Blantyre - Lake Malawi - Lilongwe

Road trip Blantyre - Lilongwe - 415 km

Trip form Blantyre to Lilongwe was planned on Sunday, 29th January 2012 on 8 o’clock. Road trip started with almost 2 hours delay.
I was traveling with my hosts from Lilongwe and driver.
Car that we wanted to go with wasn’t ready. It had to be fuelled up, suspension, cooler, air in tyres checked.  We set off around 10 o’clock.

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Quickly left the city, we were moving on two-way road to north direction. We have passed airport close to Blantyre. On our way we could’ve seen small chains of mountain that are in the area.

Well hills were not only close to Blantyre. Whole Malawi is highland. So we have passed another and another hills, mountains, chains. Road was empty, there are few cars on due to petrol shortage. I could seen only 3-4 trucks on the 500km way. I have seen also brand new BMW. It looks, that some people can afford car and fuel. As there is no traffic, there is no speed limit. Unfortunately, our old pick-up could go max 130kmph.
We have done just one stop to buy watermelon, 200 kwacha. In region where people were growing them we’ve seen a lot of small “road shops” advertising product.

Cottage with field 

Salima city and Lake Malawi
We have driven through few small cities, where trucks drivers have pit-stops. Many of those places were full of people, selling some fruits, shoes, bikes, all kind of goods. After 3 hours of journey we have finally got through to Salima city. It was already close to Lake Malawi. I saw number of ads about lodges.
We have found our destination. One of lodges, Carolina lodge, was just on border of lake. Surface of it is almost 1/3 of Malawi country. I’ve read that there is just one shuttle, serving from Monkey Bay up to north borders since 50ies. More than 60 years. Unfortunately it was Sunday, if it was Tuesday or Wednesday I would see it on the way to Monkey Bay.


We had to continue our trip. Having beer and some lunch, it was really hard to get back to car, and leave that magnificent view of lake.
Our further journey passed quite quickly on snaking road between hills. Malawi from car perspective was really marvellous. And surprisingly full of people. I can say that all the time we were passing people walking, riding bikes and just sitting on a way. There were also police controls. It was just a gate on road and as our car was approaching to one policeman or policewoman was opening it without question. We could easily continue.

Typical village in Malawi

One more important, I think impression. Africa is green, very green full of tress, bushes and fields. It is raining season, but always.
After 415 km and 8 hours of road tip we were in Lilongwe – capital city of Malawi.

To west...