Livingstonia, Malawi - Day 216 - Boots on the Loose

Skipped the 6:30am, hotel-sponsered bus from Mbeya, made it to the bus station around 9am to fend for ourselves. Off around 10am; the Malawian border is around 100km from Mbeya. At a little shit-town around halfway named Nukuyu, forced to get out of our nice, bigger bus, we were absolutely crammed into a tiny, 30+ year old minivan bound for the border. Once the deathtrap hit around 110kph, the lady beside me couldn’t get the old window to close (it being so windy); as I reached across to try to help, her wig flew off her head, almost into Jen’s lap. We were all laughing so hard (including her), and it was one of those times where I couldn’t stop becuse the guy beside me wouldn’t stop.

Me, Jen and some Malawian guy got out somewhere (because we were told to), surrounded by money changers yammering at us; followed the other guy with no clue where we were. Out on the main road we were 2km away from the border; as Jen and I were illegally trading the remainder of our shillings on the black market, 2 cops stopped and offered us a ride. Sweet!! Border was a breeze, no visa fees for a change, our new Malawian friend (named Ryton… pronounced “Right On!”) helped us along the whole way. Called us a cab, and then turned out to be smuggling things across the border, and our presence in the cab helped him to do it. In fact, he soon got out and his things got moved into hiding in the trunk with only our bags visible (and only us in the car). Turned out to only be a couple small bags of fabric. Fine. The government steals enough, why can’t he I guess.

En route to Karonga, passed through 5 or 6 police checks (normal around borders) except this time they all talked to us. Some were SO funny – the last one was this really mean looking General guy (someone you’d see in Blood Diamond or something). Anyway, started talking to us in this really funny high-pitched voice, “So you come to visit Karonga…”. It was really strange, and relatively welcoming I guess.

First hotel we looked at was first in the book as well as recommended by the owners of the hotel in Mbeya. As we pulled in I thought we’d be staying in a prison that night; even I made the call to go to another (which turned out to be very nice, though $30 seemed awfully expensive considering Malawi is the 8th poorest country in the world). Walked to the bank to get some money which was really our only purpose for staying in Karonga; Malawi is said to be the “Warm Heart of Africa” and the way everyone smiled and waved at us on our walk, it definitely felt that way. Our hotel was right across the street from Lake Malawi; the lake is BIG, and at the time very windy and wavey (but apparently that will change as we get further south and into the drier season).

Next day was…. interesting: started out as good as they come, but ended terribly… in a weird way it’s good that our wonderful string of luck has finally come to an end for things could have been so much worse. Took a taxi to the almost brand-new museum in Karonga; just the right size for me – used to have dinosaurs in the area so the museum featured a Malwisaurus skeleton. Walked with our packs to the minibus station and before having to go in and deal with the usual chaos, got picked up by one outside and left right away. Perfect. Was likely the slowest, safest minibus we’ve been on this trip (rarely exceeding 70kph or so), we couldn’t stop commenting on how great it all was and surely something bad had to happen…

Reacting to a signal from a passing minibus, driver sped up to a more normal speed of around 100kph (presumably there was someone ahead to be picked up?), came around a corner to find a bycycle taxi ahead (with a passenger) right in the middle of the road (I think he was maybe making his way across the road… not too sure). reacting to our honking he tried to move back to the shoulder, our driver trying to cut around him… wham-o. I couldn’t believe we didn’t kill him. everyone in the minibus was fine, except the driver had some cuts on his arm from the broken mirror.

Everyone out of the bus, people come running from all around, the poor cyclist screaming, crawling off the road. It really was a miracle he was alive (we must have been going 60 or 70 when we hit him). I guess one pro was we got to see what happens in these scenarios (I always kinda wondered): obviously Malawi doesn’t have things like ambulances, so we back the minibus up to the cyclist (and passenger), pick him up and put him in the bus, and off we go to find something that resembles a hospital. Everyone remained very calm throughout the whole thing; the cyclist looked… okay… except his leg was clearly broken (I’ll spare the details), his hand was pretty mangled and bleeding a lot (he was bleeding all over for that matter), but remained conscious and relatively quiet the whole time. Not too far, came to some sort of health clinic, picked him up and carried him in (very painful to watch and listen to), presumably someone inside decided they were inadequate to help, so back in he came and off we went. Now I felt REALLY bad for him. After a good half hour more of driving, pulled off to another hospital and this time he got to stay. Thank God. It really was a terrible 30 minutes on that bus.

