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Collected Emails No 6. | |
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At the Malawi border, customs made them unpack all the bags and cargo, and we spent 7 hours sitting there, while they searched everything and decided, seemingly arbitrarily, how much duty people had to pay for their cargo. One man importing a big diesel engine in a wooden case, did not have enough cash with him, so he had to abandon the engine, taking only the removable small parts, and leave without it. It was night, and three passengers and I decided to walk over the bridge back to Tanzania to eat some grilled meat and chips, drinking a beer, and joining the 50 or so moneychangers watching a science fiction Kung Fu movie on TV. It was like pornography, with only a line or two of dialogue every twenty minutes, to loosely tie together all the fight scenes. Africans seem to love the violence, laughing hysterically at the goriest parts. When we had cleared customs, the bus was re-packed haphazardly. Cargo was filling the aisle and piled so high, that it was easier to climb over the seat backs. We drove on into the night, and every time we stopped to let someone out, it took over an hour to find their cargo in the new arrangement, with people climbing all over sleeping passengers to find their stuff in the dark. I got off the bus in Mzuzu at the ungodly hour of 4.30 AM, and had to sit in a minibus for 4 hours, waiting for it to fill up with the requisite 23 passengers. As I finally gave up and negotiated an expensive taxi to the lakeside, I bumped into two passengers from the same bus I came on. Having stopped at the municipal customs house, which is a formality, all the cargo had been unloaded again, searched, and everyone was being charged duty AGAIN on all the same stuff!!! They were expecting a 9 hour delay before continuing their journey south! Arriving at Nkhata Bay, on Lake Malawi, was welcome chance to relax for a few days, in a beautiful guesthouse on the lakeshore. I had a hut of my own, with water lapping on the rocks outside, and was glad to find a lovely crowd of travellers, great food, a lively bar, and an excellent pool table. I have become something of a shark during many nights spent in African bars. The lake is 600 km long, 100 wide, and 750m deep. Surrounded by mountains and three countries. The cheapest place in the world to do so, I went scuba diving for $20. My first time in a like, it was amazing to find so many colourful fish. Just this lake has 1200 different freshwater species -- twice as many as all of Europe and North American combined! I also went on a boat trip, snorkelling at a white sandy beach, surrounded by curious children, jumping off cliffs (into water), and watching as superb white-headed Fish Eagles came swooping down to pick up the fish we threw in the water. After a few days of this, relaxation became restless catatonia. I became unbearably tired, like a permanent hangover. I began to realize I had to leave this black hole of a place, and get moving again. As my flight home from Cape Town was now approaching in less than two weeks, I decided to head straight to South Africa, missing out Namibia completely, preferring to save enough time for Cape Town, so as not to have to stress and speed though the last couple of countries. I heard of a luxury bus, connecting Blantyre in Malawi's south, directly with Jo'Burg. After reading and hearing nothing but negative about Jo'Burg, I had promised myself to avoid the city at all costs. But the opportunity to fast forward to South Africa without having to organize travel in Zimbabwe or Mozambique, or any other countries in between, was too tempting. It took me 14 hours of hellish local transport to get to Blantyre, then the luxury bus was 28 hours straight through, watching numerous African soaps, "Rambo III" and "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" on video, arriving in Jo'Burg, on my 38th birthday!. Too knackered to keep going, I found a hostel which agreed to pick me up at the station. It is common knowledge, that although Jo'Burg station is safe and patrolled by security guards, it would be suicide to walk out the doors into the downtown area with a backpack on your back. While waiting, I saw 200 people queuing in the station. I asked a local, and found out they were all waiting to used the in-station ATM machines, as muggings at street-side money machines are not just a danger, but a certainty. I was collected, and got to the car safely. (continued...) |
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