People We Meet, Part 1: The Independent Travellers

So I promised that I would write about the people we meet on our travels, and now that we have been on the road for slightly over 100 days (yay!) I feel that we have met a good collection of different types of people, so I am going to write a little mini-series.

Let's start with the non-locals. There are a few varieties of those, one of which is the independent traveller (as opposed to the overland tourists, who require a separate post with their big trucks). We meet them at designated traveller hangouts like Fat Monkeys at Lake Malawi, Jungle Junction in Kenya and Eureka Camp near Lusaka. It’s usually a couple between 30ish and 50ish, who have put their jobs on hold to spend a year or more travelling. They drive a robust 4 wheel drive, or a huge MAN truck, or a bashed up old Defender, and they can spend hours discussing car fitouts, routes and favourite camp sites in a range of countries and continents. Some are driving the classic Cape to Cairo (or Cairo to Cape) route, while others loop down through West Africa and up the other side, while we have also met a few open-ended trips, where the plan really just consists of “a year in Africa, a year in Asia and then who knows.” Example:

Jan and Trevor - they left London in their kitted out Landrover for a gap year, driving through Europe, to Turkey and round the Med into the Middle East. We met them in Uganda where they were heading to Rwanda to finally arrive in South Africa at the end of the year. Trevor is a twitcher, so Stuart got on famously with him, as Jan and I were busy sharing movies and audiobooks from their terabyte drives. Entertainment is important on a long journey like this.

Poomba, aka Mandy and Jacques, had been on the road for 14 months when we met them at Fat Monkeys on Lake Malawi. They were heading back home to South Africa from Australia, having shipped the car to Novosibirsk to cross Asia and Europe. Their Land Cruiser was home made, and after such a long trip everything most definitely had its place.

The first big truck we encountered made quite an impression on us. Two German guys had dissolved their company to pay for a brand new truck to be fitted out so that they could go on a World tour. When we met them in Lusaka they had already spent a year dawdling their way down from Europe, planned to spend another year in Southern Africa before shipping the monster truck to South America and carrying on. They were so self sufficient, they looked like they may never return to stationery life.

Before and after

Man, we drink a lot of tea on this trip and our mugs bear witness to that. On the top is my mug in its normal state after many early morning cuppas and on the bottom is Stuart's mug, which Merryl took the scrubbing pad to so that it looks like new. We bought these in Maun one monts into the trip and they already lost their handles. Oh well.

Finally broadband = pictures!

Here finally, after crossing all of Tanzania without a decent internet connection, are the best photos of Malawi, our favourite place so far. We are now in the famous Jungle Junction in Nairobi (more on that later), where we are slaughtering the bandwidth, so hopefully more pictures from Tanzania next. Enjoy:

