Our route plan was taking us from the Cool Runnings lawns, which we were leaving regretfully, North along the lake and to Mzuzu. Mzuzu is the first large town when entering Malawi from the North and a key part of our ORIGINAL rough outline which had us crossing through Tanzania around the northern tip of the lake into Malawi and travelling south towards Lilongwe. But, now we were including Mzuzu in our route with the sole purpose of visiting the Chipeta residence and family.
Plan D.1a: Mzuzu, then back to the lake to stay at Nkhata Bay at a highly recommended camp spot before reversing most of our route on Sunday to be in Lilongwe promptly for the booked Syncro service the next day.
One of the things that increasingly fascinated us about every country we have travelled in so far is the police road blocks. At almost every ‘major’ road junction, mostly in a desolate and arbitrary location (in RSA this would equate to the crossing of the N6 and R516 far from any town, shop or infrastructure) a neat little building and sometimes a boom will be manned by a very professional looking policeman/woman or two. Where they live, how they get to work and how much they get paid to keep them at their post, mystifies me. It should be noted that the degree of friendliness varied slightly, but not in a single instance – not once – were we harassed at these road blocks (the only thing that raised a police eyebrow and comment was when Anita was driving Adri’s dokka with me as passenger. The policeman refused to even speak with us girls and went to have his discussion with Adri and C-H who were travelling in our bus)
I have not seen as many nor any as formal as the ones from Senga Bay to Mzuzu. At another one of these road blocks we ignored the turn off to Nkhata Bay and headed for Mzuzu with the directions Adams gave us for his house on a piece of paper. The Garmin spitefully refused to recognised any of the landmarks, streets or areas provided, so we were slightly worried. Even more so when we drove into Mzuzu and realised Adams was quite right when he said it was a fast growing and rather biggish town already. We pulled over to consider our options. And a Toyota Land Cruiser with police pulled in next to us offering to assist.
This way we landed a police escort all the way across town at a very leisurely pace incorporating a number of stops to pick up people, drop off people or ask for directions to our directions. Not sure what the neighbours think of the people visiting with the Chipeta’s in Mzuzu – either very VIP or very dodge!
By now we had called Adam’s to also ask for telephonic directions and when we arrived at his house we have family members and friends and neighbours pitching up from all directions to greet and welcome us. I will not elaborate on the short visit for fear that the meaning of the experience to us will be trivialised in words.
Martha Chipeta (Adam’s and Doreens’s daughter and youngest)
Carl-Hein with the family
I should however note that Adam’s and Doreen are in fact landlord’s :-) with more than one (incredibly neat) house and a small farming and tobacco growing operation very effectively integrated into their plot of land.
Chipeta grounds from across the valley.
Two houses currently form the main complex.
Taking the road back to Nkhata Bay for the night, we hardly made it 1km before our first major breakdown for the trip. The accelerator cable had snapped. 
More importantly the concepts ‘tow truck’ and ‘telephone directory’ simply does not seem to exist in Mzuzu.
On a dirt road, not within walking distance of any commercial area, late on a Saturday afternoon (stupid every day schedules again), crowded by people and kids with very limited or no English, in (what we discovered later to be) one of the few really dodgy areas in Mzuzu/Malawi, with Carl-Hein’s phone unable to make local Malawian calls and not being able to receive calls from South Africa – we where royally stuck.
We are OK off course but by shear coincidence and luck resulting mainly from Adam’s orchestrating from South Africa.
1.) We gave Austin (English speaking security-guard-acting-as-our-interpreter who had been summoned by Adams to his home to facilitate interfacing with his family) a lift back to his work at the university
2.) Lorna calls us on Austin’s phone?! after she had called ‘home’ and was told we had left already with Austin
3.) She is surprised to hear about our breakdown, but tells us that Booysens, Adam’s brother who we know from Johannesburg, is in Malawi and in fact she just spoke with him at Adam’s house where he went in the hope to see us
4.) Austin calls and catches Booysens at Adam’s house. Now we have the great privilege of a trusted, familiar, extended family member, fluent in English and Chechewa at our rescue.
5.) A random passer by offers to assist and after passing the interview and screening by Booysens, is allowed to start fiddling on the car under strict supervision of Booysens. He miraculously, after hours of dedicated struggling with bits and pieces of roadside collected wires, devises some form of temporary solution that takes us, at 15km per hour, to the most reputable local repair shop in Mzuzu, which is of course CLOSED.
6.) But, and this tops it all, Carl-Hein remembers that the previous owner had hacked in a ‘cruise control’ connected to a ‘choke’ besides the steering wheel that had been disconnected in the engine. With a minor reconnection we have a hand operated ‘replacement’ petrol cable that should be able to take us with a bit of effort at a slightly faster pace to Lilongwe.
Adri, irrefutable proof we did not pack too much stuff :-) We cleared out the back and fitted all our belongings and three people into the centre of the bus. Note Booysens, our benefactor, right at the back
This day and the next are possibly best described by the severe lack of photographs :-) We clearly had a serious humour and photography failure.
We sleep that night in the exorbitant (but by now familiar and trusted) Sunbird operated Mzuzu hotel.
And therefore do not get to see Nkhata Bay.
regards, M-L
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