on the quads, and possibly on the knees (though that may just be the accumulated effect of already having had to bear me up there). Our descent is fast enough to have my ears pop halfway down.

Back on the plateau and on our way back to Chambe Hut, Vincent again finds that we made very good time. This is not a stretch even he could have run, so allow myself to feel pleased about that.

Back at the huts, I'm asked whether I require a fire in “my” hut (there's no one else around). It seems stupid to me to cook my lunch here in this hut while Vincent cooks his in the other one, and ask whether we can't both do it in the same place. So Vincent invites me over to the guardsman's hut, which consists of two very small rooms. The back one contains a bed, the front one a hearth and a stool. The guardsman is sitting on the ground peeling pea pods, and assents to my question whether I may enter. He leaves soon thereafter to cut wood outside, and I feel that my presence may have been an unwelcome invasion of privacy. Vincent and I cook our food on the grate over the wood fire in the hearth – I cook my instant noodles in the titanium pot I've been lugging all over te world, Vincent cooks Nsima (maize meal) in the guardsman's pot. He cooks a lot of it, and invites me to share. I do, and make him eat some of my noodles as well. We are both politely, though hesitantly, positive in our evaluations of each other's cuisine. The black herring that goes with his Nsima comes from lake Churia (sp?), I'm told.

As we move off again (“tiende”), I am again happy that we started early in the morning – Chambe Peak is currently an indistinct shadow in the clouds. If we were up there now, visibility would be reduced to a few dozen meters at best. We hike across much of Chambe Plateau (the part we haven't already crossed from the East Face of Chambe to the Hut), through the area known locally, I'm told as “Likhabula area” after the nearest town down below, to the Lichenya Plateau. The weather is changing, though mostly pleasant. Wind and wind direction is a major factor up here – on the lee side of a slope, heat can be sweltering, while the buffeting winds greeting us when cresting the ridge are bracing, if not downright cold. The trail we follow is part of a fire break for a while (couldn't miss this one even in the dark), then continues off and is sometimes less distinct as it clings to the sides of hills, follows nearly dry watercourses – some rock-hopping, some “bridges” made of rotting timbers haphazardly laid across gullies and nailed into place – and is sometimes marked by white arrows painted on the ground in lime. I'm told these were put in place for the benefit of the Mulanje Porter's Race. They are not often, or more exactly rarely, in places where they would be helpful in advising of an apparent choice in routes, and more often painted into the middle of an obvious path without apparent alternatives.

They are anyhow rare, and so cannot deflect my attention from the awe-inspiring beauty I find myself in. I am tempted to stop often, to breathe in the crisp mountain air and revel in the fact that I actually find myself here, on Mulanje Mountain (as the locals call the massif). My wife and I had watched a documentary about Malawi focussing on its natural beauty, which had impressed us so much that when I told her I might be working on a T/A mission in an as-yet unspecified country in southern Africa, she asked: “Not Malawi?”. I am sure many of the images which so impressed us were shot right here. Words fail to describe the majestic wilderness of it, so I resort to repetitions of “kukongolo”.

We spend another quarter hour or so of a rest break sprawled over dry rocks of a water course which trickles along in the background, providing the sound of flowing water as soundtrack to our reverie. Birds call in the background – yet the absence of noises lets the voices of nature join into a sound of silence.

Sun warms us, while intermittent winds cool us, so with another “tiende” we move off. We spend a little more than three and a half hours hiking to Lichenya hut, which Vincent again announces as being “in good time”. He's right – shortly after we've moved into our quarter at Lichenya hut, the clouds envelop it and begin pelting it with rain. It gets rather chilly outside in a hurry, and while I have both warm and rain clothes with me, I am glad Vincent isn't caught in this weather. So, he admits, is he. He also tells me that he would be very happy if I did not sleep in the tent-shaped tarp I set up outside. I am hesitant – I brought it halfway around the globe to test, after all. What wins me over is that sleeping inside means I won't need all of my warm clothes in my sleeping bag, allowing me to loan some to Vincent.

The hut is large, it even has a form of loft. On a warm night, that's where I would sleep – the loft has a window which, on a clear day, would give a fabulous view. Given that it is neither clear nor warm, we strategically choose the smaller of the rooms in possession of a fireplace. Since having shared lunch with me, Vincent seems to accept that we are travelling as a team, and as we have the hut to ourselves (though it is the largest on Mulanje, even featuring electric lighting fed by solar cells) we decide that he'll sleep directly in front of the fireplace, while I set up my quarters on the other side. When he goes to ask the guardsman for a blanket, I ask that he also ask for a blanket for me. Which I don't need, of course, but with two blankets, my pile vest and balaclava I hope Vincent won't have to freeze tonight, though it's likely to get colder in here once the fire burns out than it ever did at Chambe Hut. I worry for a little while – the additional blanket has to come from somewhere, and the one or two families I saw who occupy one or more of the smaller straw-thatched huts around Lichenya hut with their inadequately clothed small children are not people whom I would wish to deprive of warmth. But this is, as I've been told, the largest of the huts, so it stands to reason that many people with many guides sometimes overnight here, so I assume the blanket came from a store for such purposes. Anyway, a family can move together for warmth, while notions of privacy and intimacy keep us apart in scenarios short of life-threatening cold.

We eat heartily (Nsima, black herring with tomato, and an instant pasta meal again) and bed down for the night, after I've inspected my tarp outside. It remains dry inside, the wind is no problem, I am certain I would have slept quite well in it.

The night passes without incident (we had spotted the leaky bits of roof early on and positioned ourselves so we weren't rained on at night). The guardsman comes in at 6:30 as promised to light our fire. I had initially denied the need to do so when asked, before asking Vincent whether he might like to cook something in the morning. Which he admitted that yes, he would.

Nsima and noodle soup again. Then I take down my tarp (leaving a diamond-shaped bit of dryness behind on the otherwise sodden ground), pack up my things and – “tiende”. We backtrack just a bit. The grasses we found neatly laid out to dry yesterday are still lying where they were, though dry is not something they will be for a while. It is chilly this morning, and stays so for a while. I've let Vincent continue to wear the pile vest for a while and loaned him my softshell pants for a bit. We are both in good spirits as we move off.

After a km or so of terrain we passed through yesterday, we turn off towards Likhabula. It's a long descent, with stunning views. After two hours or so, we sit for a while on an inviting rock in the sun, drink our last bits of water eat a few raisins. It's peaceful here. Further down, we spot monkeys in the trees and even meet hikers going up, twice. We've also met several search groups during the day, though there appears to be no trace of the hiker. I'm thinking that if he was ill prepared, a single night like the last one might have done him in, certainly if he was already malnourished (and there were no indications that he travelled with a week's worth of provisions). No one is admitting that they are looking for a corpse, however.

Vincent is carrying two brooms (made of the grasses they cut for that purpose up on the plateau), which he got at Lichenya hut. He tells me he is bringing them home. One of them, however, it turns out goes to the person who loaned him the windbreaker he was wearing. We meet this person (and many others) at the bottom of our descent, in the village of Likhabula. Residences generally consist of the now-familiar one-room brick houses, thatched with straw or sometimes – probably a sign of affluence – covered with metal sheeting. Some of them are falling down, others are going up. The largest building under construction, easily the size of four to five of these dwellings, is going to be a church. I am again given to wonder to what degree the resources put into religious pursuits result in a useful kickback for the society affording them. Is enough gained in the way of charity, solidarity and prevention of social friction to make this an efficient use of resources?

