From Lusaka we took a fairly comfortable bus to the Zambian border town of Chipata. "Comfortable" is a relative term. There were 5 seats across on the bus, but only a limited number of people standing. A little boy sat in the aisle next to us... he was beautifully dressed in his traveling clothes, but apparently he wasn't feeling well as he vomited twice on the trip. But, the bus was fast and there were reasonable toilet stops and numerous hawkers sold food items we could purchase by passing money through the windows at major towns and bus stations. So, even though we were cramped and the smell of sweat and vomit permeated the air of the overcrowded bus, we arrived at our destination in good time without hunger, dehydration, and/or full bladders!! If only all busses could be this comfortable.

There isn't much to say about Chipata. We spent a night there at a government rest house. Not that we were able to stay IN the guesthouse, they were full, but they did allow us to pitch a tent on their back lawn for the same price as a room. (Bless them!) Chipata is the first place in Africa where we have felt some hostility. Not hostility like in South Africa or Namibia but hostility directed at us simply because we were white/foreign/tourists... or so it seemed. We're not exactly sure what the story was in Chipata... Africa (especially non-touristy areas) is generally very welcoming, but perhaps we were in the wrong end of town?! Regardless, there's no sense in staying where you're not welcome so we left early the next morning. With backpacks on, we hiked up the road (the only white faces seemingly for miles and miles) to the BP station where we caught a shared taxi to the Malawi border.

Malawi is one of the world's 10 poorest countries and Mark always says that it's claim to fame is that "Everyone who visits Malawi gets Malaria!!" (Let's hope that our anti-malarial drugs are effective!)  Our border crossing was easy enough despite the fact that border officials asked for our Yellow Fever Vaccination certificates. This struck us as a bit strange as we're probably more likely to catch Yellow fever in Malawi than to bring it in from else where but whatever. We then caught a shared taxi (Yet another minivan with 18 new friends -- one of whom requested our mailing address 15 minutes after meeting us!!) to Lilongwe, Malawi's capitol city.

We spent several nights in Lilongwe. It's a pleasant place with a nice market and a limited central business district. Many of the capitols roads are semi-paved making the city dry and dusty but it was a good place to "stock up" on the necessities of life on the road. We could find most things we needed (food, water, a place to sleep, shampoo, beer, etc.) but there was one big thing that was particularly difficult to find -- Money. We visited every bank in the city but it seems that none of the ATMs were capable of dispensing cash from an international card. Good thing we had some cash in the form of hard currency (US Dollars) and a few travelers checks in our backpacks, otherwise we would have had to join the throng of Lilongwe's street beggars. As it turned out, we did exactly the opposite. Our accommodation was camping at the Lilongwe Golf Club, the gathering point of the city's elite. In our grubby travel clothes we were associating with Malawi's most important doctors, politicians and attorneys... an interesting contrast to the meager lifestyle that most Malawians live.

Our plan was to travel directly from Lilongwe to Nhkata Bay via the express coach, but things didn't work out that way. We'd checked the time table for the express bus with the ticket office, but when we showed up at the bus station there wasn't an express coach in sight. Instead there was a bus that looked like it was "born" in the 1950s and about 200 people fighting for tickets. Well, we thought, "It's only 361 kilometers... How bad can it be?" How bad indeed....

I suppose the one good thing about the bus journey through Malawi was that we got seats. For some reason, tourists were separated from the hoards trying to purchase tickets and dealt with separately. As such, we were some of the first people with tickets... and hence two of the first people on the bus. There wasn't a luggage hold under the bus, instead personal items were piled high on the top of the bus and tied down with rope. There were 2 men who helped Mark load our bags on the top of the bus, which inevitably resulted in the request for a tip (something that none of the "locals" seemed to pay) but what the guys were asking for seemed reasonable, so we paid. However, we were dim enough to pay one man the sum that was asked for both bags assuming that the total would be shared between the two men. Apparently this wasn't the case and the "unpaid" man approached Mark with his "angry face" yelling and screaming for his 50 kwacha. (about 50 cents US) Mark yelled right back much to the amusement of the locals on the bus who provided advice like "Don't pay, they are all thieves!" OR "Pay them, they're all thieves and they have your baggage!!"  We sat worried about our personal items until the bus departed the station.

Eventually after about an hour or two of "preparation" with the bus loaded to extremes we never could have even imagined, we set off for the North at approximately 10km per hour. No joke! Oh, and did we mention what was traveling with us? In addition to the people, there was a heap load of luggage that for some reason was inside the bus rather than on the top, 57 chickens, 2 goats and an extremely smelly bag of dried fish. About 8 minutes into the journey we stopped at our first stop (this was the typical frequency of stops throughout the journey) and an hour into the voyage things started flying off the top of the bus. (Ahhh... now we understand why people brought their luggage on board!) Fortunately some of the local children flagged the driver and items were retrieved (and they were not ours, we're happy to report!)

It took ten and half hours to travel the 361 kilometers to Mzuzu - a trip that would easily be done in around 3 hours in our home countries. There were no toilet breaks (not even suitable bushes!!) and the food on offer was scarce. We arrived in Mzuzu after dark and decided that we'd end our voyage there... we'd had enough travel for the day. We took a taxi to the only hostel in town, the aptly named Mzoozoozoo, where Jennifer and Nikki were waiting for us with cold drinks and meatball sandwiches!! Nothing in the world could have sounded better!

Perhaps we'll try to get to Nhkata bay tomorrow....