Made our way to the police station (nearby), a good 2 hours of sitting around waiting for it to get worked out, Jen and I eventually got asked to retell it, then came time to leave with a policeman driving the van, on their way back to the scene of the accident (interestingly they brought another undercover looking guy with an uzi around his shoulder… I guess in case there was trouble). Dropped Jen and I off at a nearby junction (in the middle of nowhere), cop told us to get in the back of a pickup (it was only another 20km or so to Chitimba), another 15 people piled in the back with us and off we went. Man could things have been worse, for both him, and us in the minibus. I was very impressed with how the police handled it, as well as everyone else. I just hope the hospital we left him at was enough; at home you just have certain assumptions but over here, you really never know…

Campsite at Chitimba was decent enough; had a fairly quiet evening thinking about the day’s sobering events. Next day wandered into town (1 km down the road) to find… not much. Really not much. Post office, hospital, school and a handful of stores. This might be the first time on the trip where there was no Internet access. Armed with a group of kids the whole walk to town and back, it feels like this might be the way it will be for the rest of Malawi. On one hand it’s nice because you can talk about whatever you want to know but sometimes it’s nice to be on your own as well. Jen is telling me she’s bored because there’s nothing really to do here, but I think truthfully she just doesn’t like how windy it is. Ended up not feeling well during that afternoon then becoming ill very shortly after dinner. First time on the continent for either Jen or myself – this with the previous day’s events giving Malawi a bad rap early on. But alas, felt well enough the next morning and decided to make the trek up to the “Mushroom Farm”, around 10km, or 2/3’s the way to Livingstonia.

There’s a 15km, 20+ hairpin turn road up to Livingstonia that literally 5 or less vehicles per day go up (no cabs or minibuses… apparently at 1:30 an ambulance goes up that will take you for $5… if there’s no patient that is). But the ambulance seemed unlikely so we hired a local kid, Wisdom to take us up the shortcut route. …are we ever glad we did. The cabin we’re staying in is built right on the edge of a massive valley with a patio hanging precariously over a cliff. We wake up to one of the best views we’ve experienced on the trip. Truely spectacular.

Next day we did the remaining 5km up to Livingstonia in maybe 1.5 hours? I honestly don’t understand why more vehicles don’t come up; it is steep and windy but the road isn’t that bad. A ways up you take a completely unmarked, random left turn… luckily some kid was passing by to let us know. Finally at the edge of town, arrived to a school bell going off; this always makes me cringe because as much as I enjoy interacting with the locals, it means hundreds of kids are about to come out, spot us, then it’s, “Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu… give me pen, give me money, give me bottle, give me candy…” and before you know it we have 15 random kids following us. The demanding stuff is aggravating – in many places tourism sure has created a population of monsters.

The town was… quiet, but really quite nice. It had the feel of a university campus: very clean, lots of trees and school buildings all over. It was built as a missionary post in the 1890’s by a Scotsman, Dr. Robert Laws to commemorate David Livinstone’s work in the area (Livingstone had died in 1873). Wandered past the hospital (apparently used to be the largest hospital in Central Africa), the clock tower, the church; standing there watching the secondary school when before we knew it we had 20 or 30 15 year old school girls wanting to be penpals. Penpals!! When was the last time you heard that? Doesn’t seem like the Internet has really hit these parts yet. When asked if I could take their picture, one girl said, “That’s why we came over!”. They wanted us to have lunch in their cafeteria with them but we declined and took a tour of the school instead. Was all very cute.

Headed to the Stone House for tea which was where Dr. Laws lived for 25 years, hit the museum in the back, but could only see half since the local ministers were using the other half for an HIV/AIDS conference (would be interesting to hear). Couldn’t help but to snicker when reading about how “difficult it was to convert the Africans to Christianity” back in the 1800’s. Funny that that was the main reason for Livingstone being here; he was also here to try to stop the slave trade… a reason I think I like a lot better…