We said goodbye to Matthias today and headed out from the safety of the backpackers and into Malawi, headed to the Zomba Plateau.

It turns out that this is where the original capital of Malawi was, the Queen mother even visited years ago!

After putting up the tent we headed to the top of the plateau to see some of the view points, but it turned out that the sights along the way were more worthy of a photo.  The plateau at 1600m has now been turned into a pine plantation, and teams of men work unbelievably hard to cut down the trees and saw them into planks.

BY HAND.

It felt like being on the set of a film with the men organised into small teams, some singing, all sweating hard and pushing their saws back and forward, and trucks being (over) loaded (also by hand) for the crazy descent from the plateau on rough dirt roads that had Betsy working hard.

If you’ve ever pushed a handsaw for 5 minutes this will really hit home, and these guys are doing this all day, every day.

In our world of electricity, running water and instant everything, I cant really make sense of how it’s come to pass that people still saw planks of wood for a living.

Goodnight all xxoo