Vincent and I exchange emails (how he manages to get email access here when it's been darn hard – and expensive – for me to get a connection, and a spotty, low-bandwidth one at that, remains a mystery for now). My tip is larger than his remaining payment (he's putting me on a truck which will get me to where a minibus will get me to Blantyre, so I think I can reinvest some of the return trip money saved) and I hand it over with the exhortation to go back to school. He indicates that he will do just that. As he also told me that he slept quite well with the Balaclava (and I can't stand it while sleeping), I let him keep that as well. As the body loses most of its heat via the body, what with an entire artery heating the skin around the skull to keep the brain warm and cozy, I guess that's the best ease-of-carrying to warmth difference I can make in his wardrobe. It can be stuffed in a pocket of his shorts on hot days and still come along, whereas the pile vest would very nearly necessitate a backpack. Plus, I still need the vest and use it regularly, not like the Balaclava. This exchange happens underneath a sign proclaiming that Unicef is paying for the school construction project going on in the background, which I think is laying it on a little thick. But this isn't a movie ending, so we still have to wait (lounging in the half-shadow of a stunted little tree) for a while before a truck passing through consents to take me along to the tarmac road in Mulanje town.

The central area of Mulanje town, following the paved overland route through the town, is packed with people. This is market, central bus station, hangout and probably a number of other things, not easily identified at a glance, at once. The ubiquitous white Toyota Hi-Ace minibuses line one side of the street, coming and leaving without apparent rhyme or reason. But saying “Blantyre” is all I need to do, and yes, it will be 400 MK, like I was led to expect. Only it will actually go to Limbe, which is right next to Blantyre (in fact, the delineation escaped me when going from one to the other).

There's one young man whose job it appears to be to hunt down people who want to go in their direction (though, all of the buses on this side of the street are going there), while another, older gentleman sits behind the wheel and honks every once in a while. We leave when the minibus is full – that is, every seat is taken, so we have a dozen people aboard. I was told in Chambe Hut that in Mozambique they aim for at least twenty people (in the same kind of car, but on roads so bad that they'd be likely to break down even if not hopelessly overloaded). This trip is a piece of cake. I still have the legs zipped off my convertible pants, and the very small girl on the lap of the young woman next to me seems to find the hairs on the pale skin endlessly fascinating. As much as I find her attentions cute, I am annoyed by the young hustler on the other side also occasionally touching my leg and saying “money”. I tell him that I'll pay when I'm there, but he keeps trying every quarter of an hour or so.

While driving is nominally on the left, it's really more in the center. What the rule does establish is that the default direction in which to dodge oncoming traffic is left, which helps. We reach Limbe after an hour and a half or so, driving down a street which, along with its parallel streets, features several dozen nearly identical-looking vehicles in a chaotic hellhole of sputtering engines and honking horns, which the locals appear to easily make sense of. I pay the young man and indicate to the next random person around me that I'd like to go to Blantyre. I'm rapidly put into another minibus, which also fills up over the time. Just before it's full, a fellow Mzungu (white person) is set down next to me. She's apparently just come from Mozambique to renew her Mozambican visa, after having sailed a dhow from Zanzibar down to the Mozambican coast. She was told that “Doogle's” would be a good place to stay for backpackers in Blantyre, and left with no more information than that (in fact, asking me whether I knew its spelling). And here I thought I was being adventurous.

I get off at a sign indicating the hotel in which I stayed the past week, pay the agreed upon 50 MK (prices for transportation seem to relate to the ease of attaining it much more than to the actual distance travelled) and walk the rest on foot. I manage to get to the lodge I booked for this night without incident. It's just over a third of the price of the one the Bank booked, and while looking a little dodgy by western standards, the shower is far better – it produces hot water instantly and when turning on the tab marked with a red spot. Who says you have to die to be reborn?

I am picked up by a friendly gentleman from the RBM at 5:45, half an hour before the agreed time (I'm all packed, so I'm ready to go in less than five minutes) and sped to Chileka International Airport. There ensues a short nervous waiting time before the check-in desk opens – I've had no email access for three days (I tried after my arrival, but the lodge didn't have internet access, the pay-as-you-go WiFi hotspot where I took my lunch refused to talk to my laptop, and the internet cafés were all closed) and worry whether a purely electronic ticket made in DC will actually get me aboard a plane in Blantyre. To my relief, it works without a hitch.

Shortly thereafter I am told by the young lady from Zimbabwe sitting next to me on the flight (and continuing on to Jo'burg) that she's had a very similar moment yesterday, with the exact opposite result. I feel that I'm going through a weird bit of post-event jitters as she recounts how she had already been on a bus to Lilongwe for an hour in order to catch a flight from there, when she was called to tell her that the flight from Lilongwe was already fully booked. My remark that these sorts of events at least should meet with the understanding of the employer is countered with “not if you're your own employer” and I allow that customers might be less understanding.

We have an interesting discussion, mostly about religion, of all things, in the course of which I also learn that she is a Mugabe supporter. I hadn't thought educated, smart and Mugabe-supporter were traits that could be combined in a single person. Live and learn. She says what with the past experiences of civil war, there's a large majority that just doesn't want to rock the boat and get on with their lives. And I guess if I'd grown up in a system like that, I would have tried to arrange myself with it as well.

Lilongwe's Kamuzu International Airport is a much grander affair than Blantyre's Chileka airport, sporting a longish building with two stories. My baggage is early on the conveyor belt and I take a taxi to Annie's lodge (recommended for mid-range stays by the – 2001 – Lonely Planet guide), hoping to get a room, even though I never received a response to my inquiring email. On the road, I again notice the signs from the traffic authority, and also, here, from the tax authority which have some sort of exhortation (“drive to arrive” and “sustain the fertilizer subsidy – pay taxes”) on one half and the other half taken up by a giant picture of His Excellency Mutharika, President of Malawi. It appears that here, too, the rulers used state money to help their reelection (the last election was only two months ago).

It turns out that yes, they have a room – actually reserved for me, they'd seen the email, but were unable to respond due to network issues. Ah. It also turns out that the power is down, so no recharging for my laptop and no WiFi either, as the outage appears to affect the entire neighbourhood and therefore also takes out the WiFi router.

I still have a few hours before my interview. I think for a moment of the fact that the lady from Zimbabwe had told me “if you have that much time, Lake Malawi is only an hour away” which I had countered with “lead me not into temptation”. I decide to have a nap – probably a good preparation for my interview, given that I've had to get up so early, and a time in which I won't be building up nerves. I awake to the lights in the room coming on, and actually manage to chat with my wife via Skype for a bit (the usual 30 minute-cards for online access are the same here as in Blantyre) while getting dressed.

I take a taxi to the World Bank office to avoid arriving sweaty (and just possibly getting lost), am well before the appointed time and spend a bit of time waiting. Everything seems to go smoothly enough and it feels as though I've hardly been there when I find myself back on the street again. To decompress, I decide to walk back. The streets all look the same, but a young man I ask for directions is headed roughly in the same direction and so I join the people (not a few of them also in suits) whose preferred (or more likely, only) means of transport is also on foot.

The next day I fly back. I'm at the airport way too early (better than late) and spend an hour sitting in a tree outside of the airport, before the check-in desk opens. The business lounge at Kamuzu has snacks and drinks (that's good), but WiFi again has to be purchased (and I have no cash left – that was intentional this time).

