Leaving Ndindeya motel this morning wasn't particularly difficult; the breakfast was rubbish and the staff have to be some of the unfriendliest we have encountered in Malawi. When I accidentally locked the keys in the room; easy to do with a Yale lock, whilst being distracted by a bar staff member demanding his empty bottles back. It was then up to me to break into our room as the staff had no spare key, or couldn't be bothered to look for one. Fortunately I could reach through the window and undo the lock, not great for security, but good for me! If Debs wasn't suffering from an upset stomach we would have been very glad to leave. As it was Debs popped a couple of pills and we hoped that she would be alright.
It was a strange day on the road filled with a fair bit of climbing and some very nice scenery. What made it a little odd though were the people along the road. Everyone seemed strangely silent as we passed. Even if they are asking for money, Malawians have generally been quite vocal. To pass people silently staring was a new experience for us.
Getting to an area where they did acknowledge us it was in their native language, not English as we have become used to, and often quite unfriendly in tone and delivery.
Almost out of the blue we arrived in the outskirts of Limbe, Blantyre's smaller sister city. Reaching an unsigned junction, we asked some local women which way to go and they told us Blantyre was to the left. About 3km further on, having passed through a quite built up area, we came out the other side to a roundabout. There were still no road signs and no sign of the big city of Blantyre either. Asking another local, we were told that we had missed Blantyre and that it was back the way we had come! The problem was that we hadn't passed a single sign on the road and we seemed to be in an area where very little English was spoken. Eventually we found a helpful guy who told us we just had to stay on the road we were on and we would find ourselves in the city. True to his word we were soon heading down a main highway towards Blantyre.
Due to our becoming directionally challenged we had arrived in the city a little later than expected. Passing the very modern Chichiri shopping mall we stopped for a bite to eat in a fast food restaurant. Compared to everything else we have seen in Malawi the shopping mall came as a bit of a shock. Suddenly we were surrounded by modern cars, bright western looking shops, westerners and wealthy looking locals. It was a far cry from the mud-brick, thatched roofed buildings we have passed along the road. Suddenly the gulf between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' looked enormous. Perhaps this also went some way to explain the strange atmosphere of the towns and villages that we had ridden through today. It must be difficult to be struggling to make a living, when 30km up the road is a gleaming, seemingly money-laden city.
Back on the road we covered just over 2 kilometres to Doogles Lodge pretty quickly and arrived at a very western looking bar. The checking in procedure was all a little vague and it didn't get any better when we were shown where to camp. The guy who took us round to the camp-site couldn't seem to get into his head that we were pushing very heavy bicycles. Directing us along a path that involved steps and then looking surprised when Debs explained that she couldn't get up them showed the level of helpfulness we were dealing with. Especially when we could simply have gone round a building and missed them all, which is what we did. Our first impressions weren't good and they didn't approve too much when we went to get a drink at the bar. Even by African standards the staff took indifference to a whole new level.
Since then though I have to say that it has improved some. The camp-site is alright, the showers and toilets are pretty good and the restaurant food was very nice. The only issue we have encountered is a sign saying that all non-residents have to pay in foreign currency. On questioning this, the owner explained that the government, convinced that westerners are walking round with millions of US dollars in their pockets destabilizing the Malawian currency, has decided that all visitors will have to pay for accommodation in dollars! Apparently this came into effect early August, but is clearly being ignored by everyone else as it is the first time we have come across it since arriving in the country. It is hard to think of a more stupid ruling that the government could come up with, especially as most people nowadays travel with plastic and ATMs only give out local currency here. For a country that has no exports and is surviving on tourism and dwindling foreign aid, it seems ridiculous to make it more difficult for the few visitors the country is getting. Having said that the President has been making increasingly more bizarre rulings over the last few months, some of them leading to the violent protests during July of this year.
Tomorrow we will have a trip into the city to have a look round. Depending on how much we like Blantyre we will stay for one or two more nights.
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