on our way

Friday morning was the big day; it was the day my fellow interns (Matt, Mel, Bryan, Bilas and Katie) and I left for Lake Malawi. We left the intern house a little after 7h00 (7 a.m.) and headed to the Lilongwe bus depot. As soon as we stepped into the depot we were ushered by some cheerful Malawian to his friend's bus. While we were walking he instructed us to, “talk to no one” because he had the best deal for us. When we arrived at his friend’s bus we were assured that it was the fastest, safest and last bus that we could use to get to the Mangochi turnoff.

We were all incredibly skeptical and hesitant to board the bus, but after Matt and Mel each scoured the parking lot for other options we decided it might actually be our best choice. So we all nestled into our seats and bunkered down for the ride. We spent two hours just sitting at the bus depot waiting for the bus to fill up. During our wait, we entertained ourselves by waving and giving thumb’s ups to all of the children on the bus. These Malawian children were so adorable! They all took turns poking their heads over their seats just to look at us. And when we started to wave and make funny faces at them they always waved back or burst out laughing. The depot got really interesting when Bryan started telling these guys waiting on the bus next to ours that Mel, Bilas and I were his wives. All of the guys got very big eyes and responded with a, "very nice." Things got a little crazy when Bryan told one guy that he could have one of us, but luckily that’s just when our bus pulled out of the parking lot.

The Malawian countryside.

What a ride. It was long, it was cramped and it was slow. But, it was also kind of fun. I got to see the Malawian countryside. I got to educate Bryan about the rocks and surrounding geology that we were passing (thank you Bryan for putting up with me). I got to watch our bus driver siphon petrol into our fuel tank (he definitely got some in his mouth when he was starting the siphon). I got to help pass a baby out of a window so it could go to the bathroom. And I got to spend four hours just taking in the country and culture of Malawi.

Siphoning petrol into our fuel tank.

Even when the bus stopped (which it did both frequently and randomly) I got to learn and experience some pretty cool stuff. Every time the bus stopped, a wave of merchants would descend upon the bus trying to sell their goods. Most of the times they were selling food and plastic bags full of water (quick note – in Malawi it is recommended that you drink only bottled water so there was no way I was going to buy one of these water bags). And these peddlers were persistent! They would literally come up to the bus and bang on the windows and when the windows were unlocked they would slide open the window and shove their goods in your lap. We all bought an assortment of goodies – some chips (not very good), some fresh carrots (super delicious!), fried dough, samosas (my new favorite food) and we didn’t buy any gizzard, but we sure thought about it.

Some friendly Malawian peddlers.

After four long, but semi-entertaining hours, the bus pulled over at the Mangochi turnoff and we were instructed to get out. We climbed out of the bus (literally – the bus was so full that we actually climbed out of the windows) and crammed ourselves (again I am not exaggerating) into a minibus that was headed towards the lake. There were about twenty bags/ packs/ suitcases and twelve people crammed into this mini-bus. 

Suitcases kept falling on Bilas' head during the ride. 

And to make the ride even more ridiculous my travel companions and I thought it was a good idea to sing along to every song on the radio (our favorite song was ‘Sour Sour’ – apparently the song is about a man telling a prostitute exactly what to do to him…), hang outside of the bus windows for half of the ride and drink. We terrified the driver, probably terrified our fellow passengers, and even terrified each other at times.

Mel dancing for a crowd of on-lookers at one of our "stops."

Our mini bus drivers weren't the biggest fans of ours though… they kept saying they would drive us another 20km for 200 more Kwache. It finally reached a point where we decided we'd walk the rest of the way. So we extracted ourselves from this mini bus and by some stroke of luck ran into a group of Europeans that we had seen the previous day at the market in Lilongwe. They were heading to the lake in a giant flatbed truck and they said we could hop on.

The view into the flatbed truck.
I was perched on the back corner for the ride.

Bryan and Katie in the back of the flatbed. 

It took eight hours, cost me 1750 Kwache (just under 9 USD), and required three different modes of transportation, but we finally arrived at Lake Malawi safe and sound and ready for a great weekend. 

Lake Malawi