In Jo'burg there is a desk for Business and First Class passengers of South African Airlines with a prominent “Star Alliance” sign (of which Lufthansa is a member). So I hope to be able to check in there. After waiting for a while for the person in front of me to finish his business (it seems complicated) I am told that no, if I'm on the Lufthansa flight (there's a South African one leaving an hour later), I have to go to the Lufthansa desk. Of which there is only one. I have to wait 45 minutes at the transfer desk for them to check maybe a dozen people through – the reasons for this escape me. The layover time, which seemed ample, now is just sufficient to make my connection without running. I still stop by the business lounge really quickly in order to connect with home – but they, too, *sell* WiFi and have only a single computer for customer access, which is of course in use. And here I thought I'd be back in civilization... ;-)

The flight back is uneventful. Upon arrival, I contemplate that if I get my bag *right* away, I might even catch the train at 6:09 (if my recollection of the train departures at Frankfurt Airport is correct). In fact, it seems to me that having the train departure schedule for the Airport train terminal would be good information to provide on board. But I wait for my baggage until the sign says that offloading for my flight is finished. While I talk to the lady at baggage tracing, she receives a call informing her that a suitcase for a Mr. Corterier, supposedly on the LH flight, was just offloaded from the South African flight – in the next building. I run over there, get my suitcase, run to the train station (taking care not to run in the immediate vicinity of customs) and just make the 7:09 train. I'm back. Yay.

At Mulanje town, we turn off the highway and head in a direction in which the tarmac soon gives way to dirt roads. Not long after, we end up at a resort, the driver indicating that we've reached our destination. He also insists on full payment for this trip, rather than agreeing to a partial payment now and the rest upon the return trip. Making it less and less likely that there will be a return trip with this particular driver.

When I inquire which of these buildings would be the Likhabula forestry office where I'm supposed to make arrangements for a guide, there ensues a hectic (for Malawian standards, nobody appears visibly upset) discussion in Chichewa, the topic of which I still find depressingly easy to guess. Apparently, my driver tells me later, the hotel gave him a different destination at Mulanje, and shows me a bit of text message which, he tells me, is what he was given by them and also, he tells me, corresponds with the name of the place to which he brought me (admittedly, he did mention that name as we were approaching this place – and I wondered why he seemed to think this name so significant, when he hadn't made any other attempts by way of educating me about where we were passing through). He also has to admit, however, that I mentioned wanting to go to the Likhabula forestry station today, that I wanted to get a guide there, and that I had indicated wanting to do so as soon as possible, so that I might start up the mountain(s) this afternoon. So we leave the resort and drive along other dirt roads to a rather different corner of the Mulanje Massif, where there are signs signaling the location of “Likhabula Forestry Station” and a small horde of people who want something or other from the driver or, more likely, me, at least some of which indicating that they are guides. My clear indications (forewarned by the guide book) that I would hire a guide at the forestry station through the responsible parties there, combined with a brisk walk in that direction soon has the human onslaught abating.

At the forestry office I am asked how many days I want to hike and where I would like to go, and am advised about the rates for entry into the reserve (100 MK, payable once), staying overnight at the huts (mandatory, and 700 MK per night and person) and the rates for guides (1,300 MK per day) – all of this clearly in keeping with the clearly labeled signs posted in the office.

I am advised that the guide should be given 30% of his total fee up front so he can buy provisions, and that no, I cannot go to Sapitwa Peak. A French-Brasilian person got lost there last week (apparently having told his guide that he would continue by himself) and the rescue efforts are keeping the hut closest to Sapitwa Peak overfilled. So we discuss a different route involving Chambe Peak and a trek across a portion of the plateau(s), supposedly very scenic, they walk out and come back with a young man wearing sandals, shorts and a T-shirt introduced as Vincent, who

Our courtesy call with the head of banking supervision is over faster than envisioned and after returning to the hotel, I change from suit to hiking attire and get on my way. It's pretty fast going and I realize only later that part of the reason I'm on my way so quickly is that I forgot to eat lunch...

When I ask the taxi driver, organized through the hotel, whether we can make a package deal for bringing me to Mulanje and picking me up on Sunday (I really, really need to be on that flight on Monday morning), he suggests a price that is higher than twice the single fare booked through the hotel (already sky-high, I'm sure). Though it turns out I'm not quite that stupid, he is unwilling to go below twice the usual fare. Well, at least I have his cell phone number if I can't find another way.

The ride towards Mulanje is uneventful. It provides tantalizing glimpses into the reality of rural life in Malawi – pretty much what one would expect from commercials soliciting aid money. Yet, though these people are undeniably poor, I don't see anything that would indicate misery. I do see Mulanje growing bigger and bigger on the horizon, like a huge, dark wall which seems to draw ever closer.

In the afternoon, we head out (via taxi) to the “big mall”. The taxi stalls at a curve and the engine refuses at first to start up again. A friendly passer-by helps push it back so that the driver can let it roll down the hill and jump-start it that way. He seems to also run a red light later on, which Stuart and I assume is because he's afraid the car may stall again. We thank the driver once we've reached our destination, but no, there's really no point in waiting, we don't know how long we'll be and we'll hail a different cab when we're done, thank you.

The “big mall” consists of two supermarkets with about a dozen other shops around them. Stuart manages to buy a pair of slacks and a pair of shoes (they're cheap and not bad-looking, but they don't have any in my size) while I buy some provisions in case I still get to hike on the weekend. While it looks as though I'll be required to go to Lilongwe on Monday, I should still be able to do some hiking around here on the weekend, even if it's not Sapitwa Peak, or even around the Mulanje Massif at all. Our cab ride is back is much less adventurous.

After dinner, I am so tired that I fall asleep as I stretch out on the bed. I chuck off my clothes when I wake and crawl under the sheets. Lights out.


I go over my prepared stuff again on Sunday, and try to type up a little more, but find that I am soon unable to continue – my brain is done. So I head for the gym to put my body in a similar state. They have a pool here, which is outdoors. At an air temperature of not far above 10 C (50 F), I only go in after I've spent a good half hour on the treadmill, so that the cool feels welcome. Nevertheless the water is so cold that after one (short) lap of a decent crawl, I'm beginning to get a headache from the cold. So I only do a few more laps with my head entirely above the water before heading back in.

Our work here – my work, really – is interesting. I go through my presentation on day one, which really just lists the sorts of things I do as routine business where I work. Writing it all up and trying to characterize what exactly it is I do, when and why I do what and how it's supposed to affect the supervised entities, how to follow up and all that – actually brings home that there really is a wealth of material there that now feels so familiar to me that it barely seems worth discussing, much less holding out as a possible model to others. But for someone unfamiliar with some or even much of it, the very basic guideline approach I am taking here seems to have a lot of merit. Of course, it's day one – I'm happy it seems to be going well so far, but won't rest on those laurels (in fact, don't even feel the least tempted to do so). We'll only find out as the week progresses whether my workshop lives up the expectations of these people. I just hope that I'll find out early enough where it fails to do so that I can make adjustments – either in the way and/or material that I cover, or in their expectations.

The funny (or at least weird) thing is that the more I'm doing this, the more I'm convinced that I actually have all the answers these people could possibly need. At the same time, I become more and more worried that they may not have all the questions they need, or not get around to asking them. I see a very real possibility that this factor could influence the workshop to be much less useful than it could ideally be. Well, forewarned – forearmed, as they say, though I fail to see how two additional limbs would help here. Oh, that was lame.

Anyway, the actual work is confidential and not the subject matter of this report. It's about my travel experience. As much as the economical circumstances here are a stark contrast to what I've seen so far, the people are not. Of course I stand out by being white – there are a few other whites in the hotel I'm at, but we're certainly a small minority there and I appear to be the only one at the Reserve Bank of Malawi today (though the building is large, I may have missed one). And it appears that I am more on the tall side of what's usual here than I am in Germany.

But the chit-chat is very much the same, the group interaction between the people I'm talking to (who come from more than one unit, and more than one hierarchical level in the RBM) seems familiar from similar workshops I've attended at BaFin. People complain about the weather a lot, too, just like they do at BaFin. Only they call temperatures around 10 C “July wreaking its vengeance” - in the understanding that July means winter. We'd complain about the lack of snow...

