Mount Smiley

On top of Mount Smiley

This Thursday was a public holiday – John Chilembwe Day. For a little bit of Malawian history, John Chilembwe was a minister who led the first serious uprising against the British in Nyasaland (Malawi) in 1915. He and his followers attacked and killed a manager of a large estate, but the mass uprising that he hoped it would trigger never materialized. Unfortunately, he was executed and many of his followers were imprisoned. John Chilembwe is fondly remembered though as a hero of the struggle against colonialism, which is reflected in numerous Chilembwe Roads, his face on the money, and a public holiday.

To celebrate Chilembwe day (or perhaps more importantly, a day off work!), I went hiking for the day with some friends to Mount Ngala, also referred to as “Mount Smiley” for the big smiley face rock crevasse on the hillside. Mount Smiley is about 45 minutes from Lilongwe, along the M1 road to Blantyre. You turn off the main road on to dirt roads (read: MUD – we were lucky to have a 4WD) for about 10 km through villages until you get to the base of the mountain. It is interesting how the landscape around Lilongwe is quite flat, but then it is also dotted with small mountains that seem to rise out of nowhere. We attracted a large group of boys who ended up leading us up the mountain. I thought that there was going to be a clear path, but it was really just a series of goat tracks and semi-sheer rock faces that we had to clamber up. We were quite a convoy hiking up the hill, with 5 of us and 13 guides – I’m not sure we needed 13, but a group of crazy Mzungus who might have some chocolate in their backpacks to share is an enticing enough prospect to warrant climbing up a mountain. We of course were all geared up, with hiking boots, running shoes, backpacks and water bottles, huffing and puffing up the hill and these little guys just ran up the mountain in their bare feet!

It took about 1 ½ hours to reach the top, and I felt like I was actually going to pass out at some point because it was almost straight up, but of course, once you get to the top and catch your breath, you forget that you really hated getting there. Haha. The view was quite amazing, and because everything around the mountain is so flat, you can see quite far – all the way to the Dedza Mountains – over small patchwork fields and little villages. Now that it is the rainy season, Malawi has exploded in vibrant green and it is absolutely gorgeous.


Yep, we made it all the way up there!


Bryn, Carl, Jeff and our 13 guides