Morning came quickly and the bus arrived early , so we gathered our things and put them into the bus. It was a nice bus, similar to a chartered bus in the US, with a toilet. We got to choose our seats and our buddy for the two day bus ride. The bus picked us up at the house, but we then drove to the bus station to pick up others going into Malawi. We left around 8:30am from the house and were finally headed to Malawi around 11am. When leaving they had a Malawian get up and pray for a safe journey. We were served our one and only meal for lunch, but were served drinks throughout the entire bus ride. I sat next to Benny and we talked a lot, making the time go by quickly. Our first border crossing into Zimbabwe was rather uneventful. After a full day of watching African music videos and a poorly made movie, we requested them to play one of our movies, The Dark Knight. After that was over the bus fell silent and we all tried to sleep to the best of our ability. It was probably one of the best times I have ever slept in transit on the race. My seat leaned back quite far and no one was behind me, meaning no knees in my back!
We were woken at 5:40am at the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border. We all got out of the bus and walked to the gate that opened at 6am, there was already a line. When the gate opened a mad rush surged as we all headed to stamp out of Zimbabwe. The officials tried to have a real line, but Africans aren’t really good at lines. They shove in and around and see the patient Americans and cut! We did eventually get through the line, but Lindsey and I got a little aggressive towards the end. You gotta do what you gotta do, especially if that means stepping in front of and not letting the never-ending stream of Africans through! We were then ushered to the next stop by the bus driver. The process to get our visas was long! We sat next to the office for hours while the agent went through our visas slowly, doing other things in between. The bus driver became impatient, but he could not speed up the process. Several times stacks of passports were taken out of the office and people would hold them in the air while others would come and hand them what looked like money in exchange. We had to keep a close eye on our stack. Some of us slept, some talked, and some played cards while we tried not to be in the way. We were finally done with the visa processing when the next problem came up. They wanted to see our Yellow Fever Cards. The problem with that is Matt does not have one. We told them it was ridiculous because more than half of us had already been to Mozambique and we did not need our cards, plus we were only passing through. For a brief second we thought only Luminous would have to provide them, but that was not true. We tried to convince them that it would take to long to get them because they were buried in our bags under the bus that was already through the border, but they didn’t care. This is where God worked a miracle! We went back to the bus and those who had cards got them and returned but Matt stayed on the bus. When we got back confusion erupted with everyone flashing cards and grabbing passports. The lady had given the passports over to us to pass out, so Chris grabbed Matt’s passport and hid it in his sweatshirt. The bus driver then started to corral everyone, quietly telling us that if we didn’t have a yellow fever card to just go! The total time at that border was over 4 hours! When we finally got on the bus all the Africans were tired of waiting and glad we had finally made it. We quickly made it through Mozambique in which the roads were much smoother than had been reported to us. We were told to put on our visas that we would be in the country for three days just in case we broke down! As we drove a rock was thrown at the bus which shattered the window that my head was resting on. The loud pop and sound of crackling glass startled me as I jumped out of my light sleep. I thought my big head had cracked the window, but when we pulled the curtain and saw the gaping hole in the window it was apparent that a rock had been thrown. We stopped just long enough to move Anna and Natalie into other seats. While we drove we busted out the rest of the window while trying not to get shards of glass everywhere. It was a huge mess, but no one seemed to care!
When we reached the Malawi border we were right on schedule, despite several delays. The day was hot as we stood in yet another line! After getting stamped out of Mozambique we were asked again to produce our yellow fever cards. As we boarded the bus an official stood looking through our stuff, not to worry though, Jessica gave the slip and got her card to Matt. The official barely looked at the cards, which was a blessing! To be out of Mozambique was a huge relief! We then drove through the longest no-man’s land yet. When we entered Malawi it was a very easy process for the Americans, but they required us to take everything off of the bus so that they could see that we were not smuggling anything illegal. For the Americans they made us quickly open our backpacks and we then reloaded our stuff. The time the Africans waited while we were processing in Mozambique was exchanged for us waiting while all of their stuff was ripped through by the officials. We were at that border for almost 4 hours! We also picked up extra passengers while there. From there the travel time was less than two hours. The bus company had us pray and thank God for helping us get there safely and then dropped off the Africans at the bus station. Then they took us to the guesthouse that we were staying at for the night in Blantyre. The total time of travel was 35 ½ hours!
The guesthouse was very nice and we were able to fix some dinner and most of us showered. We crowded on beds for the short night of sleep. We woke up the next morning and were taken to the next bus station. We were told that the bus to Lilongwe, the capital, was going to take 8 hours because of all of the stops, but when we bordered the man told us it would only take 4 hours because it was the express! I was a little worried about my stuff for a minute because one of the men made me take off my big backpack and leave it at the front, but a lot of luggage was packed on top and tied down. The six of us sat in the back seats and had all of our stuff closely surrounding us. One seat was still empty so a Malawian man sat next to me. He was a Christian who was going to Lilongwe for business. We talked on and off during the ride and we told him some of the things we needed once we got into the city, like a SIM card and minutes for our phone. He was very helpful and made sure that we had what we needed so that we could contact Jennifer once we got to the city. At one point on the ride we had to get out of the bus while the police searched the bus. I thought that might happen at every stop, but it only happened once. The drive was very uneventful considering our two days before, and we arrived 4 ½ hours later to a crazy, busy bus station!