Wrapping up after the first day (typing up a to-do list and thinking about how best to present and preserve what we did for the future), I come to appreciate even more all the work our English teacher at BaFin puts into her courses and workshops. I won't be doing much else while I'm here, it seems – a least not during the work week. That's fine, that's what I came here for.

One day as we leave the bank we cross a patch of concrete. Yes, it looks wet, but so does the rest of the street because there was a brief rain shower a little while ago. Turns out the concrete was freshly poured. I take my camera next day to prove it – we're the first two inductees to the Blantyre Walk of Fame.

We have dinner outside of the hotel one evening, at a little place called Green's restaurant. You find it by taking a taxi to it, who turn down a dirt road and then honks in front of a sliding metal door with a sign on it. Behind it there's parking and a largish (two-story) house, the ground floor of which serves as a restaurant and bar. Madonna is supposed to have eaten here, though I doubt she'd sign “M A D O N N A” in large typed letters. I find the other signatories to the walls here much more believable. They seem to have liked the food, and indeed it is quite good. The mushroom soup for starters, in fact, is divine. The Chambo (a local fish, often from Lake Malawi) is pretty decent as well and the dessert is good and Stuart and I have good conversation so I don't regret the 25 EUR the whole thing (including taxi rides) has cost. Interestingly, the taxi driver left my companion with his cell phone number (to be called to pick us up) and agreed to be paid only on the return trip.

Lunch is in the cafeteria of the Reserve Bank of Malawi. The food is pretty good the first day, rather less so the second. I am introduced to Nsima, which is the local (ubiquitous in Southeastern Africa, I am told) staple of maize meal, boiled several times until it attains a porridge-like consistency. It has an inoffensive, if bland, taste – Stuart allows as how it is usually served with gravy. To me, it is like rice in that regard. The diet I am offered here (and I understand that for much of the population the diet is rather less varied) goes toward rice, nsima or pasta with a bit of meat and vegetables. The meat is usually a choice of beef or chicken, though today I had goat. Not bad, somewhat reminiscent of lamb chops, though, perhaps counter-intuitively, less of the somewhat stringent flavour that I associate with lamb.

Stuart and I tend to go for a brief walk during the lunch break, before returning to the RBM to prepare for the afternoon session. The lunch break is long, and invariably begins at 12. On Monday I'm about to finish a section of what I'm going through and figure that the next point lending itself to a break will take rather longer to get to than the 10 minutes left until noon, so ask whether people are flexible about this. Which, in Germany, would be considered very nearly a rhetorical question. Here, the answer is “no, we're not. We have to break at 12.” With the explanation added that many of the employees have to pick there kids up from school and bring them home. Which also explains why the lunch break is so long – two hours, usually, though it's cut down to 1 and three-quarters of an hour to make use of our time. I'm quite happy – we seem to be continually moving a little faster than I had anticipated and the long break affords me an opportunity to sit down and organize my notes for the next bit.

On Thursday there's nothing to organize, however. We have a Q&A session planned for the afternoon and a bit of report-writing to do, so we walk for much of the lunch break. I stop to get some money again, at the ATM we've identified as allowing me to use my card. It never dispenses more than 20,000 Kwatcha at once (about 100 EUR). Usually not a problem, the 20 K from the weekend carry me through the week. But I'll have to pay my ride to Mulanje (and back) in cash, so I need some more. The ATM will only give out 8,000 K today. The guidebook tells me that by afternoon they are often empty. I wonder why that is. While people are poor, the inflation rate tells me that there can't be a shortage of printed bills. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their highest denomination bill is valued at about half the value of our lowest denomination bill. Could be that if they stack the storage of the ATMs in the morning, they run dry by afternoon. And even if they had the money to re-stack them during the day, it would be typical for the region (or so I understand Stuart, my resident expert on the region) if they didn't.

Preparations for my excursion to Mulanje proceed apace. The plan is to leave Friday after work (I have a quiz planned to go over most, if not all, of what we've covered so far, which should be fun and fast – and drive home to everybody just how much ground we covered, and jog their memories). If things go well, the taxi (yes, I'm taking a cab – it's expensive, but it's the only way that's both reasonably fast and reliable) should get me to the Ranger station in the (late) afternoon. If organizing a guide is truly as fast as I'm assured it should be, I might make it up to Chambe Hut on Friday, rather than having to start on Saturday morning. If so, Sapitwa Peak or at least Chambe Peak might well be possible. If not, we'll see. Or – not. We've had brilliant sunny weather outside for the second half of the week (I could clearly see it the few times I passed a window inside the RBM building), but the weekend is supposed to be cold and cloudy. Rainy, even. Oh, well.

pictures: http://tinyurl.com/mo9x9p

Getting to the airport in Frankfurt is becoming routine. I've gotten all the travel connections right this time, so settle into the business lounge for some more preparatory work (and a few snacks). After boarding, as I settle into my seat and arrange my things, I fail to get hold of the memory stick on which I've kept the relevant data for this trip. To be sure, I've been copying its contents onto the laptop regularly – but not the last bit I did in the lounge. Where I have to assume it slipped out of my pants' pocket while I reclined in an easy-chair. A quick discussion with the stewardess later and yes, I've got maybe 5 minutes to go and check. It only takes two – the business lounge isn't far, I'm motivated, and the person in the chair I was in answers my questioning look by picking my memory stick up from the coffee table on which he must have placed it after finding it and handing it over. On my victorious return to the aircraft, the stewardess (of South African Airlines) remarks “good thing this is Germany and not South Africa, or it would have been gone”. Good thing, indeed.

The food's okay, the movie list uninspiring and anyway I still feel the ghost of a possible jet lag hovering in some hidden corner of my skull, so I go to sleep early. Blantyre (as all of Malawi) is on GMT+2, so with Germany currently on Bravo time as well (daylight saving time) I should have no problems laying that ghost to rest if I don't do anything stupid.

The flight is uneventful. Dawn is beautiful from up here, but occurs well after we've passed Kilimanjaro (I'd been told to watch out for that). It's cloudy, too, so I don't get to see a glimpse of it. The inside of the Jo'burg airport at least finally looks different – they're selling a *lot* of African artwork here, which makes the whole place look a little like a bazaar. The lounge is nice, though my contact from the Bank never shows up. I don't see him at the gate, either, which is ever so slightly worrisome. He gets on the same plane, though, only rather late. Apparently his flight from the US was delayed, which has him worried about his baggage. He gives in to jet lag the moment take-off stops our chat – I finish reading the Economist. The landing is probably the worst I've experienced so far. The pilot keeps making a lot of bothersome corrections all the way down to the runway, and puts the plane down way harder and at higher speed than I have encountered so far. This is in stark contrast to the last landing in Hongkong, which was so smooth I could only tell we'd actually touched down by the rapid deceleration.

The remainder of Blantyre is in keeping with this first impression. After walking to the airport building (it's cool here, Malawi is in winter and it's not T-shirt weather) and passing through immigration, we get to watch the unloading in action. A tractor (of the agricultural variety) brings the baggage on carts, which are thrown or dropped onto the conveyor belt by one rather unmotivated young man, while two to three (rather more officious-looking) others look on.

After 45 minutes of this we find that Stuart's baggage indeed didn't make it, and he's told it will likely come on Wednesday (it's Saturday).

We are picked up by a Gentleman from the Reserve Bank of Malawi and are driven into Blantyre. Now I know Malawi is not a rich country, but I did not expect it to look so much like what I might have expected from TV. The road is rather threadbare, means of transport seem to be mostly bicycles and feet, not always with shoes. Oh, and they drive on the left side of the road again, though just having been to Australia this doesn't throw me off so much.

The commercial center of Blantyre (itself the commercial center of Malawi) is easily recognizable by the fact that most buildings have two stories, and a handful of them even more than three. The Reserve Bank of Malawi is one of them.

