The Eastcott Family Blog: Getting to Lilongwe

So God decided to throw us a curveball and show us how mentally tough we are with withstand the forces of Africa. A few days ago we stayed at a hostel in Mzuzu, called Mzoozoozoo, which is run by a couple of old British hippies, and they explained to us that there is a petrol shortage in Malawi at the moment, and we didn't think much of it until our adventure.

After a great few days in Nkhata Bay relaxing, shopping (we got the most amazing deals ever!) and hanging out we decided we would head on to Lilongwe for a few days before going on to Lusaka. Waking up at 5:30am isn't a hard task when you have a bus to catch at 6 which would take us from Nkhata Bay direct to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The touts at the bus stop told us that the buses wouldn't be running because there is no petrol for them. Us being the synical people we are thought "yeah right, you're only saying that because you run a taxi to the next town over". We told them we will would wait for the bus. 7:30am rolls around and we start thinking there was some truth to what they were saying and the bus wouldn't be coming. We caved in and forked out the 500 kwacha ($3.50-ish) each to catch a taxi to the nearest "big" city, Mzuzu, which is an hour away. Arriving at the Mzuzu bus stop we went into the office of the non-existent bus (AXA) to find out if they were operating buses. There was no one in the office and we found out later that day that all AXA buses weren't running because they were unable to get petrol (considering they are a "reputable" company, they don't get petrol on the black market - which does exist).

We thought ourselves to be lucky to make the decision to leave Nkhata Bay and not wait for the bus which would have never shown up regardless of how long we waited. At the Mzuzu bus station we walked around to find the buses which ran to Lilongwe. We found 2 of them which were packed to the rafters and charging us a Mzungu (white person) fee. The buses should have cost us somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000-1,200 kwatcha and we were told to pay 2,000. Admittedly it's only an extra $6-7, but we were kind of pissed because we heard them tell someone else to pay 1,000 right after they told us 2,000. After refusing to pay the Mzungu fee we waited for the next bus whenever that would be. Earlier in the day we spoke to a peace corps volunteer who said hitchhiking was easy, fast, safe and cheap in Malawi, so we thought we would give that a stab after both the buses left. We walked to the hitchhiking stand just outside of the main city and sat on the side of their highway, the M1, which has 1 lane going each way. After sitting there for 30 mins with no luck, we went back to the bus stop to find out when the next bus would be there. We were told 4pm (this is at 10:30am), not to mention it takes 6-7 hours to get to Lilongwe (which can turn into 10 hours very easily). We spotted another Mzungu sitting down at a restaurant and wanted to find out where she was going. Dave went up and asked where she was going. She too was going to Lilongwe and she had a plane to catch the next day back to London. We asked if we could sit with her to make time go by faster, and maybe we could hire a private taxi to take us direct. No problems :-) We brought our bags over and were properly introduced with Nina, this lovely girl from Switzerland who was working for a charity-ish organization called "Microloan". We didn't HAVE to go to Lilongwe that day, however Nina did so we thought it would be best to stick together. Dave later inquired how much a private taxi to Lilongwe would cost, the first person told us 30,000 kwatcha! (approx $200), no way. We all understood there is a fuel shortage and Lilongwe is about 400kms away, but we're not idiots. After 30 seconds of haggling, Dave got them down to 20,000 kwatcha (about $130), and they weren't budging from that. We decided as a group that 20,000 was too much and we agreed it would be best to wait a little longer for the next bus. As we were siting down having a coke Nina spotted 2 British chicks, Poppy and Tilly (yes, those are their names). We now had a band of 5 of us and the option to catch a taxi was starting to look somewhat more appealing (4,000 pp).

After hanging out and catching up over some more cokes, we saw a mini-bus going to Kasungu (about 90-120 minutes out of Lilongwe). Nina went down to talk to them and got them down to 1,500 per person. We thought we were lucky to get so close to Lilongwe without having to pay through the nose and next thing we know the five of us (along with 8-9 locals) were packed into this mini-bus on our way to Kasungu. We stopped first for some air in the tires and then a few minutes later stopped at a petrol station for some gas. We hesitantly handed over our money to the bus driver to pay for the gas, but the locals were doing it, so we didn't want to cause a fuss. We somehow got petrol and were on our way once again. 30 minutes later and 10kms out of Mzuzu, the underside of the mini-bus started to make some very harsh crunching sounds, as we were going up a hill and 30 seconds later there was smoke coming from the engine. All the locals jumped off the bus right away and 5 of us were right behind them. Dave said he had never seen Africans move so fast in his life (even at the Olympics).

