I wake at 8:30, feeling sore and groggy but intact. In no rush to carry on, I shower and wander around Old Town Lilongwe, looking at the markets and the busy streets.
I stop at an Internet café to gather details about the cities I will visit next, but find little information on western Tanzania. And I double check my flight: It’s definitely Sunday at 2:10 p.m. Then the power goes out. “We forgot to pay our bill,” says the woman in charge of the café.
I have a big lunch and buy some more provisions (mainly samosas), change some more money to avoid the near-debacle in Mozambique, and take a cab for $3 to the main road just outside of town, heading north. I sit under a tree, stepping out of the shade as cars approach to flag a ride. I’m surprised as nearly 40 cars pass before one pulls over. Jim is an accountant for a Malawian water company. He has a nice SUV, but he only takes me about 20 kilometers before he pulls off to attend a funeral. I’d need about 70 more Jims to make it to Dar.
Back on the side of the road, I snag another ride right away. This time, it’s a kindly, straightforward tobacco farmer who was forced off his farm in Zimbabwe in 2003 and had to start over in Malawi. He is returning from selling his crops in Lilongwe, and thinks he got a fair price. He doesn’t have kind words for the middlemen who buy his tobacco and then sell it to cigarette manufacturers. He says they do little but make a fortune, so his farm is trying to deal directly with the manufacturers to cut out the middleman. He tells me stories about the Rhodesian War and hitchhiking along the South African coast to surf with his friends.
We drive perhaps 80 kilometers until we reach his home. He says that if I can’t find a ride this evening -- it’s after 4:00 in the afternoon -- I can stay at his place tonight. Then he graciously drives me another few kilometers down the road so I can wait for a ride on the other side of town, a far better location to get a lift.
As the sun dips in the afternoon sky, I play my favorite side-of-the-road game. Set up a piece of litter on the opposite side of the road and try to hit it with pebbles. This time I prop up a corn cob. It’s not as intellectually challenging as, say, chess or bridge, but the beauty is that you don’t need to pack cards (and bridge partners) or a chessboard to play: Two things you’re guaranteed to find on most roadsides in southern Africa are litter and stones. (Here's the view from the road as I wait for a ride.)
After a while, a semi comes from town, turns at my junction, and stops to pick me up. The driver is heading near the Tanzania border -- yes! As I hop in, the first thing I notice is a big “I Love Jesus” bumper sticker on the dashboard. I settle into the front seat, greet the five or so passengers in the bottom bunk (without a mattress this time), and enjoy the Christian reggae pumping from the speakers.
This driver is good. His driving is precise and controlled, his gear shifting is crisp, and he seems honest and kind. He treats his passengers better than any other truck driver I’ve ridden with. And he’s the first one I’ve met who doesn’t have a “Cabbie!” -- a staff member to handle the manual labor and other small jobs that come with operating a truck. He handles those duties himself.
We pass through beautiful countryside as the sun sets. For the first time in recent memory, I pass a thick forest with picturesque rolling hills. The atmosphere in the truck is pleasant and easygoing, and all is well, I think to myself.
We forge ahead slowly, struggling up big hills at 10 kilometers per hour, carefully controlling our speed on the way down, and occasionally dodging abandoned trucks in the road. Mercifully, there are relatively few potholes. We pass Mazuza, the third of three cities in Malawi, which looks to be the smallest and most pleasant, based on my quick journeys through each.
Stopping at the side of the road, I meet a teacher from Johannesburg. He is making his way to the north of Malawi to visit his parents. He has many questions about America, and I’m excited to learn about life as a schoolteacher. As many others do, he gives me his cell phone number and takes my email address, telling me that if he gets an email address himself someday, he will definitely write. (The view from one of our stops.)
Around 9:00 or so, we stop at another depot so the driver can get something to eat. Before he does, he calls his wife to check in. I am flagging again, still tired from the last few days’ journey. I ask the driver if I can sleep in the top bunk while he eats, and he says sure. He turns on Malawian music and I am asleep within minutes.
When the driver returns, the teacher from Jo-burg is sitting in front and I am only too happy to continue sleeping. A few hours later, the driver pulls off the road and says that he is going to take a nap, and that I can stay right where I am. I would ordinarily protest or at least offer to sleep somewhere else, but I take him at his word, scoot over, and fall asleep again. After a short time, the driver wakes up from his catnap and starts off again. He takes another nap an hour or two later.
While it is still dark, the teacher reaches his destination and gets out. I hop back up front and watch the sunrise for the second morning in three. I learn that the driver is carrying lime to a new uranium mine -- Malawi’s second mine (the other is for coal). The mine employs many workers and has a constant stream of trucks bringing supplies, but it’s not producing quite yet. After a bit, it’s time to say goodbye. I pay $10 and start walking along the road in the early morning light.
Scores of people are walking along the road, possibly on their way to work at the mine. I sit down for a bit to watch them pass by, then flag down a hatchback to get my next lift. The driver is a policeman who works at the Malawi-Tanzania border: Perfect! I chat with the six men in the back two seats as we speed down the road, dropping off passengers and picking more up. I’m at the border before I know it.
