Dear Viven,
I’ve yet to sit down and count up all the
hours we’ve spent on buses and trains since parting with Archer back in West
Africa, but it has to be in the hundreds.
This portion of the trip, which brought us from Blantyre, Malawi, to Moshi
in northern Tanzania, tacked on about 38 to the total. The time goes somewhere, I suppose. It has to.
We are one British and one Canadian. This letter is accurate as of the day we crossed
on Tuesday 20 November 2013. We are returning
to Tanzania from a wide southern African circle starting at Dar es Salaam and
passing through Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi.
Visas
Visas are required to enter Tanzania, and
were available at the point of crossing for a flat US$50 rate. Our previous three-month visas expired on 13
November and it was no problem acquiring another 90-day entry stamp. The officer advised us that the visas are
considered multiple-entry in the East African Community (Tanzania, Kenya,
Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi), which means that if we leave to one of those
countries and return, the visa will still be active. It is single-entry if departing to any other
country. I assume, and hope, that this
has something to do with the planned EAC tourist visa, which will be valid for
all five member countries.
Language
Tanzania’s lingua franca is Swahili, with English spoken widely in the major
centres, higher education and the tourism industry. There was no problem making this crossing
using only English.
Money
Tanzania uses the shilling (TSH, where 1000 = US$0.62 or MWK 254). Money changers were available at both sides
of the crossing, but the coach driver informed us to be careful of the ones at
the gate leading into the town. Sure
enough, another traveler from the UK tried to change money with them and the
changer walked away with his Malawian kwacha “for just a minute” without
returning. We changed our money with a
man who did the exchange onboard the bus and who was recommended by the
driver. The standard rate seemed to be
MWK 1 = TSH 3.58.
There are ATMs (accepting both Visa and
Mastercard) all over both Malawi and Tanzania.
Time Change
At the border we passed from Central Africa Time (CAT, UTC + 2 hours) to Eastern Africa Time (EAT, UTC + 3 hours).
The Route & Means of Travel
From the Scottish-named city of Blantyre
in southern Malawi we progressed by a four-hour bus to the capital of Lilongwe
(Premier Bus Services, MWK 3000 each, from the main station). Buses and minibuses ply this route regularly,
connecting Malawi’s capital with its major commercial centre, and services
depart every hour or more. From Lilongwe
we caught an overnight coach heading to Dar es Salaam (Taqwa Buses, MWK 17,000
each) which departed on time at 7pm. It
was the only company we could find to make the long distance from
Lilongwe. 20 hours of driving brought us
to Iringa in central Tanzania where we disembarked. After a night’s rest in the picturesque
highlands town we proceeded by another full-day coach service to Moshi (Hood
Ltd., TSH 43,000 each). This final coach
departed from the bus station in Iringa on time at 6am en route to Arusha via
Morogoro and Lushoto, thus going the long way and avoiding Dodoma. It arrived in Moshi at 8pm, making it a
14-hour journey. There were no shortage
of coaches on this route, especially once it connected with the traffic from
Dar es Salaam, though we could find no direct connection to Arusha and Moshi
via Dodoma, which the map suggests would be a good deal faster.
Tickets for all three buses could be
arranged in advance or just prior to departure, though the best seats were
often taken by about an hour before leaving.
And to fill you out with a little more information, here is a list of
the fares by destination from Taqwa Buses on their route from Lilongwe to
Nairobi, Rwanda and Burundi via Dar es Salaam:
Tanzanian Border – MWK 10,000
Mbeya – MWK 13,000
Makambako – MWK 15,000
Iringa – MWK 17,000
Mikumi – MWK 18,000
Morogoro – MWK 19,000
Dar es Salaam – MWK 20,000
Nairobi (Kenya) – MWK 36,000
Bujumbura (Burundi) – MWK 40,000
Kigali (Rwanda) – MWK 40,000
The Border
We arrived at the Songwe border before it
opened and had to wait 40 minutes before 6am.
We walked through to queue at the Malawian immigration office and fill
forms at 6:05, and at 6:15 the kiosks opened.
Within ten minutes we had our photo taken and our passports stamped for
exit. We all reboarded the bus at 6:45
and drove one minute to the Tanzanian side, where we got off to fill forms and
wait in the immigration building. By
7:20 we had our new Tanzanian visas without any problems, and at 7:30 we received
a cursory inspection of our baggage, which had been taken off the bus. We reboarded the bus and departed Songwe at
7:50, which was now 8:50am Tanzanian time.
The whole process from arrival to departure, including waiting for the
border to open, took two and a half hours.
What We Needed
For the buses
- MWK 40,000 and TSH 86,000 for tickets
- 38 hours
At the border
- Passports
- Yellow Fever vaccination certificates (not inspected)
- US$100 for visa fees ($50 each)
- Forms filled with details, including our hotel at destination
- About 2.5 hours
After this there will be one more bus:
Moshi to Dar es Salaam. Though, I’m not
mentioning all the driving we are to do on safari, the dalla-dallas on Zanzibar, the taxis in Dar es Salaam, all the taxis
and dalla-dallas we’ve already taken,
all the… Africa is a big place, and you
need a lot of hours.
Happy trails,
QM
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| Sunset at Lilongwe bus station |
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| Portrait of Malawi's president, Joyce Banda |
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| The Taqwa bus (Lilongwe-Iringa) |
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| View from our Iringa lodging |
