The alarm went off at 3.20am & though we were both reluctant to leave our warm sleeping bags, we didn't feel terrible from the small sleep. It was a great sleep with no interruptions! Today we cross out of Tanzania & into country number 3 Malawi!
We have a total distance of 500 kilometers to travel today. Hopefully today we won't be harrassed by police & can make good time at the border. We've been warned the border crossing can take up to 4 hours for 20 people & the truck, just because of paperwork & their inefficient system. Malawi recently had elections & have decided that our tourist visa's now cost us $75 US to get in, when it use to be free.
I can't begrudge this as we drive through Africa & see how the people live. Malawi is a very poor country. I just hope the money goes into the community & not into the personal pockets of the government. While driving through the last bit of Tanzania we see lots of farming villages & crops of tea, potatoes, onions, corn, sun flowers, cabbages & tomatoes. There is no denying Tanzania is very fertile.
We finally get to the border at 1pm with no harassment from the police. Tom & I both feel frayed, grumpy & restless from the 2 days of long haul travel & after the disjointed sleep in the truck & our tent. Getting stamped out of Tanzania was easy enough, though it took a long time & everyone had to hand write their details in a log book as opposed to scanning our passports. Obtaining the Visa into Malawi was very slow. After we all handed in the 2 pieces of paperwork & our passports, we stood & waited for an hour while they processed our paperwork & hand wrote on our Visa stickers. Finally we were done!
After crossing the border we gained 1 hour & learnt that we only had another 2 hours of driving left. The Malawi roads are in very bad condition & littered with pot holes. We immediately noticed the change in people's clothes now we are no longer in a Muslim country, with 80% of the population of Milawi, Christian. We also noticed the peoples demeanour was brighter & happier, despite the obvious poverty.
Malawi is known as the warm heart of Africa. Everyone was smiling & waving. We started to notice the tell tale signs of chronic malnutrition, a lot of the children were scrawny except for a giant pot belly. Malnutrition is a very big problem in Malawi. While on the bus after crossing the Milawi border we were given a unique opportunity to ask our guide any questions we wanted. He is from Kenya & most of his answers were based on Kenya. He explained the pay rate of the average citizen as well as the crazy high pay rates for the members of government, police & university lecturers. He explained about the corruption preventing progression. The various religions, traditions & curses that are consequences for breaking any of the traditions or religions. The most obvious example of the extreme lack of progression is the treatment of gay's through most countries of Africa. To this day gays are still discriminated against & hunted out by the community. Most of them who are identified as being gay will be hunted out by the community they live in & will be burnt alive inside their own houses. This thought deeply horrified me.
We arrived at the camp site around 5pm & were thrilled to see more great campsite facilities. We are camping right next to lake Malawi at a place called Chitumba. Lake Milawi is huge & takes up 20% of the country. After we set up the tent we went to the markets outside the campsite grounds. We were immediately approached by a local wood carver who showed us some bottle openers that he could do with our names engraved on one side & an elephant or giraffe on the other side. They were made from very nice wood that felt heavy & after being polished & varnished looked really nice. His asking price was in the local currency, Malawi Kwacha, and sounded very expensive. What he asked for was more than we had & we knew more than $20 US, which is all we had changed into local currency. We would later convert the currencies & work out he was asking for $40 US per bottle opener.
Our final price was $25 US for 2, still quite expensive but we were at a disadvantage for not knowing the local prices & the conversion rates while bartering. We later worked it out & knew we had been ripped off. Unfortunately this caused an argument between Tom & I, one of very few we have had while travelling. We shouldn't have gone to the markets without knowing the conversion rates & we shouldn't have started bartering. The problem is we are both suckers & people can tell how badly we want to help them & that we feel sorry for them. This is obvious by the way they treat us in comparison to a lot of other tourists, who obviously dont give a shit.
It was resolved later that night & we agreed to think of it as a charitable donation. The rest of the day passed by like the others. It was good to be out of the truck to see the sun set & walk around before dinner.
- Alli
We have a total distance of 500 kilometers to travel today. Hopefully today we won't be harrassed by police & can make good time at the border. We've been warned the border crossing can take up to 4 hours for 20 people & the truck, just because of paperwork & their inefficient system. Malawi recently had elections & have decided that our tourist visa's now cost us $75 US to get in, when it use to be free.
I can't begrudge this as we drive through Africa & see how the people live. Malawi is a very poor country. I just hope the money goes into the community & not into the personal pockets of the government. While driving through the last bit of Tanzania we see lots of farming villages & crops of tea, potatoes, onions, corn, sun flowers, cabbages & tomatoes. There is no denying Tanzania is very fertile.
We finally get to the border at 1pm with no harassment from the police. Tom & I both feel frayed, grumpy & restless from the 2 days of long haul travel & after the disjointed sleep in the truck & our tent. Getting stamped out of Tanzania was easy enough, though it took a long time & everyone had to hand write their details in a log book as opposed to scanning our passports. Obtaining the Visa into Malawi was very slow. After we all handed in the 2 pieces of paperwork & our passports, we stood & waited for an hour while they processed our paperwork & hand wrote on our Visa stickers. Finally we were done!
After crossing the border we gained 1 hour & learnt that we only had another 2 hours of driving left. The Malawi roads are in very bad condition & littered with pot holes. We immediately noticed the change in people's clothes now we are no longer in a Muslim country, with 80% of the population of Milawi, Christian. We also noticed the peoples demeanour was brighter & happier, despite the obvious poverty.
Malawi is known as the warm heart of Africa. Everyone was smiling & waving. We started to notice the tell tale signs of chronic malnutrition, a lot of the children were scrawny except for a giant pot belly. Malnutrition is a very big problem in Malawi. While on the bus after crossing the Milawi border we were given a unique opportunity to ask our guide any questions we wanted. He is from Kenya & most of his answers were based on Kenya. He explained the pay rate of the average citizen as well as the crazy high pay rates for the members of government, police & university lecturers. He explained about the corruption preventing progression. The various religions, traditions & curses that are consequences for breaking any of the traditions or religions. The most obvious example of the extreme lack of progression is the treatment of gay's through most countries of Africa. To this day gays are still discriminated against & hunted out by the community. Most of them who are identified as being gay will be hunted out by the community they live in & will be burnt alive inside their own houses. This thought deeply horrified me.
We arrived at the camp site around 5pm & were thrilled to see more great campsite facilities. We are camping right next to lake Malawi at a place called Chitumba. Lake Milawi is huge & takes up 20% of the country. After we set up the tent we went to the markets outside the campsite grounds. We were immediately approached by a local wood carver who showed us some bottle openers that he could do with our names engraved on one side & an elephant or giraffe on the other side. They were made from very nice wood that felt heavy & after being polished & varnished looked really nice. His asking price was in the local currency, Malawi Kwacha, and sounded very expensive. What he asked for was more than we had & we knew more than $20 US, which is all we had changed into local currency. We would later convert the currencies & work out he was asking for $40 US per bottle opener.
Our final price was $25 US for 2, still quite expensive but we were at a disadvantage for not knowing the local prices & the conversion rates while bartering. We later worked it out & knew we had been ripped off. Unfortunately this caused an argument between Tom & I, one of very few we have had while travelling. We shouldn't have gone to the markets without knowing the conversion rates & we shouldn't have started bartering. The problem is we are both suckers & people can tell how badly we want to help them & that we feel sorry for them. This is obvious by the way they treat us in comparison to a lot of other tourists, who obviously dont give a shit.
It was resolved later that night & we agreed to think of it as a charitable donation. The rest of the day passed by like the others. It was good to be out of the truck to see the sun set & walk around before dinner.
- Alli
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