With a long day ahead we had breakfast at the ‘restaurant’ at Cool Runnings. The wind had blown throughout the night and the waves were pretty big, apparently they can get up to 10 or 12 feet high and are good for surfing, with no current.
We had chatted to Sam about our fuel crisis and she put the word out, in the hopes of us buying some diesel on the black market – this would have cost us about R27 a litre. She also hoped that the garages in town might get some during the night, as she also desperately needed fuel for her car and tractor. If they did, they would phone her and she would wake us up to follow her into town to fill up. By 9:00 the next morning there was no phone call and no black market diesel, so we decided to leave Malawi and head to the closest border post in Zambia.
Along the main route to Lilongwe we passed all these little kids on their way to school, walking along the main road. Our 3 kids are totally fascinated by this and commented on the world of difference from their own experience, of being fetched and carried all over in ‘mom’s 4x4’.
The other fascination is people standing on the side of the road with whole braaied mice skewered through sticks – Gray nicknamed them rat-o-saties. Gareth was keen for us to stop so he could try one; he is a bottomless pit and will eat anything.
We arrived in Lilongwe only to discover that not one, of their many fuel stations, had any petrol or diesel. Cars and trucks just line up outside fuel stations and park there in the hope fuel will arrive. I guess when your vehicle is empty, there is not much else you can do. They are also talking about power cuts from 4am to 10pm each day, starting in August. This is all a big worry.
Lilongwe is a modern city centre and we had a choice of shopping at Shoprite or Spar for groceries. We when headed off to Game, to buy a screen for my laptop. There are many South African branded shops and restaurants around town.
With 160km to go from Lilongwe to the border, we were back in reserve. Being eternal optimists, we concentrated on the scenery instead of the fuel gauge, which was changing from green to the reds, oranges and yellows of autumn.
We made it to the border post at Machinji and it was again a very painless crossing – much easier than our first entry into Zambia, at the cockroach infested caravans at Katima Malilo. They accepted all our papers confirming we had paid road tax etc. from our first entry. Fortunately, they never checked that Gray and I had not been stamped out after our first visit because – well, there was no office at the obscure border post in the middle of nowhere when we crossed into Northern Malawi.
Our first port of call was the garage in Chipata, where we filled up. We had travelled from Songwe to Chipata, with a fully laden car and trailer, along mountain passes and not filled up once in Malawi.
Our destination for the night was Mama Rula’s in Chipata. The sign outside says ‘for overnight stay only!!’ - a completely unnecessary statement, as no one in their right minds would stay there for more than a night. It is a forgettable place for overlanders and clearly our favourites, the Free State Caravaners/Campers who have now decided to venture up north. In the camp site next to us we were entranced, this lager of Free State Voortrekkers arrived; the wives set up and chairs and tables and made coffee for the men. They then dusted down the 4x4’s with those ostrich feather type feather dusters and then they set up the tents and repacked the cars. By now it was beer time, for the men, who continued to sit on their fat arses while the women cooked. Needless to say, Gray was impressed and decided this is how things should run in our camp – yeh right.
No comments:
Post a Comment