Crossing into Malawi

July 26th, Day 45:

Today was definitely the longest day of the trip, and one of the most physically and mentally challenging days of my life. We woke up at around 6am to wind blowing the tent all over the place, constantly changing directions and speeds. It seems like we never get a break with weather conditions, but we had no real other option but to bike on. We were just worried that the unpredictability of the wind would potentially make bicycling dangerous because the wind could violently change direction at any time and throw us off the road.

We decided to take the risk and continue onwards towards the Zambia/ Malawi border. We ate breakfast during our ten mile break in the town of Katete, each ordering four eggs, tea, and bread, a staple breakfast to get us going in the morning. The wind settled down and bit and it was clearing up as we headed towards Chipata, the last major town before the border. Since we left really early, we were able to get into Chipata around 2pm, but our bodies were pretty much done and we had no energy to keep on going. We also hadn't eaten anything since breakfast so we were both anxious to get some food.

Chipata turned out to be a pretty small town and we struggled to find any place that served food. Luckily, we ran into some nice people that offered us water and guided us to a hotel that was serving food. Food made us feel better, but we still had around 30 miles to go until Mchinji, the first town in Malawi. Aaron had pretty much had enough riding for the day, but I really wanted to push it to Mchinji and stay on schedule. I was feeling a little better than Aaron, but after stopping in Chipata to eat and rest, my legs were not the same after that and bicycling with any resistance was painful.

Nevertheless, we somehow continued on to the border. It was now pretty much pitch dark outside so finding the immigration offices was a bit of a struggle. We were just hoping that Malawi would have a cool visa sticker like a few of the countries that we passed through earlier. There is something cool about filling your passport with as many different stamps and stickers that is possible. There was close to zero security on either side of the border, we could have probably just walked across and no one would have said anything. However, we didn't feel like breaking any laws today plus the lure of more pages filled in our passports was hard to resist.

It was quite disappointing when we made it to the Malawi immigration office and they said we did not even need a visa and all they did was give us a little stamp in our passports. It was nice that they don't make you pay any money to get into the country, but I would have shelled out a few bucks for a nice looking sticker. This may seem a bit childish, but when you bicycle for days on end and you get to a border, you want something cool to show for it. However, the feeling of having made it to our 4th country of our trip was a great feeling, which made up for the disappointment of no visa sticker.

Crossing the border was nice, but we still had about 15 miles to go until we reached Mchinji, and we would have to do it all in the dark. Fortunately for us, the road was pretty empty and it was almost completely downhill to Mchinji. I could really sense we were in a different country, the atmosphere of Malawi was strikingly different from Zambia. The people were very energetic and approachable, willing to help us out as we tried to find a place to stay for the night.

The first thing we needed to do was get some Malawi Kwacha; there were two banks in Mchinji, yet for some reason both of them would not accept any card we tried. Thankfully, we had some U.S. Dollars for emergencies and this definitely qualified as one. We eventually found a little guesthouse right of the main road and settled in for the night. At this point, I was not feeling well at all and all I could really do was lay down. I was able to take a hot shower, which felt good, but I was still not feeling well after that.

Aaron was also not feeling so great, and we decided to just go to bed instead of looking around town for a place to eat. The guesthouse only had a double bed available, so we would be sharing again on this night. We turned on the TV and "The Mask of Zorro", a personal favorite of mine, was just about to start so we watched that before going to bed. I got up to go brush my teeth, but I started shaking uncontrollably and quickly hopped back under the covers. I had definitely overexerted myself a bit too much on this day, we had bicycled over 85 miles with a ride time of over 8 hours. I was in desperate need of a rest day, but Lilongwe was 65 miles away and tomorrow was definitely going to be a challenge if I was even able to get out of bed.