A stopover in Lilongwe
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Lilongwe,
Malawi
Thursday, August 28, 2008
So, due to the fact that we'd just spent a week on the lake, transport to Senga Bay was challenging, and we'd like to get a move on, we went straight from our stop at Chipoka to Lilongwe, via Salima. The day was less than interesting, and the next day didn't get a lot moreso.
The man who owned the hotel we stayed in in Chipoka offered us a lift to Salima because he was already on his way there, and from there we hopped right on a bus to Lilongwe. After several hours of a rather more comfortable than usual African bus (but only rather, so don't get excited), we arrived in Lilongwe, the peculiar capital of Malawi.
It is inadvisible to walk about the area of the bus station while clueless, so we got a taxi to our hotel of choice. Naturally this hotel had tripled in price since our guidebook had visited (although, honestly I've got serious doubts as to whether or not the Lonely Planet writers actually went back and re-visited any of the places in Africa at all, considering the wild inacuracy of the entire guide on just about every subject, so be aware). We moved on. Our circular meanderings brought us to St. Peter's, an Anglican church with attached guest house. I was happy to have a cheap room close to the center of our wanderings (our last option was another kilometer away - not bad, but not great). Travis declared it a dump. It wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't that bad. I think he was a bit grumpy. No electricity might have gotten to him, as well. So we stayed at a church.
Possibly the greatest shock to our Western, megalopolis minds was that this capital city had dirt roads. Most of the roads were dirt, and the paved ones weren't terribly wide. What kind of capital was this? We made our way into the center of Area 4, where we used internet that was nonfunctional (they did warn us in advance that they were having issues) and this made Travis almost unbearably cranky, particularly because he lost the letter he'd spent an hour writing to his mother for her birthday (whoops). We got meat pies for dinner to make us feel better. Meat pies at Shoprite are one of the most excellent discoveries ever.
The next day we went to the post office, where I unwittingly abandoned Travis to talk to the post master because apparently no one sends anything in boxes, and the lady at the counter thought I wanted a PO box. Eventually we managed to spend $50 to send our package, and Malawian postage is supposed to be disgustingly cheap, so you've been warned. It was less than 5 kilos in all. Ack. Travis once again became a grumpy gus. Apparently Lilongwe wasn't his place. We decided to make for the border.
The border was much better.
Erin
