Day 20. Tue 29th August.
Return
to Lilongwe
Needless to say, George has not arrived by 9 o'clock. He finally shows
up at 10,
but then disappears again. At 10:30 his driver comes back with the
matola and picks me up. However, we then have to go all round the
village picking up big smelly boxes of fish. The price I was quoted for
the trip was on the basis that it was an empty vehicle except for the
three of us - it seems that this was a slight economy of the truth as
it
turns out this a cross-country fish delivery.
I get the front seat as far as Monkey Bay, where we pick up Gemma and
Donna, who apparently have priority (and don't offer to share), so I am
in the back with the fish. We then pick up more fish - and more fish,
and then some more fish. And then to cap it all we pick up some more
fish. And then we pick up some more people (empty vehicle? Huh!). By
this time the back of the truck is piled high with boxes of fish, and
the passengers, myself included, have to perch (if you'll forgive the
pun) on the boxes as best we can.
By this time it is midday, and we finally leave Monkey Bay and set off
for Salima. It is not a comfortable ride! I manage to get half a
buttock perched on a box, while the rest of the crew hitch up onto the
roof of the cab, or distribute themselves on the boxes, and on my
rucksack.
The two girls are heading for Senga Bay, which is 20Km out of Salima in
exactly the opposite direction from Lilongwe. However George has agreed
to take them all the way, a "five minute" detour which takes a good
half hour, including finding the guest house they are booked into,
which is right on the lake shore down a mud track. Then it turns out
that George is going to stay with them in Senga Bay to "make sure they
are OK" (I haven't quite worked out the relationship between George and
these two girls, although I gather one of them knows him from a
previous trip to Malawi)..
George is very concerned that I should get to Lilongwe before dark, but
as it it getting on for five o'clock already this seems pretty
unlikely, especially when we have to stop three times on the way back
to Salima, once for petrol, once for air and once to pick someone up
who isn't there, so we have to wait 15 minutes until they arrive.
Still, at least I'm sitting in the front again.
I
have rung the Kiboko from Senga Bay and booked a room, but it suddenly
occurs to me that they close up at five, and I'm not sure if late
arrivals can get in.
By the time we get back to Salima and set off for Lilongwe the sun is
already setting. It should be about an hour, but as soon is it goes
dark the driver slows to a crawl. He has agreed to take me right to the
Kiboko Hotel door, but he speaks virtually no English and obviously
does not know Lilongwe very well, and I have great difficulty
explaining to him where the hotel is - he doesn't seem to know any of
the obvious landmarks like the Post Office, ShopRite or Harry's Bar (it
occurs to me afterwards that as an ordinary Malawian he
probably
never has occasion to use any of these places) but he does know the
curio market, so I cross my fingers and hope for the best. I'm not sure
which route he takes into the city, but I keep seeing the lights on the
horizon, only for them to disappear again and then reappear in a
different direction.
Finally we arrive in the old town and I start to recognise where we
are, and at eight o'clock I finally see the lights of Don Brioni's - it
has taken 9½
hours from Cape Maclear. I'm still not convinced that MK2000 is a fair
price, but then again, where in England would you get a ride like that
for eight quid? There is no problem getting into the hotel round the
back, and after a hot shower I am soon tucking into one of Brian's huge
T-bone steaks.