Stuart and I go out for some shopping. We have to try several ATMs before we find one that works (we were getting worried, there aren't that many banks here). At rougly 200 Kwatchas to the Euro, the highest denomination bill here is worth roughly 2.50 EUR.
This doesn't actually mean that things are dirt cheap here. Prices at the supermarket are below what I'd pay in Germany, but not in an entirely different realm. Of course, haggling with the woman outside who was carrying bananas on her head might have revealed entirely different pricing schemes, but I already feel like I stand out so much that I'm happy just to follow Stuart's lead (who speaks some of the local lingo, and at least – being from neighbouring Zambia – looks relatively local). A couple of kids follow us around begging, which to me at least takes the fun out of exploring.

The pharmacy in which Stuart gets some supplies that were in his suitcase has a manpower to customer ratio reminiscent of Beijing – there are five employees in a place that probably has less than 40 square meters.

For lunch we get pretty decent “piri-piri fries” with chicken. I choose the “mild” version for now – piri-piri can be really hot, and I feel that my stomach deserves a soft landing. I needn't have worried – I'll take the medium next time, with a view of upgrading to hot before the week is over.

Brisbane 2009: Between a misunderstanding with our travel unit and public transportation being what it is, I arrive in Frankfurt only about an hour before my flight leaves, rather than the strongly suggested two. Also, my flight leaves from Terminal 2, which requires a bus ride before checking in.
On the upside, there's no one else trying to check in at the business class desk, I am quickly set on my way and after a couple of minutes jog (with a small backpack on and a briefcase in my hand, with not one, but two laptops in them – one business, one personal) I arrive at the gate, where a huge queue is forming up (and a young lady quickly identifies the boarding pass I'm holding as belonging to the business class and escorts me the very front of the line).
Now I'm not complaining – that sort of thing is nice. But I still don't see why people would pay good money for it – I have a book with me, so waiting for a while at the gate (rather than in the plane) doesn't make much difference to me. But I admit being able to settle in where I don't have to get up again in ten or fifteen minutes is nice, too.
The Cathay Pacific bag of evening utensils includes the ubiquitous night mask. Of course it's built for people with smaller heads, meaning that I would have to open it far enough that the strips of hook'n'loop fasteners don't entirely match up. And they've put the hook side on the side facing inwards. How stupid is that? I admit it's just a little throwaway item, but as designing it the right way around would have cost exactly the same, why not get it right? Somebody wasn't thinking. Someone at a design studio needs to be smacked around a bit. Likely several someones, I'm sure these designs need to be okay-ed by the higher-ups before they go into production. Sheesh.

That little distraction aside, the flight is nice. The attendant greets every one by name (the business class, on the top deck of the Boeing 747-400 we're in, is booked full). I ask whether she has a list with the names, and she counters with the question of why I want to know. I tell her how impressed I am by her knowledge without a visible list, and with a smile she shows me the little printout she's got hidden on her trolley. Very smoothly done, I have to say (and do say), which seems to make her happy.

I have some alcohol with dinner (the “Cloud 9” –vodka, cointreau and sprite with a sprig of mint – is particularly nice) and reach a proper degree of sleepiness over watching the movie “Push” - a Hollywood production out of Hongkong, which I like. The seat isn't all that broad, but together with the footrest it folds into a horizontal cot. I appreciate that and actually get about five hours of sleep – from midnight to 5 a.m. Hongkong time, which corresponds to 6 to 11 in the evening German time. I guess getting up at four in the morning was a good idea.

I have as much for breakfast as I can on the flight (not a little coffee, too), and get off at Hongkong determined to make some use of the six hours of layover. Exiting the plane is like entering a laundry parlour – my glasses fog over immediately as the humid heat assaults me.

After a brief discussion with a very helpful young lady at the tourist information desk she allows as how, yes, it might just be possible to take the Airport express into town, get up to Victoria peak and back down in time for my connecting flight. And so off I go. Lugging a backpack and a briefcase with not one, but two laptops in them (I'd rather not lock them in somewhere in case I'm in a hurry on my return).

Hongkong is an impressive sight from the train, with masses of skyscrapers set between steep, foliage-covered hills, though they're partially lost in the ever-present haze. Just reading the sign “Kowloon station” puts a big grin on my face – I'm going places. Again.

I exit the airport express train station in the center of town and carefully pick my way around local traffic. I noted in the airplane toilet that smoking on a non-smoking (that is, any) flight is subject to a fine of up to two years imprisonment, I don't want to find out the hard way what the sentence for crossing on red might be.
I find the bus it was suggested I should take to the Victoria Peak Tram station. From there, I should take the tram up and the minibus no. 1 back down, supposedly straight to the airport express terminal.

The bus climbs a winding road up through the verdant hills, offering tantalizing glimpses of what, on a clear day, must be amazing views. My attempts to take pictures of them through the windows are mostly abject failures, and distract me from the stop at the Victoria Peak tram station. Apparently Victoria Peak can be reached by road as well as by tram, and when they wrote “Victoria Peak” as destination on this bus, that's what they meant. So I take the bus all the way up. Where it is being suggested that I should spend a few minutes on the observation deck of the building there, as the trail around the peak would take 45 minutes to walk. After a bit of pressing, I'm told that taking the tram back down and a cab from the valley station to the airport express (“they're not expensive”) would be my fastest way back and yes, might only take half an hour.

I don't think about it too long and start walking. Up here the temperature is lower, though that means the humidity is definitely 100 percent – excess humidity keeps forming up on every available surface, including me and my baggage. I take a few more pictures, and manage to have a very friendly lady take a picture of me in front of what little of the Hongkong skyline can be glimpsed through the haze. The walk once around the peak takes me 40 minutes. I figure taking the pictures and each of my two pieces of baggage probably account for another 5 minutes I might have shaved off the official time, but am happy to arrive in what should be enough time. Always leaving a bit of safety margin, though also assuming that the return trip is faster than the outward bound leg, less time being spent on reconnoitering where to go.

I hit the tram, pretty much drenched in moisture. Some of this is internally generated, though most of it provided courtesy of Victoria Peak.

The taxi meter reads 18 Hongkong dollars as I get in. That's like 1.80 EUR – that's actually dirt cheap. And it turns out that's the fixed fare to the airport express. At those prices, I should have taken a cab up to the Peak (instead of paying 9.80 HKD for the bus) and taken a bit of adrenaline (owed to the slight remaining uncertainty of the timing of the return trip) out of my venture.

Anyway, I'm back at the airport and through immigrations again with plenty of time for my connecting flight. Off I go.

It's late (local time) as I get to Brisbane, so my employer would likely spring for a cab. They're going to be about 45 AUD (30 EUR) though, which just seems ludicrous. The bus is only 14 AUD, and it leaves right now, too. With only myself in it and therefore my apartment building its only destination. I set the alarm clock to 8 (breakfast is til 9) and am out like the light.

As I turn over in the morning, I find myself thinking “awfully bright out for early in the morning in a country that's supposed to be in the middle of winter”. So I squint at the alarm clock and it's showing 11. Apparently I set the alarm time, but didn't turn it on. Good thing it's not a work day …

I walk along the Southbank in search of breakfast and find a place that still serves some fruit and yoghurt. Brisbane's expensive, though. I continue on my way to the Exhibition and Convention Center, where the APG Plenary is happening, to register. I take the afternoon to stroll around and check out the Botanical Gardens and the Mall, and to shop for a few groceries (did I mention Brisbane's expensive?).

Monday through Friday are working days and we work until it gets dark. I'm not really involved in much of what's going on, but I'm here on a business trip, so I pay (some) attention. With a laptop on my knees I can keep myself busy even when discussions get too arcane for me to follow.