Roadside checks

There is a lot of talk amongst overlanders about corruption and bribery attempts along the roads. This usually takes place is the form of a speed trap or a police check where something is found missing with the paperwork or the car. We have heard from people who take a special budget of small denomination dollars for the express purpose of paying off bribes, and others who were stopped 8 times in one day in Malawi (we put this down to having South African plates, as South Africans are not very popular in Malawi, for historical reasons). Ever since leaving Botswana we encounter roadside checks multiple times a day, where a couple of uniformed police men and women check on the condition of mini buses, trucks and other local traffic. We are always amazed how these guys get let through, specially considering the condition the vehicles are in most of the time, with back doors tied down by rope and spewing black fumes while inching up the hill due to overloading, but we rarely see anyone pulled over for good. We are often waved through after everyone has had a good look at our strange number plates, the steering wheel on the wrong side and the woman driver, but we have also been stopped for a check on our paperwork. Our papers (driving license, registration, COMESA insurance, temporary import license and carnet) are in a business-looking folder and when we whip it out we are usually given up for a lost cause. No-one so far has asked for money outright, but I suspect that the cops who checked that we carry two warning triangles and that we have a fire extinguisher were secretly hoping that we didn't. Maybe we are dense, on reflection I now suspect that the cop who miserably told me that he hadn't had any breakfast yet was really fishing for a can of coke or a bit of cash. Who knows. Fake speed traps are another apparently popular way to extract some money, so the two times we were stopped for speeding we were very dubious. The first time was in Lusaka, just after we had been subject to a major rip-off by the local laundry, so we were not interested in paying any more money out to a spurious claim. There really was little chance that I had been speeding, as anyone who has driven through Lusaka traffic knows it's not possible to actually clock 80. As the police man came up to us, having flagged us down in the fast lane of the dual carriageway, Stuart - in the back seat - went into outrage overdrive and immediately told the guy that we weren't speeding, we could prove it with our GPS and we would be happy to go to court over it. And by the way, could he please have a complaint form, he would like to make a formal statement. This resulted in a back and forth for a few minutes where the cop claimed we were doing 86 in an 80 zone and anyway, we had probably not slowed down for the hospital zebra crossing earlier. In the end I left my South African address and phone number and left with the information that the police would call me by the end of the week with the court's results... Yesterday we were caught speeding for real, though, and despite arguing that there might not have been a 50 sign (there was, we were just distracted from it by a street seller waving his bunches of maize at us) or that the speed trap machine might be measuring wrong, we had to admit in the end that we had gone to fast. 20000 Tanzanian Shilling (£10/NZ$20) and a proposal of love to Merryl by the traffic cop later we had completed the long process of filling out a receipt - UK addresses are hard to spell - and we were back on our way.

Malawi roundup

We had planned to spend just a few days in Malawi. Come in from Zambia, head for a dive to Cape Maclear, have a meeting in Blantyre, and leave for northern Mozambique. Simple. What we hadn't counted on was Malawi's paradisiacal landscapes, the fascinating lives of its population and the nicest people one could meet.


We cruised in a canoe past hippos on the Lilongwe River, where Stuart had his best bird sightings yet. We lounged at the edge of the World at Livingstonia drinking Kuche Kuche and watching the sun set over the lake far below us. We had our first night drive, a terrifying experience never to be repeated, and a time warp back to Melrose Arch, a little bit of luxury at just the right moment. We went diving in Lake Malawi and lost a few days to its tropical charms and otherworldly serenity.


Malawi has been our most sociable place yet: we met Naomi and Mike (twice), the Belgiums in the orange daffy car, Jaques and Mandy who gave us tips for the trip up North, Moncho the fast talking Spaniard at Fat Monkeys, and Paul the lonely Aussie at Mushroom farm, who made great eggs for breakfast. We learnt about the Malawi education system from Robert and Unex, engineer and programmer in the making, and with their help figured out how to shop in the markets. We drank beer, ate pizza, learnt to play Bao and exchanged mp3s. It took us out of our little travelling bubble. Thanks, guys!


Malawi is religion in the shape of Baptist schools, Evangelical clinics and Catholic day care centres; it's bikes used as trucks and wheelbarrows and taxis; women carrying vast loads of firewood on their heads, or gallon drums of water, or big bowls of fruit for sale. It's handkerchief-sized fields and stalls at the roadside selling pineapple, mangoes and tomatoes (I got the strong feeling that Malawi farmers need band together to make the most out of their good soil and hard work). It's the friendliest people we have encountered, even when it rained on the tea plantations the pickers still smiled and waved, Evas helped us get all the veg we needed at the market, Felix took us out to dinner and made sure Stuart got a good fish, Amy - the entrepreneur - got us a good rate on the room, and David told us it's no trouble, this is our home now. It's the strange vastness of Lake Malawi, which looks like the sea, but has no salt to make bathing annoying, which also means that there's no need to rinse out our dive kit! It's finally solving the mystery of the roadside kilns, thanks to Bright, who showed me how to make bricks in his back garden.


Malawi is the hardest place to leave.

