Malawi, 2 April 07: Border crossings, African style…
by Lianna
Every
bit as enchanting as the more commonly visited countries in East Africa, but
far less touristy, Malawi was the next country on our list. The Kasunga and
Central plateaux cover the western half of the country with game parks, arid
agricultural communities, tropical forests, waterfalls and huge sandstone
outcrops. Lake Malawi covers the eastern half with comfortably warm blue waters,
reefs, islands, tropical fish, palm-lined beaches and fishing villages. The
south of the country is dominated by vibrantly green tea-plantations, shadowed
in the early morning by the Mulanje Plateau to the east, it’s peaks
and valleys introducing a jagged horizon with crags over a kilometer high,
draped with a dense foliage of fig trees and parasitic vines, which, after
heavy rains, is overwhelmed by thundering cataracts tumbling hundreds of meters
to irrigate the tea plants.
Sounds nice doesn’t it? All we had to do was get there …
After losing two days fixing a small breakdown in southern Tanzania (small
loose particles %20Ruwanda.jpg)
somehow
finding their way into the diff oil, causing horrendous grinding as we drove,)
we were playing catch-up to the schedule. In one mammoth day, we needed to
travel 800km on narrow, windy, potholed roads, including a time-consuming
border crossing, to get to Lilongwe on time to meet the four newcomers who’d
flown in to join us.
A pre-dawn start was clearly required, but its advantage was lost almost immediately
when we ran out of diesel before we’d actually left the campsite grounds!
Doh! Cue a very long walk for Henry.
We spent the next few hours dodging potholes, goats, cows and people, all
of which left very little ‘road’ to actually drive on. And by
the time we got to the border, it was fair to say that Henry was a little
tired and fraught, and the last thing he wanted was a Tanzanian customs official
who didn’t adequately understand BiRTs documents, and inefficient border
guards who opened the border an hour late, then sat and had coffee as passengers
from three different trans-border busses vied with each other and us for positions
at the front of the queue. When we finally made it through the melee at the
desks, presented our passports and filled-in forms, they decorated our passports
with an incorrectly dated exit stamp…
…which
none of us noticed as we drove through no-mans land, until we reached the
Malawian entry gate, where the officials, despite having watched us arrive,
queue, then leave the Tanzanian gate, refused to let us into Malawi until
we’d rectified the mistake. So back to the Tanzanian border I went with
everyone’s passports, steeling myself for another near-skirmish just
to get to the desk, and preparing myself for the argument with the officials
that would surely follow, as they would surely refuse to re-stamp our passports
with the correct date unless I "made it worth their while…"
Time for customs. We needed insurance. We didn’t need insurance. We
had to pay road tax, it cost $30. It costs $70. We needed an MOT. Our carnet
(vehicle passport) covers MOT, insurance and road tax. We must pay customs
duty. We were exempt from customs duty due to our carnet's RAC affiliation.
Trying to get straight information was impossible!!!
And for Henry, enough was enough. He flipped his lid, shouted and swore, opened
the customs gate, then drove belligerently (and illegally) through an international
border guarded by armed men. When, predictably, we were stopped by these armed
guards, Henry made the mistake of arguing with the wrong man, the only man
not wearing any sort of uniform, and who happened to be the boss. 
This boss holed Henry and I up in his office, and shouted back at us. We’d
broken international laws and he could easily impound our vehicle or worse.
However, all he wanted was an apology, so after a little fawning we were on
our way again.
The rest of the drive was, thankfully, less eventful, and took us for several
hours along the beautiful shores of Lake Malawi before we climbed up onto
the Central Plateau, through the humid tropical forests, and along the plateau
rim with its stunning views of the white-beach rimmed lake, and the dark,
unmapped and deeply mysterious Mozambican mountains shadowing the lake’s
far shore.
Eventually, well after the shadows had merged in the darkness, we finally pulled into the awesome Mabuka Campsite, run by two die-hard overlanders who kept the beer flowing as we partied well into the night (and perhaps through the next two days as well – I can’t quite remember) to celebrate the end of the road for four amazing Hot Rockers.
