Lillongwe - Mchinji Border Crossing - South Luangwa

I slept well last night, despite a series of rather unpleasant dreams.

Breakfast

I start with a bowl of muesli to go with my weekly Lariam (Meflaquine) anti-malaria tablet. One of the side effects of Lariam is bad dreams, so I am looking forward to some lovely extra nightmares tonight.

I follow with some fried eggs on toast, while David has his usual Full English.

Packed and ready to go, waiting in reception for Jim who went home to his family overnight

Last minute bird watching in the hotel grounds: Dark Capped Bulbul

Today we are heading west, leaving Malawi behind and crossing the border into Zambia and on to South Luangwa National Park.

As usual, I practice some drive-by-shooting (taking photos from a moving car)

National Monument

Public bus

Wood on a bicycle

Charcoal on a bicycle

This would be hard to handle in the traffic!

Border Crossing

As we pull up near the modern border terminal, a lady comes to check Jim’s paperwork and is soon joined by a couple of men, also looking at the documents.

Very misleading sign!

Just inside the door of the terminal building, an official pre-checks our passports before we proceed to the immigration counter. He looks at David’s British passport and asks: “Are you winning the Euros?”

The first counter is the Malawi immigration. The officer struggles to find the stamp I received when we entered Malawi, despite looking through my passport several times. That’s the problem with travelling a lot, the stamps do end up in a muddle. Eventually, I take the passport from him and flick through to the correct page. Happy that I had entered the country legally, he stamps me out again.

At the Zambian immigration counter, the young lady asks how long I am staying in the country (6 days), stamps my passport, and gives me a 10-day permit.

We return to the car and wait for the vehicle paperwork to be completed. Jim is called back into the building again for some form-filling. There are now 14 cars waiting to be processed plus a huge overland truck, and not one of them has moved since we got here. At least the hold-up is not personal.

Jim comes back out again and asks if we have US$50 he can borrow to save him from going to the bank as he only has local currency. Apparently, the last time he came through here they messed up his stamp. The officials are reluctant to let him pass through the border, and have called their big boss – who wants his palms greased, hence the ‘fee’. He eventually comes out again with permission to go, and a letter to say he has to return to this point on the 6th of July to collect his new Transit Permit.

There are still bits of paperwork missing, and now their system has gone down, so we eat our picnic in the car while we wait. We also take the opportunity to perform a small ceremony for a young girl.

Clare Spruce

Way back in 2008, I was very friendly with a chap in the office called David Spruce. He was well-travelled, like me, and his daughter Clare was on a gap year through Africa at the time. Every morning David would stop and chat with me on the way to his desk, tell me about Clare’s latest experiences, and show me photos she had sent him. I felt I knew Clare personally.

On the 7th of November that year, I answered David’s phone as he was out of the office, to some bad news. Clare had been killed in Malawi. As is only to be expected, when he came back into the office, David was a mess. All I could do was offer my sympathies and a shoulder to cry on, something David took advantage of several times over the following weeks.

An article in the paper at the time

Despite never having met Clare, the incident affected me deeply, and I often thought about her over the years. Knowing that we would be crossing the same border as she did back then, I wanted to remember Clare in the only way I could think of, by scattering some rose petals over her photograph.

An emotional moment

Just as we think we are getting sorted for exiting Malawi, a chap (hired by our local agent to do all the legwork so Jim doesn't have to queue 'forever') comes back out to ask for Jim’s driving licence and passport, and not long after he returns with one of the $20 bills we gave out earlier, claiming he cannot accept it because it is torn.

I have always known that some countries will insist on completely pristine notes, but I have never experienced one being rejected before (if they had seen the state of some of the bills we accepted when I worked for a bank in the UK, they would be horrified!)

Finally, we have all the necessary paperwork for the vehicle (Transit Pass, Council Tax, Carbon Tax, Toll Fee, and Insurance), and the all-important sticker on the windscreen, and we leave Malawi behind.

The lady officer on the barrier to pass into Zambia wants to see all the paperwork. Fair enough, but when she complains that the Council Tax permit should be on a separate paper, Jim loses it, as it was the immigration officers who produced it this way, and he wouldn’t have got the sticker for the window if the paperwork wasn’t in order. After some arguing back and forth, she reluctantly lets us through. Two hours and 40 minutes it took in total.

Zambian Street Scenes - not that different from Malawian

Wildlife Camp

While our lodge is technically outside the main South Luangwa National Park, the animals do not know this, and wander freely across the park border. As soon as we turn off the main road to a dirt track leading to the camp, we spot a herd of elephants.

The welcome here at Wildlife Lodge is decidedly low-key and somewhat underwhelming. Reception is unmanned and as we loiter a little, the barman strolls over and introduces himself. We are given no briefing as such, just shown to the room, while Jim and David bring our bags down.

The rooms are individual chalets overlooking the now-almost-dry river, with a delightful balcony where we can sit and watch all the goings on.

The interior is spacious, albeit a little basic, with two single beds pushed together, covered with a mosquito net, a small table, a luggage rack, and a desk with a chair. There is also a coffee-making station. The floor is bare concrete with a couple of rugs.

The bathroom is home to a cute little frog.

With the addition of a couple of Coke Zero from the bar, we spend the rest of the afternoon on the balcony seeing if we can spot some of the local wildlife.

Impala

Warthog

Bushbuck

Yellow Baboon

Lazy Cisticola

David attaches the trail camera to a tree looking back at our room.

As the sun sets, we no longer feel safe on the balcony and retire to the room for a shower before dinner. It’s not just the large animals we are concerned about, but also biting insects. There is obviously a reason for the mosquito nets!

Dinner

The obligatory Savanna

Pumpkin soup. Creamy, tasty, slightly peppery, and very hot.

Lasagne. Not so hot. I find it tastes quite greasy, although it does improve with some salt and pepper

Unlike the last safari lodge we stayed, where the manager informed the chef we don’t like cucumber, here they end up left on the side of the plate.

Creme Caramel. Not too sweet, with a strange, almost curdled texture. Nonetheless, it is very enjoyable.

After dinner, we retire to bed. The lights go off at 22:20 (power cut), and I find the bed rather uncomfortable with a very unsupportive pillow. I try propping it up with my fleece underneath, but that just makes it lumpy. The room is way too hot, and with no electricity, we can’t cool down by using the fan. I open all the windows, hoping that will help some. Having taken the nightmare-inducing antimalarial tablets Lariam this morning, it all bodes for a ‘fun’ night.

Thank you to Undiscovered Destinations for arranging this incredible Great Africa Tour 2024.