Malawi - a nice and quiet break after all the safaris.

Part 7 of "From Cape Town to Nairobi in a Land Rover".

Malawi started with a nice and quiet stop at Claudio's friends Ruth’s and Thomas’s. We had heard from Ruth about a week before we arrived that due to the heavy rains and floods in Southern Malawi, the whole of Blantyre was without electricity and running water – including Ruth’s and Thomas’s house. We also heard many of the roads are unusable due to heavy floods. Apparently some roads had holes big enough for an entire bus to go in. However, we had also heard that the main road from Lilongwe to Blantyre (M1) was driveable. Besides, we had 40 litres of water for showering and washing dishes and 20 litres of drinking water in the car. A few bumps on the road and a major flood – not going to stop us from visiting Ruth. At most this might slow us down a little.

The drive down to Blantyre was uneventful, except for that there were lots of road blocks. At one of them we got all of a sudden stopped by a policeman who nearly jumped out of his post waving his arm to stop us. We were wondering what have we now done. Claudio winds the window down and exchanges the usual courtesy greetings. Then the policeman says:

“Could you please pull over there?” He points at the left side of the road. “The president’s convoy is on its way and they will be here in a few minutes.”

Ok. We can. Knowing the convoy will probably be travelling at about 180km/hour, we are happy to get off the road. We waited for less than 10minutes and the first cars appeared. I believe their job was just to ensure the road was clear, as the president himself was a few minutes behind them. As soon as the convoy had passed we could also continue our journey.

Transporting goods at the back of a bicycle in Malawi. We believe this
bike is loaded with several large bags of brickets. The Malawians
must be fit!

A truck with a rather heavy lean to the left - and an overload.
Normal. This is Africa.

At Ruth’s we were warmly welcomed. Ruth already had two of her nieces (who are in their early 20s – Ruth’s older sisters had children in their teens) staying before continuing their journey towards Zambia. The highlight of my stay in Blantyre was going hiking on the nearby Mulanje mountains. Although I proved myself how unfit I was I still had fun. I was an absolute snail on the way up to the peak. I even had to give my sleeping bag and extra clothes to the porter to carry. Sigh. Maybe I’m not climbing Kilimanjaro after all... Claudio might be going with the rest of the folks. I’ll stay down at the foot of the mountain and wave them off and go for a coffee while they sweat up the mountain J

That is Mount Mulanje in the background, behind the clouds. The
highest point is only just over 2,00 meters and we did not hike over
1,900 meters during our 3-day trip.

The first cottage we stayed at.
Owned by the Mulanje mountain club - and well equipped.

The path down was steep but beautiful.

This was the "kitchen" and lounge space in the first cottage.

Green Mamba in the green fields. We are on our way back
to Blantyre after our two nights and three days on the mountain.

We stayed put for nearly a week, and continued our journey North on Saturday the 31^st of January. When we left Blantyre, we had planned that we will drive up to Lilongwe and stay the night at the same campsite Claudio and Ruth had stayed at on their previous trip down here. However, when we got out of Blantyre Claudio all of a sudden said 

”Oh, we should have taken the other road to see the other city”

Me: “Other road? Other city? You mean Zomba?”

C: “Yes. I t was a nice drive and a nice place last time. Is there any other road we can take there?”

I examined the map and saw a tiny, narrow white line going from M1 towards Zomba.

T: “Yes, there is this one.”

Claudio looks at the map and laughs. 

“It’s one of those white lines. You know what that means in terms of the road conditions.”

Me:” OK, maybe not then.”

C: “Are there any other roads?”

T: “Not on this map.”

About an hour later I find us going down that small road. The one that CA thought would be absolutely horrible. It was actually find in the beginning. We were a bit worried as it had rained for several days. The roads might be quite soft, even here slightly out of Blantyre and the South that had the worst rainfall. The road was at times a little challenging – but with Claudio as the driver, we went on through puddles, potholes and muddy patches. At times the road looked soft but we always cleared it. It didn’t however look like we wanted to turn back anymore. Not since we had got this far (besides, "turning back" isn't an expression that is in Claudio's vocabulary anyway). Going back through these same puddles would be no fun at all. We were going through villages and farmlands, so there was actually a lot of people and houses around us. It seemed as they had recently managed to get through with a bus so we thought "Oh, well, maybe the road will be ok." 

Then we got to a point where it looked like the entire road turned into a mudfield. Claudio looked at it and said: “This could be bad. If we slide off the road we will be stuck.”

I looked at the deep, winding path of tyre prints that the previous vehicle that had crossed here had left. But hey! Claudio is a great driver. Surely we will be fine.

We got through about the first 100 meters, engine working hard and the car wobbling from one side of the road to the other. Then it happened. The car turned sideways and went on a slide towards the left. Noooooo! Claudio managed to stop before we were off the road – but the tyres on my side of the car (left) were already eating into the mud. Claudio cursed. He said something in the lines he has had it with these roads and bloody f***ing Africa. He tried reversing. I said we are only going deeper. I tried to get out of the car but C said it would not do any good. So I sat and waited while C tried to reverse us out again.

T: “We are just going deeper on this side.”

(C is cursing)

T: “Let’s stop for a while and take a look.”

Claudio cursed again and repeated what he had said about having had enough of Africa, these roads and wanting to get out of here. He did however stop there and we both got out. The mud was sticky – and we confirmed that my side was only going deeper in. Claudio kept cursing. I said not to worry, we are now near villages and there are people passing by all the time. If we really are stuck, enough people will appear to push or pull us out. If there is something they don't ahve shortage of on this continent, it is people.

