After a whirlwind arrival in Lilongwe – disembarking from our fourth plane
after 32 hours of travel, renting a car, picking up a bag full of Kwatcha, and eating lunch with friends – we hit the M1 in an exhausted daze.
It
was 6:00am our time, 2:00pm Malawi
time. I drove until I was more dreaming than driving – a pathetic hour of our
4-hour trip – then handed the wheel to my husband:
“Welcome to Malawi,
dear!”
He had a crash course
on Malawi driving – keep to the left, pull over when the armed guards wave you
to the side, wait there for the president’s convoy to woosh past, avoid
potholes, pedestrians and bicyclists, always keep an eye out for diesel,
because you never know when you’ll next be able to fill up, and STAY AWAKE!
We turned onto the Golomoti
Road, following that down and around the switch
backs of the escarpment into the Great Rift Valley.
The views were stunning – they had to be to keep me awake. Scrub-covered hills
descended to the dusty yellow and green flat lands.
With the hills far behind us, we found what we thought was our next turn. The tar ended and a dirt expanse trundled off into the trees. This we followed until we came to a village. There the road disappeared in a maze of round and square houses. Jolting slowly along the pathways past astonished villagers, we finally came to a man in the only vehicle we had seen for many a mile.
We explained that we were trying to find the M10 and asked
if he knew where it was.
“Ahhh, Madam.” He shook his head slowly, his expression solemn.
“You have lost your road.”
No kidding.
Appraising the lost, somewhat dim-looking azungus, the man
decided there was no hope of directing us. “Follow me,” he said and jumped into
his battered pick-up truck.
I looked at my husband and smiled. “Having fun yet? There’s
always an adventure in Africa!”
After a brain-jarring jog through the last of the village
and then cross country through the bush, we revved up a final dirt embankment
and found ourselves on a black tar road, stretching out into the distance on
either side, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The man pointed us to the
right and after thanking him, we took off with the fast-setting sun over our
shoulders.
 |
| At Nkapola Lodge |
I had miscalculated on daylight hours. Though I remembered
that night comes early in Malawi’s
late May, this memory did not translate into practicality. Once the sun sets,
it is dark. Not dusk. Not twilight. By 5:15pm, it was pitch black, with no
lights anywhere in sight. And we were on a strange, narrow road, in an
unfamiliar rental car, looking for an unlit sign, with zero hours of sleep.
What a relief to finally pull up at the Nkapola Lodge! A big
smile greeted us and helping hands gathered our belongings and whisked us
through the dark to the warm, friendly light of the front desk and then our
rooms.
We had arrived. Let the holiday begin!