Internet access is expensive, though, so I don't have any. Same in the apartment hotel – 5 AUD for half an hour of access. A far cry (not just geographically) from Estonia with its guaranteed right of free internet access for everyone. But I have enough to do as it is and this way I am in no danger of digressing. I get a lot done.

They serve lunch during the lunch break, and I usually stand and/or sit with people I meet or (more often) various people I already know. It is sometimes difficult to match the people I encounter with what I've read about their countries in the Economist. Definitely a skill I need to master if I want to make use of the information I thus acquire. I seem to get a little better at it towards the end of the week (after I have realized that it pays to actively try to remember what I've read about my conversation partner's home country before continuing to speak). It seems that a certain colleague of mine who keeps saying “think first, then speak” (to herself) is on to something …

There's a photo being taken of everyone. There are a LOT of people here and so I am in the unique (in my experience) situation of being photographed by a photographer on an automated lifting platform giving directions via megaphone (one megaphone = 1 trillion microphones?). There are drinks on one evening, which is nice, but kept to a two-hour minimum which feels weird to me. It's too long to just spend away idly chit-chatting with whomever you happen to stand next to as you stop to gather up a drink or a morsel to eat (which means that I or my opposite number at some point make polite excuses in order to find a more interesting conversation partner, followed by a boring interlude of wandering around trying to hook up with someone I know who isn't currently deeply engaged in a conversation with some else), and too short to really enjoy the conversation ensuing with the person(s) finally found (much less get companionably tipsy with them). Oh, well. The length of these three common cocktail event stages probably varies from person to person (with degrees of amicability and number of people known – and liked). I could come up with a function for that again (link to the Conference Room Kami With Mallet Function), but am too tired now.

On Wednesday I go jogging – across the Goodwill Bridge, a strangely curved pedestrian bridge over the Brisbane River, around the Botanical Gardens and back. It feels a little short of my standard 5 K-ish distance, but that's okay.

Generally I don't get too much done after the events of the day. They do tend to run until 6 or so (at which point it's dark, it being winter here), and by the time I'm back in “my” apartment and in comfortable clothing, it's seven and I tend to be tired. A joint effect of jet lag and actually spending most of the day working, I suppose, so I usually worry only about dinner and establishing some degree of contact with home (there's a third-party operator offering pay-as-you-go WiFi access here, which I also use to check my work email and therefore hope my employer will pay for) before going to sleep.

On Wednesday I prepack my hiking pack. I'm quite proud to now be able to fit all my required hiking gear for a three-day expedition into one largish suitcase – with two suits, five shirts and assorted garments (and shoes). But I note, as I try to check my bearing off the apartment balcony (then sun standing in the North at noon and moving counter-clockwise around the horizon still throwing me off), that my compass doesn't seem to be working.

In the camping store I find online and quickly visit during our lunch break, I'm told this is because a compass, in order to function properly when level with the ground, needs to be weighted (the earth's magnetic field generally not being level with the ground). So my compass, weighted for Germany (well, most of Europe, really, but definitely for use in the Northern hemisphere) is useless down here. Good thing I checked. So I am now the proud owner of a compass for the Southern Hemisphere (did I mention Brisbane is … I think I did).

On Wednesday there's a dinner. They cart us off in buses (five large coaches) to – a golf club, for crying out loud. I sit next to one of my favourite people from the Bank and a lady who's been working in the UAE (Dubai) since (just) before they started throwing seemingly unlimited money around. There's also someone from the Asian Development Bank here whom I first met in China in 2006 (in retrospect the kick-off event of my international work for BaFin). It's a very nice evening, again cut short by the buses leaving. On the way out my ADB contact points out to me how visibly large Mars has become in the night sky (it being closer now than it has been – or will be – for 400 years). With an obvious astronomy buff at my elbow, I ask, nay, beg to have the Southern Cross pointed out and she does so with commendable ease. Yay! Couldn't see it from Rio (light pollution, plus not really knowing my way around the Southern night sky). Now I did. Check. :-)

She also offers me a ride down south on Friday afternoon, which would get me closer to Lamington Nat'l Park. But I am told (during an inquiring phone call on how to get there and back on Friday morning) that a bus can pick me up (someone who's going there anyway) Sat morning at 6 without me having to pay a thing, so I forgo the road trip.

I have another dinner invitation on Thursday. A person whom I only know via the internet (from testing backpacking gear) and who lives on the other side of Australia, has set me up for dinner with his brother. They are a wonderful couple, treating me to excellent food and fine wine and engaging conversation – they have travelled extensively and so we swap expressions of various places around the planet for a while. I could have gone on forever (and drunk myself into a stupour in the process), but it's a working day for me and them the next day, so I hope I timed my exit alright.

It's one more day (somewhat shorter than the others), and then it's time to head out. Turns out (I am told on Friday afternoon) that the guy with the bus mixed up the weeks and he's not picking me up after all. Right after I missed the opportunity to take a road trip into the general area with a person I genuinely like (who also happens to be a potentially useful contact). Figures.

So … last-minute planning. I am unable to figure out (on Friday afternoon) how to get to O'Reilly's by Saturday morning. But the people at the Binna Burra lodge (where I had meant to end day one of my hike, from O'Reilly's to Binna Burra) tell me that they have a limousine pick-up and will pick me up anytime I like from the train station at Negara. Which is awesome. And costs 88 AUD. Which is darned steep. But it gets me there without hassle and I can still pay for it, so I say yes.

It turns out (during grocery shopping) that the apartment hotel, having been booked over my credit card before being reimbursed by BaFin as is our custom, has maxed out my credit card and I am now unable to procure additional cash. But it should still (just) work and I've procured the estimated 12,000 calories I'll need for three days of hiking (probably including some minor weight loss, I calculate 4,000 per day for longer trips).

The next morning sees my at the train station in the early morning (they're holding my luggage the Backpacker's hostel I spent the Friday night at, until my supposed return on Monday). It's only 9.80 AUD to Negara so I'm happy as I arrive, only that I can't see a pickup. I do see cabs and one of them agrees to drive me to Binna Burra. He charges 70 AUD for the trip (and it's not a short trip), so I'm happy. At the visitor center there, a very kind elderly gentleman suggests the “Ship's Stern Circuit” as a worthwhile, slightly challenging day's hike and even gives me lift for the last km or so to the Binna Burra lodge, where I check in for my camping permit. Which I still have to pay for (they couldn't charge it to my credit card). I also, I am told, have to pay for the limousine pickup – apparently the driver is *still* waiting for me at Negara train station's *other* exit. So I do, cursing myself.

I later curse some more, realizing that I now don't have the funds to make it back to Brisbane AND to the airport on Tuesday, even assuming (which so far I was) that I'd get off the mountain and back to Negara (or another train station) without charge. Anastacia from the Purling Brooks café in Springbrook (which was going to be my destination according to my original plans) was in the process of setting me up for a ride with a school teacher on Monday (early!) morning.

These things go through my mind during the first few km away from the camp, as I follow the (fairly broad and well graded) Border Track in a southerly direction. But as I get to the point where the Ship's Stern Circuit leaves the Border Track (and soon decide to also do the Dave Creek Circuit, which looks like a nice appendix to the Ship's Stern Circuit) the local flora begins to take my mind of such things. And then I get to Nimumbah Lookout. It's a spectacular sheer drop into the surrounding valley, pounded by a strong breeze. It's considerably colder up here than it was down in Brisbane – what passes for winter around here seemed to have temperatures in the teens (C), while it was darn cool in the morning at Binna Burra.