So we (the 5 of us) are now 10kms out of Mzuzu, stuck on the side of the road with a smoky van and 8-9 locals. We soon found out that Poppy and Tilly can be extremely feisty when things turn to shit. They "asked" the bus driver what was happening and how long we would have to wait and he said "30 minutes" with a cheeky grin. He told them he had already called someone to come get us and a new bus would be there soon. Stranded on the side of the road, with all of our bags under the melting African sun, at 1pm, we patiently waited the 30 minutes for the bus to come get us. Nothing. Poppy and Tilly went back over to ask the bus driver when the bus was coming. "20 minutes". We now knew nothing was planned and it was his way to purely avoid the current situation. Lece, Nina and Dave sat on the side of the road trying to wave down every car passing as Poppy and Tilly went back over to "discuss" the money situation. We had already handed over our 1,500 kwatcha and we are now 10kms out of Mzuzu. They were able to get us 1,300 kwatcha back as insurance in case we were able to get in a passing car (or give them the money back should their imaginary friend with his imaginary bus turn up). Now there are 5 of us sitting on the side of the road waving our arms like a pack of galahs trying to get any vehicle to stop, being unsuccessful about 95% of the time. The other 5% are people pulling over with full vehicles, or people yelling "MZUNGU!!!, MZUNGU!!!"

We had a few options up our sleeve.

1) We could continue to try and make it to Kasungu (and maybe eventually Lilongwe).

2) We could go back to Mzuzu and get accommodation and try again tomorrow.

3) We could go back to Mzuzu and try and get the 20,000 kwatcha taxi direct to Lilongwe.

The two of us (and Poppy and Tilly) were fortunate enough to have those options, Nina with her flight tomorrow didn't. She had to be in Lilongwe tomorrow morning. For her sake we ruled out option #2 and started to think option #3 is starting to look better. Nina said she would be willing to pay the entire 20,000 kwatcha and we offered to help subsidize it. The 5 of us gave ourselves a deadline of 3:15pm before we would make a decision and do something as we knew it would be dark in not too long. Poppy and Tilly had the name of a cabbie they took in Mzuzu named "Wingame" (who is now known as Willliam), who would be able to pick us up and bring us back to Mzuzu for 2,000.

3:30 rolled around and we were just about to take the expensive option of having to pay $150 to get to Lilongwe when a miracle happened.

Pulling over to the side of the road were 2 well educated, well nourished, well dressed (one in a suit) men, driving an empty Nissan Patrol. Nina, Lece and Dave ran up the hill to the pulled over vehicle to see where they were going and how much it would cost. Nina offered 20,000 kwatcha to which the man responded "No thank you, I want to help, we are going to Lilongwe". We didn't know if he was serious or playing a very horrible joke. He loaded us 5 Mzungus and the 2 local women with their children in the vehicle and started to drive. The two of us sat with Tilly in the middle row with our backpacks on our lap, with one of the local children sleeping on Lece and Tilly. Poppy and Nina were in the back with the other 2 local women and a shitload of bags and a basket of fish (which stunk horribly as they too sat in the sun stranded on the side of the road). 30 minutes later we dropped off the local women and their child and continued our way to Lilongwe still dumbfounded as to how fortunate we were and still couldn't believe it. Another thing we found interesting was that we were never stopped or inspected by the police at any of the roadblocks. We thought they must have been somekind of governemnt officials (or one was with his driver).

The drive to Lilongwe was smooth and hassle free, we did have to slow down to a stop when we saw about a kilometer of cars backed up on the side of the road as they were all in a queue trying to get petrol. An hour after that we stopped at a BP just short of Lilongwe to get some petrol (apparently the Malawian Government sets aside a reserve at petrol stations), however they too were out of gas. We were able to stretch our legs and have a good chat with the civil servant. He was an awesome bloke who genuniely wanted to give us a hand. We found out he drove to Mzuzu that morning to oversee some preperations for celebrations on the 6th of July, and he was just going home (and he would make the same trip next week). We also found out that he only picked us up to help because we were all waving our hands and running to his car and he could tell we really needed the ride (thank goodness we were on the state of desperate)!

We crammed back into the 4x4 and were on our way for the last of the trip. We couldn't believe when we saw street lights on the side of the road, we knew at least we have reached civilization. The civil servant wanted to stop in Lilongwe for something at the grocery store and we were more than happy to stop about 1km away from where we were all going to sleep that night. We pulled into Old Town's Metro Cash and Carry to get his things at 8pm, only to have the government vehicle unable to start when we tried to leave a few minutes later. After looking at the engine and making some phone calls he came back and said "25 minutes", but we would thought it would have been rude (excessivley rude) to catch a taxi or walk to the hostel after he just gave us a free ride. So we graciously waited in the vehicle and spoke amongst ourselves and to the goverment official for the next 25 minutes (which turned into an hour and a half), to find a wire coat hanger to re-connect the battery. After finding the hanger, connecting the wire and starting the car while it was rolling we were all celebrating the success of the engine starting. The civil servent then told one of us to get in the front as he was going home in the different car and the driver would take us to Mabuya Camp. After 'goodbyes' and 'thank yous' we were back on the road for the last kilometer of our journey. We pulled into Mabuya Camp around 10pm and still couldn't believe we had actually made it. We checked into our rooms/tents, got a banana each, got some drinks and hung for a little bit. Shortly after that we said our good nights and all went to bed after a long, eventful, amazing, crazy day.