Party animals.

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By the strange whims of Malawian transport, the 12:30 Axa bus to Mzuzu - the poshest of the country’s bus lines - pulls into the Lilongwe depot at half-past eleven, its seats already full, its aisles crowded with buckets and bags of produce leaking onto the floor. After a placid morning at Mabuya Camp, a cup of coffee and a lazy hour spent sending emails, the day’s taken a turn for the oh-shit. Undeterred by the crush of bodies inside, the conductor is happy to take my fistful of kwacha, unswayed by my insistence that maybe anyone forced to stand for the five-hour haul to Mzuzu should be entitled to some sort of charity rate. He laughs and shoves me not ungently inside, as if to say, “White people! You say the funniest things!” On a thin sheet of Plexiglas beside the driver’s seat, a sign insists that we’re well below the bus’ capacity - 65 seated and 25 standing - a fact that’s cheerily seized upon by the conductor, who continues to hand out tickets like a blackjack dealer dishing out cards at the Bellagio.

It’s a smooth ride, one I largely spend lost in my iPod. While I’m willing to show good humor at my predicament, comically swaying and lurching into laps at every twist in the road, there will be no light-hearted banter on this Axa bus to Mzuzu. I was up late in Lilongwe, finishing up some stories and taking advantage of Mabuya’s WiFi to download ESPN podcasts deep into the night. I’m groggy and more or less sleeping on my feet. Two wizened old birds - prehistoric figures in elaborate, brightly colored headwraps - eye me warily as they fuss with their bags, their skin like parchment paper. They are brusque, cheerless, long-suffering widows of some neglected plot of land. In small market towns, as young girls approach to sell loaves of sweetbread, they negotiate with imperious will. When a girl names a price for her burnt husk of maize, she gets a look that all but says, “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Purchases are made. The women move their gummy, thin-lipped mouths across the cobs. Celine Dion wails on the radio. We stop to buy apples and eggs on the side of the road, the wind blowing up dust storms in the fields.

At Kasungu, a busy town half-way to Mzuzu, there’s a great commotion as the bus empties. I snag a seat toward the front, happy to give my feet a break for the rest of the ride. More passengers get on; soon the aisle is crowded, bodies pressed close together. On a dusty, desolate stretch of road we pull to the side. An old man gets onboard, as soiled and frail a sight as I’ve seen in Malawi. He has a smoky, earthy smell, as if he’s spent centuries tilling the fields. I touch him gently on the arm and offer my seat. The thin blades of his shoulders heave; his arms are lost in their coatsleeves. He smiles toothlessly and hobbles side to side, lowering himself like a teacup filled to the brim. Around the bus, signs of approval. One of the old spinsters lifts her arms in a gesture of applause, of triumph: I have won her ancient affections.

It’s after dusk when we arrive in Mzuzu and I pull into Mzoozoozoo, a happy little backpackers’ haunt on the outskirts of town. The walls are festively colored with pictures and paintings, with crude drawings and handwritten scrawls that reflect - “Do not adjust your mind - there is a fault with reality” - the accumulated wisdom of the backpacker prophets. There’s a cheery air at the bar, a salubrious mix of young travelers and volunteers, of old weather-beaten ex-pats who look like they’ve spent more time in the sauce than a shrimp cocktail. It’s clear that the Carlsbergs - a Belgian brew bottled here in Malawi - have been flowing early and often, that the famous Malawian gin has jumpstarted many a sluggish ex-pat engine, and that the ‘Zoo, as it’s affectionately dubbed around town, is home to its own particular breed of wildlife (or, as one handwritten advertisement would have it: “Mzoozoozoo National Park: Best Place for Party Animals in Malawi”). In the morning, as I’m polishing off a pot of coffee, a surly, gimpy old Brit - the owner of a lakeside lodge - hobbles up to the bar and orders a Carlsberg with a string of affectionate profanities. He looks haggard and stricken, ensconced in the terrible solitude that is the ex-pat’s African life. Between us passes a brief, frightful communion - as if he recognizes the man he once was, and I recognize the man I might someday be - and we quickly retreat to opposite ends of the room, full of solemn oaths and nervous glances.