The flock of money changers shouts at me: “Shillings for kwatcha! Change US dollars! There is no bureau here!” I cut through them, disbelieving their claim that I can’t change money eventually. Stamp the passport and I’m out of Malawi. Walk a bit to the Tanzanian post, avoid the $100 visa fee by getting a $30 transit visa, and I’m on Tanzanian soil in no time.
The money changers were right. There’s no official place to change money at this border post. I know what to do, though. I stop by a customs office and ask an employee if he can recommend a trustworthy person to change my kwacha. He heads off and returns with a young money changer. We sit in the customs office, off to the side, and I get a fair exchange.
Before heading on the next leg, I stop and have breakfast at a nice café near the border. I have a doughnut and my first ever chipati -- a delicious rolled-up flat circle of fried bread, somewhat like naan or a thick tortilla -- and tasty black tea, all for less than $2. All the tables are full with men talking and enjoying their breakfast. I sit in a corner of the café next to a giant incongruous poster of Britney Spears.
Time to forge ahead. I take my customary hike through the corridor of trucks waiting to cross into Malawi -- better to hitch from the end of the parked vehicles, so I can be sure the ride I get is actually departing. Along the way, several men in parked trucks tell me the same story: They are leaving right now and they will take me. One says the cost is 30,000 shillings. Not knowing whether that’s fair or whether he’s really about to depart, I tell him that if I see him when he’s actually driving off and if that’s really a fair price, I’ll gladly hop in.
I sit in the shade and talk with a few men lingering about. 30,000 -- somewhat less than $30 -- is indeed a fair price for a ride to Dar Es Salaam. It seems high to me, but we’re in a remote spot, and I calculate (wrongly, as it turns out) that the final trek will be about 700 km. One of the men is thrilled to learn that I’m from the States. “Eminem! Detroit!” This is the first non-Obama American cultural reference I’ve heard in ages.
The men help me flag down a truck. I hop in to greet my new driver, a young, fit Malawian in a red plaid shirt named Noel. One thing strikes me immediately when I get inside: air conditioning! The truck is nice, quite new, and it even has automatic transmission.
For over a hundred kilometers from the border to a town called Mbeya, the landscape is breathtaking. Gorgeous mountains covered in lush vegetation stretch into the distance. Huts sit on hillsides overrun with banana trees and greenery. Crops are everywhere, in fields large and small: Maize and tea predominate, but you can’t throw a groundnut without hitting some cultivated land. The soil here must be amazing. (Here's the road early on.)
For a few hours, we wind through the mountains, occasionally stopping so Noel can conduct mysterious business transactions. This is pure luxury: When we hit a bump, our individual seats glide gently up and down like we’re riding horses on a carousel. I actually yearn for the occasional pothole on this high-quality road. Around noon, we arrive in Mbeya, the last big town on my map before Dar Es Salaam. Noel suggests that I catch a bus here, but I’m pleased with our progress (we can ascend hills at 30 or even 40 km per hour) and opt to stay on. Noel obliges. We conduct one more odd transaction in the dusty parking lot of a petrol station, and we’re off again.
The landscape is varied and striking. We pass through more mountains, flat plains of scrub that remind me of the Kalahari, a thick forest, and a delta flooded with water. The only frustration is an endless succession of police checkpoints. At each one, Noel stops and answers a few questions, then hands over a 500-shilling note (less than 50 cents) before he’s allowed to proceed.
Along the way, we stop for lunch. I try to communicate with 4 or 5 kiosk owners, telling them I’ll take some food for the road. They only speak Swahili (a different version that what I’d heard in the southern Congo), and we completely fail to communicate. Noel steps in and helps me order a meal of grilled beef (I think) and fries (called chips) African-style: drenched in oil. Starving, I scarf it down. I’m full, but it takes my stomach a few hours to come to terms with what I’ve given it.
Around 4:00 in the afternoon, we hit a snag at our umpteenth police checkpoint. The officer approaches the truck and talks to Noel in Swahili; Noel responds in English. After a few questions, Noel tries to hand over the customary 500 shillings, but the officer brushes it off and continues to pepper Noel with questions. He asks for a driver’s license and other papers. He demands to see the truck’s first aid kit. He orders Noel out of the cab so they can inspect the truck’s fire extinguisher. I hear him ask Noel’s religion (Muslim). The officer seems displeased.
The officer takes Noel behind the truck for a few minutes. Eventually, Noel returns to the cab and says the policeman has found some flaw that supposedly requires immediate payment of a fine. It’s a pure shakedown -- this is the most modern and well equipped truck I have seen in all of southern Africa. As we endure the officer’s transparent efforts to extort money from Noel, at least a dozen old trucks in various states of disrepair pass unmolested through the checkpoint.
Noel tells me that he won’t pay any money. “You cannot ask a man to pay you after you torture him,” he says. The officer then begins to interrogate me. I steal a glance at Noel, who signals to me that I shouldn’t pay either. Eventually, the officer tells Noel that he needs to drive the truck down to the police station. I’m disgusted.
Noel has been looking in the side-view mirror. He suddenly sits up straight and says “Take this bus.” Reluctant to abandon Noel during this process, I hesitate, but he insists. I make him take 15 dollars. We grab my bag and tent and race back down the road to a shabby looking bus that’s covered with Chelsea soccer stickers and the word SABCO written across the windshield. Noel gets them to let me in. We shake hands and then hug -- I’m sad to leave him.
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