Pardon my french...

but there is really only one word that accurately describes the Malawian transportation system: shitshow. Like if you were to look in the dictionary under 'shitshow" it would have a picture of a truck in Malawi.

This weekend I went to Liwonde National Park. Normally the trip would take about 2.5 hours in a car, but of course in Malawi it is far longer than that. We began from Salima; we boarded a coach bus, but even after all of the seats were taken they continued to fill it with Africans...and their chickens and babies (standing room only). The bus took 3 hours to get to Balaka (30 min away from Liwonde), bc it stopped every 10 minutes or so to pick up even more people as well as so we could buy fruits and junk from vendors out of the bus windows. Oh, and we hit a guy on his bike, which caused a fight to erupt on the street...and while the fight was happening, I observed a woman whip out her left boob, squeeze it, squirt breast milk on her baby child's head and then cleaned him with the milk.

From balaka to Liwonde, we took a minibus (like a small super shuttle van), but it was more of the same game of "How many Malawians can we fit into a vehicle?" However, this trip was the worst bc 10 min into it we picke up some fishermen who stacked their dead fish in the back. I cannot think of a worse smell than that of sitting in a small van for 30 min with 20 Malawaians who mostly haven't showered, babies who haven't changed, and dead fish.

Total travel time to Liwonde took about 4 hours. Somewhere in between going to and leaving Liwonde I went on a few safaris.

The journey home took even longer bc I left on a Sunday afternoon, so there were a lot of people traveling. The ride to Balaka wasn't bad (the dead fish didn't smell as bad this time around), but the bus operator misguided us and somehow we wound up stranded at the crossroads of 2 highways. We (me, Cally, Gretchen, and a Dutchman named Joseph) sat in the bed of a truck for over 3 hours with like 40 other Malawians, chickens, etc. as it stopped probably every 2 or 3 minutes to pick up someone else. Then in the middle of the ride the driver told us to get off and catch a minibus (which had dead fish in it) to Salima, which took another hour, then we had to wait to be picked up and drop Joseph off at a lodge. Total travel time home took about 6 hours.

This place is crazy. I don't think I've ridden in a public vehicle here yet that hasn't had at least 10 Malawians and some sort of live animal on it. Awesome! Anyhoo, I will have safari pics up (they're not super great but meh) when I get home.