Zambia into Malawi

                  Tuesday 3rd March: Zambia to Malawi.

Up at 7 and on the road by 8. We self catered this morning, safer than the dining room, and had weetabix with milk. Our mission today is to get to and through the border posts of Zambia and Malawi and then continue on to Lilongwe.


If time permits, we might drive to Senga Bay, on Lake Malawi. That is 100 kms past Lilongwe. The drive to Chipata from Petauke was very straightforward and on a decent tarred road. We got there at 11am and as we were close to the border at that stage, used all the remaining Zambian Kwacha to fuel our vehicle.


On to the border post and we were pleasantly surprised. Departing from Zambia was very simple. We had our passports stamped at immigration and customs quickly cleared the disco. I have to get the carnet (de passage) stamped into and out of each country and when this trip is finished around the middle of this year, return the carnet to the AA in South Africa. I can then get my deposit back. The carnet de passage simplifies border crossings and guarantees for the possible payment of import duties to the country you are visiting, if you do not export your vehicle again. We passed through a tobacco plant growing region & we stopped to see them hanging the leaves out to dry. We were told that it takes 8 months for the plant to grow and a leaf makes a packet of cigarettes. Of course, all this information was from a guy on the side of the road so I cannot guarantee it is correct!

Tobacco drying process

We arrived in Lilongwe at 2.15 pm and found a bank to withdraw money, and lunched at Nandos. It’s a small city so it didn’t take long to look around.

Lilongwe Malawi

As it’s only 100kms to Senga Bay, we are going to press on and look forward to waking up tomorrow to that beautiful sight. Off to laze at the Lake: We headed out the M1, turned right for Salima, 106 kms away, and reached that within 90 minutes, on a good, though slightly bumpy, tarred road.


Although a small town, it is very busy and a real obstacle course with people and bicycles on the road in huge numbers.



Malawi, smaller in size than England, has one of the densest populations in Africa, at 13 million. We then continued another 22kms to Senga Bay so it was in fact further than we expected, at 128 kms from Lilongwe. Just before arriving at Senga Bay, we stopped at the Red Zebra Café as I felt they might be able to advise us on a place to stay.

Uris, a Dutchman, pulled in just in front of us so when we got to the bar we started talking to him. It transpired that he is the manager of the Safari Beach Lodge just 2 kms away, so over a beer we negotiated a good rate for the night. In the cold fridge display unit in the bar, there were only 6 bottles of beer. We quickly finished those between the three of us and effectively left it “A pub with no beer.”

Exit one happy Irishman, job done! Uris promised to supply them with a crate of beer if they drove to the lodge to collect it. The cafe owner, a Zimbabwean, who is also a friend of Uris, is in Durban, South Africa, for his brother’s funeral just now. His brother got into a heated discussion two weeks ago with a neighbour, who promptly went to his car, got a gun, and shot him dead. On that note, off we went to the Safari Lodge.

Safari Lodge Garden

It was dark of course so when we went to our chalets, we couldn’t see the lake. We freshened up and went to the restaurant for dinner and had fried fish, it's Tilapia but in Malawi they call it Chambo, from the Lake. It was delicious.