Malawi Racing Porters and Deforestation

Malawian mini-galleries: The Porters' Race and Zomba's disappearing trees.

Malawi is an incredibly photogenic country with diverse landscapes, here's just a few pictures of the southern mountain areas and their forrsts.

If you'd like to know where Mulanje and Zomba are, check out the Roadmap.

The Porters' Race

The annual Porters' Race on Mount Mulanje is a hectic 25km trail running competition up and down Mount Mulanje in Malawi’s south. What takes 2 days of hiking for mere mortals was blitzed in two hours by the winner of the generous MWK 200,000 cash prize (AUD$500). It had an incredibly festive atmosphere with most of the villages coming to spectate and cheer the contestants on. It even ends with free music :)

Mingling with the kids	Contestant flying past The female contestants got big cheers from the crowd.	Spectator The crowd watching was reciprocated.
Shortcuts The path wasn't marked clearly but this detour spelt the end of dry shoes.	Island in the Sky festival A teaser for Lake of Stars festival

Zomba Plateau and its disappearing forest

A woodcutter's hut in Zomba		A lonely tree There was a whole valley between us and this tree that had been denuded.
A porter Many ladies use cloth to balance loads on their head but this was the first person I saw to use leaves and shrubbery.	Woodcutter We only saw hand tools and didn't hear a single power tool during our hike. These guys are fast.