DAY 189: If you look at the cover of any recent Lonely Planet guidebook, you'll see that on the bottom they write a catchy subtitle relative to the destination that is being covered inside. For Malawi, the subtitle reads, "More than just a lake."

With my limited time -- and my affection for cycling -- I signed up with Chimango Tours, the only tour company in Nkhata Bay, for a one-day mountain bike tour around the nearby sights other than Lake Malawi. After sunrise and breakfast, Anel and Maia came along with me and we walked into town to meet our guide Davie at his office, along with his friends and support crew, Martha and Wiseboy.

"WHAT IS AN ARSE?" the Mexican Anel asked. She was reading the book of comments written by previous clients.

"It's British for 'ass,'" I informed her. Apparently many Brits wrote about the sore arse they all got from the bike tour -- but they all seemed to say it was worth it.

THE FIRST PART OF THE BIKE TOUR was definitely worth the pedaling uphill from the market. Although it wasn't a part of the standard tour, Maia, a Brit going for her masters at university in Sweden, thought it'd be cool to check out the church scene since it was Sunday (even though she had been raised atheist). We sat in on a mass that had just begun in the local Presbyterian church, which was something out of a Broadway musical. Voluntary choirs and soloists put their names on a list in order to sing in praise of the Lord, and when it was their turn, they'd start singing in their pews (sometimes away from each other), stand up and walk to the alter and join together like performers onto a stage.

Despite the humble concrete building, the acoustics reverberated the harmonies of the sopranos, altos and basses singing in the native Tonga language to African spiritual melodies. It's a shame I didn't have any of the audio recorded; if I were a talent scout, I would have signed one of the groups right up.

AFTER ESCAPING A QUICK PASSING DOWNPOUR in a local shop and a quick stop at some carving stands, the six of us continued on our two-wheelers on the main road, passed the mini-vans and trucks of people driving by, to the Pundu mud baths, the brainchild of Davie when he discovered the local hot springs might be of some interest to tourists -- he knew that some people spend up to $500 on full body mud treatments in the U.K. The baths, literally formed from mud dug up by villagers, was heated naturally by underground hot springs to temperatures so scalding it was impossible to swim across without feeling like you were cooking in some sort of big muddy stew. We spent a good hour there caking ourselves in mud, letting it dry and then rinsing it off in the colder water of nearby fish farm ponds. Davie said the water had been tested by a doctor for diseases and infestations, but I suppose that's something that will be confirmed in time should I catch anything.

With softer skin -- and possibly a parasite or two -- we pedalled on a dirt road through the Kalwe Forest, a rainforest reserved protected by the Malawian government since 1948. The road led us through little villages, passed local villagers going about their day and the kids who'd run up to the side of the road to see us and repeatedly greet us with "Hello! Hello!" We stopped at the Mkondezi Primary School for a toilet break and to buy some bananas to keep our energy going.

WITH A TROPICAL LANDSCAPE WITH FERTILE SOIL, one would think that rice would be a cash crop as it is in other tropical countries. According to Davie, his people, the Tongas, were too lazy to do such a thing and it wasn't until the 1980s that the Malawian government invited the Chinese government to start it up. Rice fields were developed in the areas west of Nkhata Bay, irrigated by the power of a man-made waterfall built by the Chinese in 1985, which distributed water from the Limphasa River, a nearby river where fishermen baited for catfish. It was at this waterfall that the six of us stopped for the cold pasta lunch Davie made for us that morning. Despite the boost of carbs, it didn't prevent Anel from falling down on a hill when we were riding on a narrow path on high ground. Her sudden stop in the flow caused me to fall down the hill too, and it was clear that the two of us just had a habit of falling on bikes as well as canoes.

After encountering the rare sighting of a chameleon and playing with him before he tried to bite our fingers off, we struggled up another hill until we arrived in a rubber plantation, owned and operated by the Vizara company. With 1,600 employees, it is the second largest rubber plantation in Africa and produced tons of first- and second-grade rubber which would eventually be molded into tires, catheters and the rubber balls the kids played with in the streets. As Davie explained rubber extration from the trees, I noticed that the shells of the tree seeds would make good whistles, the way the tops of oak acorns do in the oak forests back home. Wiseboy and Martha were totally amazed at the whistles and grabbed a bunch to practice with. I had a feeling that in a year's time, all the artisans in the craft markets would be selling them. However, I was surprised that when we stopped in a village and we showed the shell whistles off to the children -- they weren't nearly as in awe as the adults. No, they were more impressed and excited with seeing themselves on the screen on my little digital camera after I took their photo (picture above) over and over again.

THE SIX OF US RODE UP another steep hill and arrived at the processing plant where rubber from the trees was formed in rows, mixed with chemicals, sliced, diced and compressed into 35 kg. blocks to be shipped away. Surprisingly the production looked (and smelled) like it was that for mozzarella cheese.

"My arse is hurting," Anel said when she mounted her bicycle seat again. The British term was quickly added to her repertoire of favorite jargon.

"Just get some rubber from here for padding," I joked. But the only thing we got was free rubber samples that were still warm enough to mold into bouncy balls. If we had had the means, we should have molded it into a new rubber inner tube because I got a flat tire on the way home. Wiseboy, Davie and I patched it up while the girls went ahead up the biggest hill of the day. We eventually rode up after fixing my bike and caught up with them at the craft markets. With gravity finally on our side, we zoomed down the paved hill like X-Games racers back into town before the sun set completely under the mountains.

Maia, Anel and I went to the grocery store to get a bottle of wine and brought it back to Mayoka for our dinner while a duo of local musicians played a set in the corner. We ate and drank under candlelight and told our cycling adventures of the day to Maaike. Yes, there existed a Malawi other than the lake, and seeing it by bicycle was definitely worth the pain in the arse.