Shopping Part Two

Malawi has no cities to speak of, so all our supplies come from small towns along the road. The days of big Shoprites and Kwikspars are long over, Lusaka was the last place we managed to score luxuries such as sour cream and blue cheese. The villages along this road are busy, lively and real focal points. Lining the roads are lots of shops, but it's the sandy areas on front of the them that it all happens. Women spread their produce on small mats surrounded by wooden frameworks from which hand bundles of purple, blue and black plastic bags. I never imagined that I would be able to get so much fresh fruit along the roadside, from bananas to tomatoes, aubergines, avocados, onions, corn leeks, cabbages, pineapple apples, pears, potatoes and peanuts. Somehow I expected it to be hard to get fresh food, as I imagined the shops to only stock dry goods and non-perishables. On the one hand: a market in Mulanje, where women spread out their fresh produce from the handkerchief sized fields, red onions in bushels, little piles of red tomatoes, fresh and cooked corn in the husks, sacks of peanuts, big heaps of cabbages, leaves scattering everywhere, brown mounds of potatoes, symmetrical assemblies of avocados, pineapples and aubergines. As we pull over, all eyes turn to us. We get out to look at a lady selling tomatoes in small heaps from a mat, and when her English insufficient a local man steps in. Evas, scruffy but clean, helps us out by sending off small children to get any veggies we desire. All around us are gaggles of kids, nosy but shy, and everyone wants to get the chance to sell us something. I was afraid to offend by turning down all these offers of food, but the women who are rejected smile and move on to another customer. This is our first time at a local market, shopping out there rather than in the supermarket. We have deliberately held back in Lilongwe as the food along the road looks so good and fresh. We move on, looking for fresh corn for dinner, but accidentally end up with boiled, which actually makes it easier to prepare later. Maize is still a staple here, although there is so much exotic fruit and veg around that our diet is quite varied. Next we move on to roast peanuts, which are sold by girls and boys in small bags from bowls carried on their heads. After a fair amount of bargaining for all sorts of foods this is the first time we feel we are being charged foreigner's prices. A little girl tells us that the bag of peanuts costs 10 Kwecha, but her big brother chips in to tell us it's 20. Despite the big brother pressure she sells to us for 10 and tells him off for cheating. On the other hand, a People's Superette (local chain) in Selima, where we dropped in with a long list of needs after having camped for a few days and run out of most dairy and some other items:

Brickmaking for beginners

Ever since we entered Malawi, but absolutely nowhere before that, we see small brick making operations. Every few minutes there is either a small area of bricks out to dry, or heaps of them stacks of them, in kilns and drying beds and preparation areas. I have been fascinated to find out the process of making these bricks, which are turned into these neat houses everyone lives in, and in Mulanje I got lucky. I wanted to know how they are made, and why there are so many brick makers here. Mostly the bricks are red, although I have seen a dull grey brown and a pale ochre, it seems to depend on the colour of the soil. Robert, our guide for a hike up the mountain, and his friend Unex (he wants to be a programmer) took me to see another mate, who is making bricks to build an extension for his sister's house. That's the first thing I found out: there are so many brick makers, because everyone makes his own whenever they need another house or shed or extension. Bright, the young man who is such a good brother, told me that when he makes his own bricks they cost about 1 Kwecha each, but if he had to buy them and get them delivered, they would be at least 5 Kwecha each, as the transport cost is so high. There are few cars or trucks, and one might even have to come all the way from Blantyre for a delivery, since bricks are too heavy to transport by bike, the way absolutely everything else is carted round here.


Bright's house was off the main road down a dirt track, part of a small cluster of brick houses. In the yard a few chickens pecked their way around as a small boy was playing with a brick. Apart from Bright we found a few other boys helping him. An area had been set aside for digging, but Bright told me that it really didn't matter, any soil was good enough for making bricks. He dug a small hole with a pick axe and poured some water into the hole. Then one of the other boys took his shoes off, pulled up his trousers and stomped through the mud to make a smooth paste. When the mixing was done and the mud had the right consistency, a few handfuls were poured into a wooden mould, which was turned out next to the other finished bricks at the end of a long row. This way each person can make 2000 bricks per day.


