Are they leaving for good, good? (Day 5 of our Malawian Adventure)

One of our Chechewa teachers...

 The next day we woke up, had another delicious breakfast and chatted with Grandfather a little more.  As he sat there eating gummy worms, he asked his grandson, “Are they leaving for good good?”  Its official, we are always welcome at that house and I hope we can make it back to visit sometime.  Then it was time for us to head to Blantyre.

 Up until this point, most of the trip I had spent sitting in the front of the trip, but for the ride back I decided to sit in the bed of the truck, so I would have an even better view of Malawi’s scenery.  Two of Roy’s workers were coming along to help Roy with some work in Blantyre so they were sitting in the back with us. Tania and I continued our Chechewa lessons with them.  That day they were extremely chatty and full of helpful phrases for us to learn in Chechewa.

 Roy took us to get us a chapa back to the border town Chiponde, not before meeting his stepfather to complete the family meetings.  We agreed on 3000 kwacha from Blantyre to Chiponde and got in for the trip. 

Our lodging for the evening... and yes it says free bleakfast...

                When we reached the cross-roads town, Mangochi, the driver said he wasn’t going any further and dropped us off at pick-up truck he said would take us to Chiponde.  By this point it was dark out and we weren’t sure if we really wanted to continue or not, we knew we would either end up staying in Mangochi or in Chiponde and leaving tomorrow morning for Cuamba either way, we just weren’t sure where we would end up staying.  The driver then demanded that we pay the 3000 Kw.  We said we had agreed on that price all the way to Chiponde.  He said we didn’t agree on it with him and it is 3000 to Mangochi.  We got in another argument and ended up talking with the police again.  This time, they sided with the driver.  We finally agreed to pay 3000 if the driver would take us to somewhere safe to stay.  The police said he knew this guy and he would drive us to a several different places, until we found one that had space, one that we liked and that was a decent price.  We said ok, and crossed the bridge back into Mangochi, went to the first place, which was full and then to the second place which had rooms ranging from 1500-3000 kwacha.  We said that would work and paid the driver went in to the hostel to decide which room we wanted. 

Enjoying our dinner in our luxury room

         We ended up staying in the cheapest one for 1500, (or 500 kwacha each).   If you do the math for each of us that is about 41 metical, or approximately $1.39.  For this price we got a room with a twin bed, a mosquito net, a flushing toilet, a bucket of water, a broken fan, and energy.  This is a lot for all that and more than I’ve ever seen for so cheap in Mozambique.  By this point, we may have been a little delirious, but we found the fact that we were paying less than $1.50 for this room hilarious. 

We had our dinner of bread and peanut butter on the bed while recounting all the stories from our trip and once again asking the question of our travels, “What is happening on this trip and where are we?”.