The Ship's Stern Circuit is fantastic. It features waterfalls and lookouts, and in general consists of a very small and slightly overgrown, though distinct, single track through the temperate rainforest up here. I take every detour it has to offer to gawk off lookouts and at waterfalls, which together with my late start means that I hike the last hour in the dark. I actually bypass one lookout at this point – nothing to see there at night, and contrary to German custom, they don't put railings anywhere. So I often walk past sheer drops as it is (and sometimes have to cross creeks at the edge where they drop off below, stepping from rock to rock), so I feel this hike is exciting enough as it is. As the visibility underneath all that foliage continues to contract to a very few feet and I am about to stop to put on my headlamp, I see a bunch of glow worms which inhabit the hollow insides of a fallen tree. They are supposedly something very special in the area around here, so I am glad I waited so long, with a light on I would have missed them.

With the headlamp (or skulltorch, as I like to call it) on, the remainder of the hike is strangely reminiscent of my hike up Kumotori-san. The path shrinks to the few illuminated meters in front of me, which somehow never seem to end. It's all uphill now, too (maybe I should have foregone visiting the *Lower* Banjugui falls as well – nah), though there the similarity ends. No snow here.

I make camp at the Binna Burra campground. My tarp stands well, they have hot water here, so I fill my water bottles with hot water and put them into my sleeping bag. I put on all the clothing I have with me (including the balaclava – most warmth per weight you can get) and spread the metalized foil blanket over the bag with the supposedly heat-reflective side towards me for good measure. I sleep okay, actually shrugging out of the pile vest I was wearing at some point during the night, which gives me a pillow.

I ask around for a bit the next day, and find some people who are willing to give me a ride to Brisbane – today, noonish. Well, Monday wasn't a mostly hiking day anyway, so I only “lose” about half a day's worth of hiking, there still being enough time to do the Caves Circuit before noon. And looking at the map of the “Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk” I had initially wanted to walk, I'm not sure I missed much at all. From my experience on the Rheinsteig, the very long, very straight section between Binna Burra and Springbrook seems like a classic, extremely boring connecting passage, particularly as it seems to be following a road. There are interesting things at the very end of this stretch, but it would likely be dark again by the time I get there.

So I count my blessings and thank Sean, Gian and Ian (I'm not introduced to the others) for their help. I ride with Ian (Iain?), who drops me off right inside the CBD (Commercial Business District, if I'm not mistaken), which is perfect for me.

I try out my credit card again, hoping that the last cash advance might have been deducted from my current account already to make some room inside the credit line, but have no luck. So it looks like I'll have to stick with my original plan of camping tonight, though it won't be out in the bush.

I go visit the Queensland Museum. It's free, and it's quite good. They have a largish (little visited) exhibition regarding the aboriginal people and their treatment, their fight for recognition and legal battle (Mabo `92 and Wik `96 being the landmark cases overthrowing the vicious colonial doctrine of “terra nullius”) which demonstrates how very recent this development still is here. Thinking heavy thoughts about genocide vs Jews, native Americans, kurds and Aborigines and the various ways of coping with that legacy (or lack thereof), I spend a rather introspective afternoon in the museum.

After which I head into the Botanical Gardens (again) and settle down for the night. Idly wondering what my colleagues would think of me, effectively having joined the homeless population for the night, I feel that camping here is little different from doing it at Binna Burra (except cheaper). It's not like I don't know anyone I could have asked for help if I had thought this an emergency. But I don't think it is one, so I'm good. I sleep okay, though Binna Burra was better.

On Monday morning I head back to the backpacker's hostel and check in early. They have the room available, so that is good. I have a shower and another snack bar after my early morning “breakfast” in the Botanical Gardens. Plus some leftovers from other backpackers. While I do believe I have calculated the food reserves correctly, not being able to buy more keeps me strangely focussed on food. I know I can make it until tonight with the food I have, and should I really have nothing left over for the morning, I can just leave really early and freeload in the business lounge. Still, I seem permanently hungry today. Of course, the weekend's hiking may have a little to do with that as well.

I manage to reach my wife via the hostel's WiFi and Skype – let's hear it for modern technology. And egalitarian access to infrastructure, while we're at it.

I sit outside on the sundeck for a while and finish the book I brought onto this trip with me. The weather is a repeat of yesterday – bright blue sky, hardly a cloud in it, temperatures in the T-shirt range, no humidity at all. Ian told me this is what winter (and fall, and spring) in Brisbane is usually like. Tsk. I even use the (rooftop!) pool of the hostel, though the water is decidedly cold and it's not nearly long enough to swim proper lanes. Still, it feels good.

After that (and a hot noodle soup for lunch), I head into the city again. I want to take another look at the museum exhibition because I believe a former law professor might be interested in the exact details of the cases (just in case she's not aware of them already). On the way back I try the credit card one last time (still no luck). But I realize, as I pass between a currency exchange and a “Hungry Jack's”, that I still have 20 EUR in cash in my wallet. Rarely has a crispy bacon cheese whatever with a vanilla milk shake tasted so exquisite.

Later, while I'm cooking dinner in the hostel's kitchen (I really *was* hungry) I get to talking to a young Frenchman named Guillaume who swung a year on ScienePo's exchange program with UQ. Good deal. He just got here, and I get to explain to him how to prepare his instant noodles. We take our food outside and I buy a beer to go with my couscous in the hostel-associated bar. Backpackers here really live the life. Of course, they're paying for it, too.

Later that evening there's a game on in the bar – teams of backpackers compete on “General Knowledge”, “Sports and Leisure” and other quiz areas. Supplying the answer to one of the questions (“what is the name of the bridge connecting the Maritime Museum with the Botanical Gardens” - have these people not been outside of the hostel?) makes me an instant member of the team. Though when “we” get second place and they run off to get our two pitchers, it turns out everyone gets a glass of beer instead and I've already been forgotten. Oh, well, it's time for bed anyway. Looooong day tomorrow.

The return voyage is uneventful. I dose up on caffeine for the first leg to Hongkong, making that a long (and productive) working day. When all three batteries of my two laptops give out, there's supposed to be 131 minutes left in the flight and “Duplicity” should only run for 118, so it seems like a perfect match. But it keeps being interrupted by needless messages (I can see the seatbelt light is on and I can feel that we're experiencing turbulences and I wasn't about to order a hot drink), which pause the film, only to let it run for another five seconds or so before the entire thing is repeated in what I'm pretty sure is Chinese. Owing to this and the fact that the movies are simply switched off for descent, I miss the tail end of it. But I have another flight coming up, so that should be the perfect way to laze off into sleep after dinner.

Only three hours layover in Hongkong this time. I set up camp in the business lounge, with two laptops charging from one socket via three adapters, with OJ and a few pastries and coffee (decaf now, it's time to let my body get into evening mode. I pass the time between 9 and midnight (Hongkong time, 11 and 2 a.m. Brisbane time, 3 and 6 in the afternoon German time) mostly chatting with my wife (free WiFi again – yay!).

That's one long day down, one long(ish) night to go. I gently booze up a little over dinner (the Cloud 9 is just as good as I remember it), settle back for the tail end of “Duplicity” and go to sleep feeling more than just a little proud of how easily I seem to manage the transitions from Hobo to business class and between time zones. I'll be picked up at the Siegburg train station by my family. How wonderful is that.

Btw, the pictures are here: http://tinyurl.com/brisbane2009

My morning routine is the usual. I don’t swim very long or far – I’ve noted that at the end of the longer swim I had on Monday, I found that it was beginning to get difficult to keep the fingers together so as to efficiently displace water. One thing I know I can’t use tonight is weak fingers.

The lady whose job it is to ask our room numbers and whether we’d like to be seated asks how my climb went and seems impressed that I went climbing at all. She advises to be on my guard when doing BJJ tonight. I fully intend to be.

There’s a few work related things I need to take care of (registering for the evening event on Thursday among them) and that takes a bit. I am inexplicably tired as well, so have an early nap as well.