I’ve arrived with a plan to head out by week’s end: to spend three days trekking across the Nyika Plateau, and to then while away a few days in the old mission settlement of Livingstonia. Savvy, long-time readers will no doubt note that little in the past two years of my writing really squares with “three days trekking” (or, for that matter, with missionaries). It’s all part of an ambitious new plan to shift the focus of my travels in the year ahead: to rely less on the bumbling, seat-of-the-pants exploration that’s served me so well in the past year, and more on a sort of targeted, militant approach to sniff out “stories” through oodles of online research before arriving in country. The story of Livingstonia - which fortunate readers will get to suffer through at great length when the time comes - and the accompanying walk across Nyika seem eminently more marketable than, say, Random Observations of a White Guy on a Malawian Bus, or, for example, Here’s Another Funny/Scary/Improbable Thing I Saw in an African Market.

And so I’ve resolved to make it to Nyika and Livingstonia at whatever the physical or financial cost to my person, and to write a story that will bring me one step closer, with any luck, to the sort of thrift-shop fame and five-and-dime fortunes that are the lot of our best and brightest travel scribes.

It’s a plan that gets unhinged from the start. Since the sole foreigner operating a concession within Nyika National Park - the legendary David Foote - was unceremoniously and rather dubiously squeezed off the land a year ago, access to the park has become a prohibitive pain in the ass. Most tours are organized through Lilongwe-based operators, as part of week-long loops taking in the highlights of northern Malawi. From Mzuzu, the largest city within spitting distance of Nyika, there’s no easy way to reach the park. Public buses will only take you as far as the park entrance gate - a hearty 12-kilometer hike from Chelinda Camp. And the alternative - to rent a car and driver to bring me as far as Chelinda - is a ridiculous expense likely to ravage my modest attempts at sticking to a budget.

Luckily, at the Parks Department office in Mzuzu, park officials prove remarkably adept at doing absolutely nothing to help. After a cheery round of greetings and inquiries into the quality of one’s sleep and the health of one’s relations, I sit with the resident official and explain my predicament.

“Yes, that is a problem,” he says, scratching at his chin. And then a long silence passes between us.

He gets up from behind his desk and paces the room and then stops before a giant wall map of the park and its immediate surroundings. Pointing to the major access roads, he explains how many kilometers it is from Mzuzu to Chelinda, and how difficult it will be for me to get there.

“In the past,” he says, “you could take a minibus to the gate and get picked up by the park ranger.” But the Parks Department’s solitary vehicle in Nyika broke down four months ago, and they’re still waiting for the spare parts to arrive from Lilongwe.

We stand there in quiet contemplation of the admittedly handsome map, me scurrying over possibilities in my head, he undoubtedly waiting for an appropriate amount of time to pass before shaking my hand and sending me on my way. Finally, I suggest with a theatrical sigh that I could - I suppose - rent a car and driver to take me one-way to Chelinda. The official brightens. I have just solved what appeared to be an intractable problem, and I have asked absolutely nothing of him in the process. Every day in the Mzuzu office of the Malawian National Parks Authority should be so easy! Grateful for the suggestion, he gives my hand a very vigorous pump and laughs heartily and shows me to the door. I ask if there are any arrangements - any at all - that I should make before leaving Mzuzu, and he offers his best assurances. Not to worry! The park ranger and Chelinda staff will be duly warned of my impending arrival. A guide and porter can be arranged on the spot; once I’ve made my arrangements to reach the park, I can expect to be trekking across the plateau by week’s end. All this I accept with almost boundless naivety.

Despite the costs and headaches involved, this is its own sort of relief. Ultimately, I’m willing to pay whatever needs to be paid to get my story, budget be damned. And so the sun feels especially bracing, the trees especially blossoming, as I make my way back to the ‘Zoo. One way or another, sooner or later, I’m going to make it to Nyika.

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