Saturday, November 14th - Blantyre to Lilongwe, Malawi

We were awake early at our little apartment.  Lynn went for her morning run and I relaxed and did some blogging and finances.  The apartment faces east so it was really hot on that side of the apartment so we couldn't enjoy too much fresh air until the sun rose a bit higher in the sky.  We had had some laundry done at Annie's so we now got to repack clean clothes which was a lovely thing.  Lynn repacked her clothes so her winter stuff is all in one suitcase and she doesn't have to keep taking it in every night.  I'm glad I left a lot of my stuff in Ethiopia to picked up when I get back there.

We had a quick breakfast at the apartment.  I found some crackers from the last airline flight and Lynn had bought some peanut butter sp tjat was actia;;u a treat for us.  Then we had a mango and some banana and a pineapple to complete the meal.  The pineapple was definitely not as sweet as the one we had in the restaurant at the lodge on the mountain side.  That was probably the sweetest pineapple I have ever tasted so we were really looking forward to this Malawian pineapple but ended up a bit disappointed.  The bananas were small ones but very nice.  The mango was huge and green and what they call an avocado pear, which I find very confusing but it is green and shaped like a pear and it does look like the really big avocados you can get in Florida so the name did make sense in some ways.  It seemed totally hard on the outside so we weren't sure it was ripe but indeed it was and it was delicious - much easier to cut and eat than the little magos that we've been devouring about three at a time each meal.

The shuttle bus came about 9:30 and we went downtown to print some more workbooks for next week's presentations.  Then we went to the original Annie's Lodge (where we were supposed to be staying) to have our free breakfast.  We lingered in the restaurant for a while watching TV.  That was the morning after the attacks in Paris so this was the first we were hearing of them.  Eventually we moved out into the garden and sat around a table with an umbrella for shade and did some more computer work.  We were to be picked up at 1:00 p.m. so we only had a couple of hours to kills and it was a pretty nice place to do so.  

Our ride didn't arrive until 2:00 but we were all ready to go so we were very quickly on our way to Lilongwe, which we had been told was a 4.5 hour drive allowing for a .5 break at the half-way point.  Lynn and I had already said we did not enjoy the night driving so we definitely wanted to avoid that so we were cutting it close.  In fact we didn't get to Lilongwe until about 7:30 p.m. and we had no half hour stop.  We did stop a couple of times for cold water and snacks because we were so hot but all the stops were pretty quick.  I guess Aaron just doesn't drive as fast as we had an hour of dusk and an hour of night time driving.

Once again we were impressed with the roads.  They are well made and very smooth to ride on.  Very seldom do you hit a bump or hole, unlike other countries in Africa.  There was not a lot of traffic so it was a very enjoyable trip - at least for the first part of it.  We went through many small towns and villages all full of people going about their weekend business.  There were piles of mangos all along the side of the road at the beginning.  Later on, closer to Mozambique there were potatoes and after that there were onions and tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables. 

For one stretch of about 80 kilometers, the highway is the border between Malawi and Mozambique.   Technically as we drove north to Lilongwe, Malawi was on our right and Mozambique on our left.  However, the people from both countries are mixed up on both sides.  During the war in Mozambique millions of refugees crossed into Malawi and many of them stayed.  On the Mozambique side, no one is farming the land right around the border so the Malawians do it.  So this stretch of road is sort of a mix of both countries although there are official border crossings on the Mozambique side.  It seems to work but I get the feeling that the Malawians blame the other folks for a lot of their problems and I"m sure that thought goes the other way as well.  

Driving at night is such a challenge.  There are always people walking on both sides of the road.  Then there are bicycles which are carrying people or other loads - sometimes very long or wide loads - to contend with.  And of course you have the animals as well.  At dusk they are heading back home and if they decide to cross the road they don't' exactly look both ways before doing so.  They just go.  Then you also have to factor in the other drivers and sometimes they are worse than anything.  Lynn and  I definitely would have preferred travelling during daylight to avoid all of this at night.  Besdies, we don't get to see the sights along the way and we are tourists!

We ate our lunch as we went along.  Since breakfast was so late we really didn't need much so a few cookies, some pop and water seemed to work fine.  However, once we got to Lilongwe we went to a little strip mall and had a great dinner outside at a chicken place and it was much appreciated by all of us.  The pizza place right beside it also looked like it would have been a good choice.

We drove through parts of Lilongwe but really didn't get to see much because it was so late and so dark.  A part of the city was also without power so that didn't help things at all.  It's a good thing we have time for a bit of a tour tomorrow before we continue on our journey.

We had to go slightly out of town for the lodge we are staying at.  Once there it took a while to find a suitable room because Lynn and I were holding out for rooms with toilet seats, which obviously aren't a common thing.  Many of the hotels are run by males and I just don't think they see such things as important.  Eventually we did settle on a couple of small, hot rooms.  My fan worked well though and it was quiet so that was good.  We went to the patio bar for a cold drink and to check the internet, which didn't work,, so just visited for a while.  Then we went to our individual beds to hopefully get a good night's sleep.  I didn't do too bad but it was a restless sleep to say the least.

One thing I haven't been able to work into a regular conversation is nsima.  While we eat rice or chips, the regulars order nsima.  It is made with white corn flour and water.  We watched it being made at Aaron's house over an open fire.  They keep adding flour as they stir and eventually it looks like very thick mashed potatoes.  The locals take some of this with their fingers and then use it to pick up their meat and vegetables.  It's not a bad taste but it's not something I would order for a meal.  They eat a lot of it - usually well over half their plate is full of it.  In Kenya they had a similar fod but it was made from the cassava root, not corn.