We didn’t have to wait long for that. While Claudio was taking the sandboards down the first four already gathered around, asking where we are going and if we are stuck. We confirmed we are stuck but said we are trying if we can reverse out. This time we put both boards under the tyres on C’s side of the car as they seemed to be spinning (whilst my side was already quite deep). A couple of more people appeared and we all pushed while C reversed. We had to make a few attempts but eventually we got the car pushed off. Yay! Claudio drove the last 100 meters over to drier road whilst me and the 6 guys (all of them in hope of a nice reward) followed him by foot. 

BUT: I did not even have time to take my camera out. Oh noooo.... Again no photos. Honestly, Claudio was so angry about getting stuck again I didn’t even dare to suggest videoing the rescue operation (although I actually think he would have loved to have it on video). Once we reached Claudio, he thanked the guys for their help and handed them some small change (very small change this time as we were out of cash). We could then continue our journey. The locals also gave us detailed instructions where to turn to get to Zomba. Apparently some parts of the road were unusable but there were alternatives and the road to Zomba was open.

We drove through more villages, puddles but encountered no more bad mud. At one point in time we had to cross a bridge that again did not look like it will hold the weight of the car. We still crossed and hoped we won’t fall down in the middle (it would have been a good 2-3 meters of a fall – end of journey for the Landy if we had taken that fall). We got across, and after a while found a tarmac road leading past military barracks and over a small mountain. The military guys seemed to have been doing some clearing of the roads, judging based on the masses of red earth that were piled on both sides. I was looking at the steep slopes on our left side when we were driving up the very steep hill. I was happy we were not here during the rains. Those land masses would definitely come down as soon as they get a little water on them. I don’t want to get in their way! Our engine actually struggled climbing up the hill. This country definitely never gets snow. You would never get up a hill this steep in the winter when you have snow and ice. Even now it was hard work for the Landy.

Driving up a mountain after we got out of the mud.
There was a military base here - so the road was tarmac!
Note all the dirt we've collected on the windshield, haha.
It was raining again - it rained all the time when we were in
Malawi (in the middle of the rainy season).

We got up, down and out of the side road, and into Zomba. We stopped at a war memorial to take pictures and then drove to Lilongwe. It was nice to arrive at the campsite.  Claudio was very tired as he had had to focus so much on the driving on the small roads, so we treated ourselves to a dinner at the campsite kitchen instead of cooking ourselves.

War memorial site in Zomba.

 The last two nights in Malawi we stayed on the lakeside in two beautiful campsites. The first place was Mukuzi Beach and the second Silango Beach Resort, both British-owned. Both also had lovely lodges and although Silango was a smaller and more modest place it had a superb beach café. Both Mukuzi and Silango were places where I could easily spend a few days in a nice lodge and chill out by the beach.  On our way to Mukuzi we also got stopped by the police. Apparently that had been a village area and we had missed the 50km/h sign. We were doing about 80km/h. Oops.  No way of avoiding that fine.

Before arriving in Silango, we had thought that we’d possibly go to and see the Nyika national park but decided to skip it – we had already done a number of national parks and more were on the list for Tanzania, therefore leaving something for next time felt like the right decision. The trip to the national park would have added a couple of nights in Malawi to our route and we decided it was best to first head up to Arusha/Moshi where our Kilimanjaro hike would be starting from.

We stopped at a couple of beautiful beach resorts along Lake
Malawi on the way up to the Tanzanian border.

On our way from Mukuzi to Silango we also stopped at the historical mission at Livingstonia. The road leading to the mission (at 1,800 metres) is a winding and bendy little gravel road. At times a big car like a Landy could not do the bend in one go and Claudio had to reverse a little and come up again. A little bit scary climb – but fun. Great fun. Again any time. We saw various local cars packed to the roof with goods and pick-ups with about 20 people standing in the back. Climbing up this path clearly isn’t a very attractive option. 

On the top we had a coffee at a  coffee shop and learned that also the church has recently opened a few small lodges that travellers can stay in. The lodges have a fantastic view over the valley. Modest but very nice.  We just had a coffee and took a  few pictures and then headed back down past the Livingstonia university and hospital buildings – most of them old red brick buildings. There were a few very pregnant ladies on a stroll outside the hospital. I assume the local ladies come to the top of the mountain well in advance of their delivery date and then stay near the hospital grounds. Nobody wants to make the journey up the mountain when they are in labour – and most likely would not get up there before the baby would already be born.

After Silango we drove straight to the Tanzanian border and crossed over on the 3rd of February 2015.  There was a ridiculous queue on Malawian side – a truck stopped or broken down in the middle of the road and all the other trucks from the opposite direction were trying to get past it in the meeting traffic lane. Chaos. We thought we would be there for hours but luckily the jam cleared in about 30 minutes.

Jam at the border! The trucks are all coming this way - how
doe we get out now? Lol.

 All in all, Malawi this time fell a little flat for us. The great things in Malawi were meeting new friends (Ruth and Thomas), having some time to do relaxed hiking on Mount Mulanje area. The lake area is also beautiful but as it was raining all the time we didn’t see the best of the country. We should probably come back in the dry seasons, and think more about spending time on the lake than compare Malawi to our safari adventures.

Now, we are all set for Tanzania, let’s see what it brings. On top of my mind at the time of crossing over was:

Kilimanjaro, here we come!


PS. Here is again the link to our updated route map: https://share.delorme.com/ClaudioAngelini