Then, I go exploring. I come by a hairdresser (again) and decide to try my luck. I get the money I figure I’ll need to the end of the week and then (on my way back to the hotel – I plan not to carry that cash all over town) stop at the hairdresser. They don’t speak English, but communication really isn’t that hard when the subject area is limited and one isn’t afraid to look a little funny.

What’s left of my head hair gets the machine treatment, the beard is done free form with scissors and then I get a close shave with a straight razor. I try to relax, which isn’t quite easy…

Having dropped off the predominant part of the cash in my hotel room safe, I head out again into Ipanema proper, roughly bound for Leblon. I find a (guide-recommended) Café in a side street where I can sit outside with an inexpensive sandwich and a glass of water and watch life pass me by. It’s hot today, and there’s a lot of young Cariocas out, dressed for the beach. My reverie is broken by the excruciating noise of a pair of brake pads looong overdue for a replacement. I look for the source of the squeal in annoyance, and catch the eye of the guy in the passenger seat of the offending vehicle. Who is a huge, powerfully built black man with tattooed arms who gives me a disarming smile and a thumbs up. I can’t help but grin at that and happily focus on my sandwich again. It’s such a nice contrast between what I expected and what happened. Rio seems to offer a number of these bright, happy moments arising in the most unexpected places. As the car moves off at the next switch of the light, I look up again, make eye contact again and offer a thumbs up of my own. The gesture is returned, with a smile and the car leaves (luckily not having to brake again until it’s out of earshot).

I look at some of the local handicraft, but find nothing that would seem to be a nice “Mitbringsel”. I do find a bookstore (again, guide-recommended) in which I buy a collection of short stories (Phillip K. Dick) and a CD (Metallica’s “Death Magnetic”). It’s also been on my to-do-list for a while and also cheaper here than it would be at home, but I decide that this is how far that particular justification is going to.

It’s a long walk back down much of the length of Praia Ipanema. Rio’s youth is out in force today. The beach is *packed* with people (mostly of the young, fit, heavily tanned Brazilian type). There’s a few left-over hippies in one stretch of the beach which, apparently for that reason, is colloquially referred to as “Elephant’s Graveyard”.

A bunch of the Cariocas are busy keeping a football in the air in circles of people, others play a game involving batting a wooden ball back and forth with wooden rackets. The sharp “crack!” of each impact and generally very flat trajectory tells me that I do *not* want to step between players of that particular game. Stepping between the footballers is nigh unavoidable, though – all the sports activities happen in that small stretch of sand that is regularly swept over by the waves and therefore provides more resistance than the deep, dry sand (which is also the reason I prefer to walk there).

Those that aren’t busy doing sports, are busy hanging out, eating and drinking. As I get closer to my exit and late afternoon turns toward evening, they pack their folding chairs and towels and, without a visible exception, leave their garbage behind. I’m too stunned to even be enraged.

The line for the buses back from Ipanema beach, three to four people side by side, is well over a hundred meters long.

I’m back in the hotel to meet up with Brian and head out to the Gracie Gym again. The streets are literally choked with cars and it takes the taxi over 45 minutes to cover a distance I could probably have run in the same time (assuming I wouldn’t get mugged on the way and didn’t mind arriving in no shape for two hours of Jiu-Jitsu). Maybe it’s because of the football game – the Brazilian team plays another national team tonight in Macarana stadium.

Royler Gracie seems to have forgotten my Gi but sends a guy to get one for me. With a car key. I’m thinking that if the guy is going to drive *anywere* now, I’m not likely to have a Gi before the training session is over. But the young man returns shortly thereafter with a Gi which is (roughly) of the right size, covered in the usual patches and was signed with a textile marker by Helio Gracie (Royler’s dad, who founded Gracie Jiu-Jitsu). I’m a happy camper. And practice is fun. I learn an interesting drill how to get from a mounted position into a mount and force the opponent to tap out from there, and once get to roll with one other white belt during the sparring part of the training session. I manage not to have to tap out.

It was a good session. Brian and I are both ravenous afterwards and dare to get away from the hotel strip (if only by one block) to find a small local equivalent to what in the US would be called a “diner”. The food is cheap, decent and a lot. We make short work of it and then head our ways. Tomorrow is the big day.

It’s Tuesday and I’m going climbing today. It’s going to be hot – at 07:45, the thermometer outside shows 29 C (85 F) and the sun beating down makes it look as though it’ll get a lot warmer soon.

We make our way to Morro di Urca, which is a smaller hill right in front of Rio’s famous Pao de Azucar (Sugarloaf). Apparently one can climb the face of the Sugarloaf as well – if one can. We’re going for an easy route up Morro di Urca, as I’ve never really done this thing before. I get the impression (through the course of the day) that the route to climb was chosen in the car on the way to Morro di Urca. There are lighter routes up this one, I’m told, but we climb “Infrared” today. They’re all named after colours, with “Blue” being the hardest. But I’m told “Ultraviolet” exists and is easier than “Blue”, so I guess they don’t follow the spectrum. For which I’m glad – if they did, “Infrared” would have to be the easiest. Unless they’ve got routes named “Long Infrared” or “Radio”.

Anyway, after a succinct introduction into the basics, particularly on how we provide security to each other, Paulo leads off. He’s climbing top rope, which means that if he slips and falls (well, slides – it’s not a vertical ascent) he’d travel twice the distance since he last clipped the rope to the rock before I can arrest his descent. When he’s on belay at the end of the first pitch (about 40 m up), I follow.

As Paulo is on belay above and keeps pulling in the rope, the furthest I could slide is determined by the amount of slack in the rope – so not a lot at all.

Knowing about this security is good. The second pitch (I’m later told) is rated “3 superior” in the local grading system. This is supposedly laughably easy for anyone who’s done this a few times (Paulo climbs 6 superior to 7a), but noticeably harder than the “2 superior” of the first and third pitches. There’s one moment in which I slide downhill for a few centimetres. Knowing that this cannot turn into a dangerous slide all the way down gives me the requisite calm to look about for a better hold while I slide and make use of it.

I’m happy to get to the top without having taken advantage of the rope or the metal put into the rock. I’m even more happy to take off my climbing shoes (they’re supposed to be tight, but these are about two sizes to small). The view is gorgeous.

We rappel back down, which I choose to do barefoot. The rock’s getting pretty hot now, but the shoes were about to give me a blister already. After the second pitch down the rope gets stuck while we’re pulling it in, so Paulo has to reclimb part of the second pitch. The rest works without a hitch.

Afterwards we drink a lot of water and chat amiably as we head back down. There are wild monkeys here called “Mico”.

Back at the hotel I go for a quick swim to wash the sweat off me. Paulo had suggested that to swim out one should stay close to the rocks of the headland because of a counter current there. This seems to be correct. Nevertheless, I only spend a few minutes in the water and head to the hotel for a well-earned shower and nap. I have some business-related things to take care of, so I don’t get to go out again until late in the afternoon. I find a small local place to eat and order “Carne Assadas Caricoca”. It’s a not-so-pricey bit of meat with a sausage in it, the traditional black beans and rice. It’s not bad – and it goes really well with a beer after a day like today.

I’m sitting what’s really a kitchen that is open to the street on one side, with a couple of plastic tables and chairs. As I’m looking around at the scene of Rio Residents going about their business around nightfall, I make eye contact with a poorly dressed kid that of course immediately comes up to beg. I have firmly resisted the rather persistent (to the point of aggressive) attempts at begging from me when walking from one hotel to the other along the Copacabana in the evening, but find myself at a loss when I realize the kid (with gestures) is asking whether he can have my leftovers in what, in English, is still called a “doggy bag”.

Yes, sure he can have it. The world isn’t fair.