First Hike

Yesterday marked the first real hike into the great outdoors for our new dog Baobab and it was marked with few events, not all welcome. Our target? A modest granite bump south of Lilongwe by the name Bunda Mountain:

For the first mishap you must understand that Baobab is a bit thin and Serena wants to "fatten him up." So what do we do? Feed him lots! As it turns out, too much. Bao ate and ate and ate and hopped in the car aaaaand... you can imagine what happened next.

About half way to the mountain, vomited. No worries, we have cardboard in the back of the vehicle! I pulled over to discover he had ralphed not once, but twice. Still, no trouble, with a simple cardboard removal and off we went. He had upchucked lots--not to get too detailed here, but probably the equivalent to a grapefruit of half-digested dog food--so I assumed that would be that. I assumed wrong.

Bao, almost immediately, peed on the cardboard-less floor and puked twice more to the tune of another grapefruit. Armed with sticks, I cleaned the car at the base of the mountain and thus started our adventure.

The hill itself was fairly simple and, as I came to find out, a popular local hike. At the top, people had built what looked like some kind of spiritual monument and various small rock shelters. In fact, it looked as though people actually lived at the summit. Trying to be inconspicuous, these were the photos from afar:

Bao surveying the monument

Stone huts

The human-dog relationship here is much different than at home. Considering this, especially because it may have been a spiritual site, I decided not to linger, snapping these shots before descending:

Easy to see where water is available. Water transportation and large-scale irrigation are essentially nonexistent.

In the distance is a quarry and on the left is a planted forest.

Thankfully Bao had ejected everything in his system, leaving the ride home hurl-free. Just another day in Malawi.