Blantyre to Harare

I had a day and a half in Blantyre to try and sort out how to get the bus from there to Harare, and to check out the town itself. The bus seemed fairly straightforward, and in fact there appeared to be three bus companies that operated the route. In the last place I tried I met a helpful and dapper looking guy named George who explained a few things to me. He seemed genuine, but I got the impression he was just another one of the local characters who tries to hustle tourists, but who can be genuinely helpful sometimes. Later that evening I did find out that he was offering a very bad exchange rate for South African Rand, but that much of the information he gave me was correct (you always need to double, or triple check any information you get).

So thinking I had the bus situation covered we relaxed that evening, and spent the next day strolling around Blantyre, which is a nice small town. As usual I checked out all the fancy hotels in the area, and one in particular stood out - Ryalls. It was recently renovated and they did a great job reinstating the colonial grandeur of the place. It was mighty expensive to eat there, and although I was tempted, we had checked out an Ethiopian restaurant earlier that looked really nice. As it turned out the Ethiopian meal we had was probably my favorite meal of the trip so far, nice and spicy and absolutely delicious. I had heard that Ethiopian food was really good, and I think I tried one in Amsterdam with Enda, but had been disappointed (I think it had gotten a mention in one of the guidebooks and seemed to be resting on its laurels), but this meal in Blantyre was superb. Afterwards we went back to the mad fancy place for a mad fancy desert and an ordinarily fancy coffee, and just to relax and read the paper.

Sarah went back to the hostel to relax as I strolled on a bit to check out a magnificent church build in 1891, which happened to have a cool choir rehearsal while I was there. Strolling about I could hear loud music, and so checking it out found it to be a wedding. As I stood at the back of the hall I could see the newly weds on a stage, surrounded by their friends and family, and the hall filled with their guests. As I was leaving a girl handed me a small take-away box with free nibbles – which was rather nice of them I thought!

The next morning was the bus to Harare, which I was quite casual about, although of course I had the usual concerns about border crossings and the like (the journey from Malawi passes through Mozambique, for which you need a visa, but I assumed we could get them at the border, but it’s always a concern), and of course all the news about Zimbabwe was horrendous. Luckily we met a friendly Liverpudlian guy (Paul) at Doogles who had just spent three weeks in Zim and said he really loved it, and that in fact it was his favorite place. He said some things were tricky (like getting bread for instance), and that changing money was a nuisance, but that everything was grand really, the people were mad friendly and that there was nothing to worry about.

We had ordered breakfast the night before but when we got up there was no sign of the cook, so we just headed out to the bus station, which was next door to Doogles. Lucky we did too, because the bus was already there and there was a huge crowd of people scrambling to get aboard. It was totally chaotic with clearly far more people trying to get on the bus than seats available, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. But lo and behold, who comes up to me only George from the day before. He chats to me in a friendly way and says he expected me there earlier, but that he has arranged seats, but it actually turns out he hasn’t managed to get them yet. In fact, people are supposed to buy a ticket first before getting on the bus at all, but already loads of people have picked out seats and are already sitting in them. The clamor for tickets then begins with everyone pushing passports and money at the ticket guy and bus company guys trying to force everyone into a single-file queue, and in the middle of it all is George trying to get me tickets as I try and queue.

After a bit George jumps on the bus and tells me to follow him. He moves down the bus a bit and then takes two bags off two seats and tells me to sit down and wait. Then he tells me to swap with Sarah, who is still outside with the bags. So now Sarah is sitting in a seat, and trying to keep another seat for me, while I barge my way towards the ticket seller. But its all totally mad, when suddenly the bus driver saunters into the fray and everyone runs over to him with their passports and money and the whole mellay starts again. Anyway, I’m seriously thinking of giving up and just getting a flight the following day when George takes my money and passports and somehow manages to get the driver to take them as he boards the bus. Another guy then takes them and copies the details onto a manifest and then tells me to sit down with Sarah. George now tells me that everything is OK and to just wait for my ticket, which finally arrives in another 10 minutes.

Of course I’m now expected to give George a few bob for helping me out, but in this case I’m absolutely delighted to do so. I think we probably would have been alright on our own, as we were the only white people in the entire bus station and Africans are really friendly and accommodating to tourists, but it was such utter chaos that having George to help was a Buddha-send (yeah, yeah, as in god-send).

Everything slowly calms down and eventually people take their seats and the people who failed to get tickets get off the bus, and only a little over an hour late we actually head off towards Harare. After that initial mayhem everything else went really smoothly, and the border crossings were really painless (with just a two-hour delay leaving the Malawi border, but it was a lovely day, so it was no bother really).

Before reaching Harare Sarah manages to blag a mobile phone from a lady we got chatting to at one of the border posts, and we manage to briefly contact Mark to let him know we’re on the bus and approaching Harare. But we lose the connection before arranging how to meet up, although we sort it all out later after we hop off the bus at the Holiday Inn and after eventually managing to get a taxi.

Mark (in his Mr. Del Monte outfit) and his two attack dogs greet us as we get out of the taxi, and after a quick tour of his luxurious house and a bottle of champagne we retire for the night in the fabulous master bedroom.