The bricks are dried for a few days before being fired. Bright told me that one of the big expenses of brick making was the cost of fire wood, so when the builder can't afford the wood, they just dry the bricks and use them without firing. A house like that will last 5 to 10 years. The kiln is another ingenious and low tech construct. Instead of having a permanent firing location the bricks are stacked in a clever way so that there is a tunnel underneath them that is loaded with firewood. After the stack is smeared with mud all over to keep the heat in and evenly distributed, the wood is then burned and re-filled all through the night of the firing. After 4 days the kiln has cooled enough to be broken up and the bricks are ready for building.

Apologies

Sorry for not posting in a while. Malawi is amazing, and I will write about it soon, but while the mobile data network exists, internet access is pretty feeble, which is also why there are no recent photos. So there will be more writing soon, but for now you can entertain yourself with learning this new game we got obsessed with, called Bao.

Our favourite Malawi beer

Kuche Kuche, apparently lets you keep going all night and you can still feel good in the morning. Great stuff.

A flash dinner

Our creature comforts have been gradually diminishing as we move further into the heart of Africa, and as our budget takes a beating from all the Savannah (lately discovered South African cider) we drink wherever there is a bar. Hot showers, white sheeted beds and classy restaurants are rarely to be found, and rightly so in a place as basic and poor as Malawi. But occasionally we hit a jackpot, and this one came at an unexpected time and place. We had already spent a night in Blantyre, Malawi's financial centre in the South of the country, on our way to Mulanje mountain, and we were back again to break up the journey to Lake Malawi and for Stuart to meet with the CEO of a financial company to discuss business opportunities. We had stayed in an overpriced and under-cleaned place the last time and had had a long and aggravated bargaining session with another hotel for this one night, spending US$150 for a family room with a toilet that made a noise like an aircraft landing and a TV with only one working channel (our normal camping rates are in the region of US$5 per person, but there is no camping in Blantyre, so our budget was blown for quite a few days). Regardless, we were happy. There was electricity, so I could capture my footage, the movie channel had sound, and I had running hot water to clean the fridge. We had baths with smelly stuff, started cooking dinner and Stuart went off for his meeting. Lovely. But it got much much much better. Stuart returned within 10 minutes to tell us that we had been invited out for dinner. Yes! Merryl and I got dressed in our one non-camping presentable outfit, slapped on some lipstick and perfume, dug round the car for the one pair of ear rings and vaguely matching shoes (we ended up wearing matching tops, we really need to get alternative going out outfits!) and dashed off to meet Stuart and the CEO at reception, feeling decidedly underdressed as we slipped into the leather seats of the brand new Land Cruiser that would ferry us to the restaurant, doors shutting with an expensive clunk as the car automatically adjusted seats and mirrors. Grill 21, the restaurant adjacent to the Protea Hotel, was a time warp back to Melrose Arch for us. Inside was smooth elegance, a haven of luxury with leather couches and glittering candle light, a well-stocked bar and waiters in pressed shirts. We could barely remember the dusty city streets outside lined with faded shops selling nothing very much, peopled by normal Malawians wearing dull coloured clothes for want of a washing machine. Inside we sat at a polished table, choosing Cabernet Sauvignon, discussing tempura prawn starters. It was bizarre, specially as I had the previous day had a discussion with Robert about the school fees he is earning by being a mountain guide in Mulanje, so that he can go to college eventually. His term fee would have been covered by the cost of our main course. A long time ago I would have made a scene and refused to spend the money on frivolous food, but that night I sat and ate and chatted pleasantly, admitting the impossibility of the situation. I also realised how much I needed after almost two months of travel to experience a piece of civilisation, a moment of elegance, a snippet of my previous reality; to get away from badly maintained rooms and cheap furniture, shoddy arrangements and the implicit demands of people who have so much less, from feeling like an alien in my white skin, from being the provider of a week's income at the drop of a bank note.