December Vacation – Nkhata Bay to Lilongwe (The Other Way)

We left Nkhata bay on the morning of the thirtieth. We don’t have to wait too long for the bus to load, and when we leave there’s the requisite eighteen people crammed inside but with a little more luggage than our earlier rides. This time we have two large baskets of fish sitting up front and a guy in the back who has to large jugs of gasoline. With the bus stopped, the gasoline smell is bad enough that I think we would have blown up if someone had struck a match. This is relieved by the wonderful smell of rotten fish when the bus is moving with the wind pushing the petroleum smell out the back. During the seventy kilometer trip along the Lake Malawi coast line we have about an even mixture of these two, since the bus stops every two kilometers to either pick someone up, or drop them off. During the course of the trip, a wide range of people embark and disembark from our aquatic-fossil-fuel scented interior including business men, evangelicals, mothers with babies, and one old woman carrying a live chicken. I think this is a requirement of a minibus ride in Malawi. At some point on every bus, there will be a live chicken, whether you know it or not.

We had paid the cost to get all the way to Nkhotakota which is half way between Nkhata Bay and Lilongwe along the coast road. About two thirds of the way through our trip, we get to Dwangwa. We pull up to the bus stop, which is little more than a turn out with a picture of a bus next to it in the middle of town, and the bus driver says that we need to unload. Our bus is out of fuel and Dwangwa is out of fuel too. An entire town out of gasoline? No problem, we are being transferred to another vehicle that does have fuel and an additional ten people already in it. Another compact pick up ride with no canopy for the bed. To fit all the people and stuff, we have the tail gate lowered with stuff tied down to make the bed a little longer. Half of the makeshift wall is a huge basket of tomatoes and the other half is our three packs piled up. Oh, and it’s starting to rain. So the truck that was already loaded with ten people is now loaded with an additional twelve plus a baby or two. No chicken though, but this isn’t a minibus, so is not a requirement.

Before leaving, I notice something a little strange about Dwangwa. Although the town is extremely small and appears to exist within an area about two hundred yards long, most of which is an open market on one side and bottle stores on the other, there are a lot of bikes. I guess this makes sense because the town obviously runs out of gas often enough. It’s just shocking to see so many people riding bikes, and an entire rank of bike taxis. Oh, bike taxis are the same as normal bikes, but with a rack on the back equipped with a cushion for the comfort of someone precariously perched, trying not to get anything caught in the chain or the wheels while in motion.

The rest of the ride to Nkhotakota goes the same as when we were in the minibus, although the transfers of passengers are a little easier since there aren’t any walls to hold us in or out. At its fullest, I think we had twenty-three in the back and four in the cab plus a baby here or there. The rain stopped though, which was nice.

Nkhotakota is spread out over several kilometers and set, mostly, inland from the shore. We got dropped in what I can only assume was the town center, though we walked for at least a kilometer towards the shore and the town never really got more or less dense. Nkhotakota seems to be the last major town that hasn’t been over run with the tourist scene yet. This is fairly easy to gauge based on people’s reaction to us. In places like Nkhata Bay and Livingstone, we didn’t get a second glance since we were just another group of white people passing through. In Nkhotakota, we were stared at by several people and enough kids pointed at us that I’m pretty sure tourists are a rarity here.

We stayed at a place called Pick and Pay Lodge and Restaurant. Pick & Pay is the name of one of the supermarket chains that span across southern Africa. This is a little like calling your place the Safeway Select Motel. The rooms are… rustic. The rooms have a sort of perma-dirtiness and the mattresses need to be fumigated (by incineration). Still, a bed and a mosquito net are better than a tent since the camping area is in the parking lot and there’s high volume of trucker traffic that stays there.

Our options for eating were either the Pick and Pay Restaurant or the adjoining restaurant. We had dinner at Pick and Pay and wanted to try something new for breakfast. We sat down ready to try whatever the ‘Continental’ was and the waiter/chef/owner told us that he would be happy to make it and just wanted to know when we wanted to have it. Um… now, or in the next hour would be nice. That was a problem since he had to take our order and then go to town to buy the food, then cook it, then we could eat. So if we wanted to tell him when we wanted to eat, he’d be happy to go and get the food. We were touched, but (as politely as possible) we told him that we were leaving that morning and so kind of wanted to eat soon, like before twelve, so we went back to Pick and Pay. Breakfast was two fried eggs, toast, rice porridge and coffee. It was good, and didn’t involve waiting for someone to drive into town and buy the food.

