I found Lilongwe to be a scary and rather strange place. Malawi people are said to be some of the friendliest but to be honest, my experiences didn’t back up what we’d heard. I acknowledge that at times it doesn’t help to be in a group, travelling in a big yellow truck (quite why yellow I’ll never know – we were taken over by a swarm of bees when we stopped for lunch the other day!) but in some of these towns, we are the only westerners around and even if you were travelling on your own, I’m sure that the locals would lump you in with any truck folk that were around regardless of whether you were with them or not. I was verbally assaulted by a chap outside a supermarket and it scared me enough to not want to go anywhere alone in our two days in Lilongwe. It came right out of the blue so took me by complete surprise and I was left absolutely speechless before turning and walking away. From what I can gather, it was an isolated incident but.....!
Lilongwe has no streetlights so at night you can be driving and not even realise that you’re in a city unless there is moonlight. Its quite unnerving to see a dim light off the road and realise that you’re actually driving through the main street and the light you’ve seen might be from a digital clock or drink fridge. The markets in Lilongwe are sprawling and we are definitely a minority in many of these sorts of places.
The markets spread on either sides of a stream that runs through Lilongwe town and there are makeshift bridges that can be crossed for a small toll.
The camp site we stayed at is owned by a young English couple who have been there 18 months and, by all accounts, have really improved the place. It was one of the nicer camp sites we’d stayed in albeit not in the most desirable locations. I think most of the overland trucks come through Lilongwe and there were quite a few individual 4WDs and one truck that were there the same time as us. We met an English couple who were based in Dar es Salam and were travelling back from Cape Town with their house substitute – a truck that had been converted into an overland vehicle.
This truck would be their home for the next 10 years as they travelled the world. They were hugely inspiring to talk to and had a great attitude – they had two toddlers and it can’t be easy travelling like that with wee kids. It was a cold cold day and the pool (this was one of the improvements made to the camp and no doubt well used in the summer) was freezing. The guys jumped in and lasted only a few minutes but this couples two year old daughter insisted on bobbing round in there for ages and refused to come out. Every time they asked if she was cold there was a resounding “NO” and it wasn’t until her lips went blue that they pulled her out. When they did pull her from the water (she was still protesting vigorously), her knees were knocking together but still she wanted to go back in. A tough nut. They were moving to Ethiopia for a year in the next few months. The truck slept six, had a 600 litre water tank, a 500 litre petrol tank, had hydraulic lift on the back for a dirt bike, pushbikes, charcoal and spares – they reckoned they could go for two weeks without refuelling or refilling with water. Very admirable and it got me thinking….
I wasn’t sorry to leave Lilongwe the next day and we crossed the border into Zambia. The Brits got stung on the visas (US$150 each!) but us Antipodeans (there are five of us – two more kiwi girls and two Aussie guys) got let off lightly with US$50 much to the disgust of the English on the truck (there are a fair few!). We’d picked up three more people in Lilongwe and one of them was welcomed to life on the truck when we went over a few huge bumps and someone from the other side of the truck bounced up high once, came down to hit the seat then was bounced again as the truck went sideways into a hole and this chap was thrown forward so violently that he head butted the new guy on the other side of the truck and broke his sunnies. The problem was the guys who went flying had his legs wrapped in a blanket so he couldn’t get them apart to steady himself. It was pure quality to watch and I was in tears with laughter a few seats down.
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