While I slept soundly (only waking once to hear a fierce, whispered debate between Chalna and Hilde about going to the toilet), the girls had a terrible sleepless night, due to a combination of my snores and their own fears. They certainly weren’t looking too bright-eyed when we got up for breakfast.
We took the far steeper Skyline track back down – a path used by forestry woodcutters to follow their loads down the thick steel cable suspended from unsightly pylons. The less-wooded slopes on this side of the mountain afforded us excellent views over the plains and the air was considerably clearer than on the previous day.
After paying Francis and thanking him, we settled down amid a crowd of inquisitive children to wait for the pick-up to come along and take us back to Mulanje. Naturally, we ate pizza again for lunch (no chance of passing up something that good!) and this time caught a particularly slow minibus back to Blantyre, where we arrived just as it was starting to get dark and long after Sunday closing for the shops. Chalna and Hilde had decided to stay at Kabula Lodge so that Carlyn could show them around Open Arms the following morning. I cobbled together a vegetable risotto from what we had left in the cupboard before retiring early to get on with some writing.
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