Back out for more joys of hiking. We arrive at the bus stop to find a mostly full bus. Two guys rush us to say there’s room. The Pick and Pay manager (owner?) told us that the price should be 650 to Lilongwe. The bus initially says 750 and we say 600. They agree to 650 but when we get to the bus, there isn’t even room for just one person with a bag. That isn’t to say that all the seats are full and we’ll have to cram. No, that line was crossed long ago. There physically is not room for the three of us. Never the less, the driver tells me to sit on a seat (which has a kid on it) and then sit with my bag on my lap. The passengers start to make groaning sounds and I make it apparent that I agree with them. There is no way all of us will fit. We get out and go wait under a tree on the other side of the street. Sitting there, a kid about twelve years old starts asking us for money, then clothes, then shoes, then food. He’s selling frozen drink packets out of a cooler and I start getting irritated since ‘asking’ is more of demanding. He’s not even bothering with an attempt at looking sad and desperate and instead is just looking at us straight faced and saying, “Give me money.” I look him straight in the eye and say in my most stern teacher voice, “We will not give you anything. Stop talking.” And I stare him down until he looks away. I am a well-meaning volunteer in Africa… fear me.

After waiting about five minutes, a truck pulls up and one of the passengers comes over. We do our introductions in English and then he starts gesturing at the truck and speaking in Chichewa. Another man comes over and says that this one is insane and they want 600 for a ride to the Salima junction. The Salima junction is on the way, but still seventy kilometers from Lilongwe. We won’t pay more than 400. They blow us off and go back to the other side of the street. Five minutes later, another guy comes back and says we can go for 300. Wait, what? No, never mind. We’ll take it.

We don’t get any chickens on this ride either, but we do get six goats further down the road. At the Salima junction, we switched to another open truck and continue on to Lilongwe. This last ride is probably the smallest truck we’ve been in yet and so I’m sitting high up on our bags with most of my upper torso above the height of the cab. Since the truck is so small and we have it packed past capacity, it isn’t moving all that fast, which is good because the bugs in Malawi are big and hurt really bad when they hit you in the face.

When we get to Lilongwe, we use a map drawn by Dani to find the Peace Corps Transit House. In most other countries in southern Africa, Peace Corps has houses in hub towns where volunteers can stay for free while they are traveling. A splendid idea, especially with how dangerous it is to travel at night. Namibia, of course, has nothing like this so we stay at volunteers’ places when we travel, crashing on the floors of one bedroom apartments. Or, we get stuck and have to stay at B&Bs that have racist guard dogs… stupid Outjo. Anyway, we’re winding down a few side streets trying to find this PC House and find the corner where we think it should be. The only thing on the corner is a huge blue concrete wall ten feet high with spirals of razor wire and electrical fencing across the top. We bang on the fence and say we’re looking for the PC house. The guard has an American flag patch on his sleeve and there are signs saying that all volunteers must sign in. Must be the place.

The PC House has two wings, each with a sitting area and two bedrooms with six bunk beds in each of those. There is a kitchen, a couple porches, and enough spare mattresses and couches that the house could easily sleep twice this many. Everyone was extremely welcoming, and we quickly got into the socializing scene, being that it was New Year’s Eve and all. I think that pirated movie watching and Beer Pong are constants for Peace Corps world wide, though the Namibian Beer Pong table is probably the only one made out of a cell phone antenna.

We went out for Chinese food for dinner. I wanted to get the “Fried Crispy Pigeon” but that must be seasonal because they didn’t have it so I settled on some normal beef thing with steamed rice. After dinner, we go to a club for new years. The club is only three blocks away, but we have to take a cab because we are guaranteed to be mugged at this time of night. What is it with Peace Corps and renting buildings in dangerous parts of town? Rent must be too high in the safe areas. We dance the night away and into the morning. Two Malawi PCVs and I get a cab back to the PC house. Once there, Bethany realizes that she left her purse back at the club so we have to go back. I wait in the parking lot with the driver as a sort of deposit while she goes back inside to look for her bag. I don’t think the driver really understands my purpose there as he constantly complains that he is missing business standing there with me. I tell him to go, so he leaves his brother with me. Eventually, Bethany comes back outside saying she still hasn’t found it, but she did find some money in one of her pockets so she can pay the driver. We go back in to look one last time. Another ‘white privilege’: on our way in, we blow past the security guard and the guy taking the cover charge. I don’t think Bethany had her bag at all, but she is adamant that she never goes out without it. She goes to check the bathroom while I ask the two bartenders, who haven’t seen anything. With my mind on things getting stolen, I’m happy that I didn’t bring anything with me except my phone… which, check the pocket, is gone. It had been in my front pocket around midnight, but some time between then and now (it was probably two or three at that point) it got stolen. I’m upset for about ten seconds. Then I realize that it had a Malawian SIM card in it, so all my numbers are safely back at the house and the phone was a piece of junk anyway. I meet up with Bethany again and she has had no luck. I tell her about my phone, which was a mistake since it just got her more upset, which made me laugh more since I really didn’t care about the phone and I still didn’t think she brought the bag. We go back to the house and she checks her room. She comes back out saying that the bag was sitting on the bed. I’m sworn to secrecy, which is immediately made irrelevant as she goes out and tells everyone sitting outside. So now I might as well put it on the internet.

During the night, the pipe in the bathroom burst so the New Year started with two or three inches of standing water. This was all but cleaned up by mid-day and the rest of the day was spent watching movies and lazing about.

Next time: We make the mistake of trying to get to Lusaka in a day and how to cross a border with an expired visa (or maybe it was all a hallucination).