Day 13 – Nkhata Bay to Mfuwe: The Seam Between Two Countries

The alarm went at four, and we left at half past, into a night with a huge moon hanging over it. I was exhausted and could not sleep, and I did not much want to; the first hour of road in the dark, the lake somewhere off to the side and the moon over everything, was one of the strange, good parts of the day. This was the one we had been dreading, the longest and hardest drive of the trip, close to seven hundred kilometres from Nkhata Bay to South Luangwa, and it opened with something close to beauty.

The day came in two halves and two drivers. The first, Tiyanjane, took us down through the country to Lilongwe. He said very little. At one point he told us he sees few Italians on these roads, that the ones who come are usually on organised tours and do not speak English. In Lilongwe we stopped for lunch and changed drivers; from there Andrew, who would take us the rest of the way in his 4×4, drove us on to Mfuwe. He too was a man of few words, and very professional, and both cars were new and comfortable, which after a Tazara berth and a boda-boda felt close to luxury.

We stopped in Lilongwe only in the City Centre, the ordered part built in the 1970s for the ministries and embassies, with wide, tree-lined avenues, government blocks, and green space. We never saw the Old Town or the markets. It was a capital seen from a car window on the way through, which is not the same as seeing it.

What surprised us most in Malawi was the police. There were more than a dozen checkpoints before the border, more than twelve in a single day, and at each stop we showed our passports. The encounters were routine, and no one asked us for money, and no one asked Andrew.

Between the checkpoints, the country ran past the window for hours: villages, markets, the everyday life along the road, the landscape slowly changing.

The Malawi-to-Zambia border at Mchinji is a modern, efficient crossing, far quicker than Songwe had been. The nuisance, again, was the money. Dozens of changers called to us, and a few were plainly trying it on, so I decided to skip them and take cash from the first ATM I found on the Zambian side instead. The conversion apps on my iPhone were not helping, so I ended up asking ChatGPT and Claude to do the sums. Of the three eSIMs we had bought at home, the Zambian one was the first to work straight away, no physical SIM needed.

Across the border, the roads visibly improved. But what struck me more was how alike the two sides were. Andrew said he understands the Zambian dialect and Zambians understand his; the currency is called by the same name on both sides, kwacha here and kwacha there; the staple, nsima, is the same. On a map, the border is a hard line. Crossing it slowly by road, it looked more like a place where one thing shades into another.

The last stretch, the dirt road from Chipata to Mfuwe, is a safari in itself, long and rough and dusty. Before we even reached the camp we saw giraffe, and a small elephant, off the track. The road-fatigue of the whole day turned, in a few minutes, into something else entirely.

Flatdogs Camp, when we arrived at sunset, was an easy, warm place. We were welcomed by an Italian, Paolo, the nephew of one of the founders, who studied North and South American literature and then came out to Africa and has worked here since 2007, having fallen for the place and stayed. An expat like us, on another continent. Our tent was comfortable and right on the river, and as the light went we looked out on crocodiles and hippos an unsettling distance away. In the days to come we would learn they were not the problem. The camp sits on an elephant corridor, and it is the elephants that walk between the tents, and that would one day clear us out of lunch.

I love trains, and I do not love car journeys. I suffered a little today. But we had wanted four days inside the reserve rather than a quick pass through it, and this was what four days inside the reserve cost.

Practical Notes

Where I stayed

Flatdogs Camp, Mfuwe, on the edge of South Luangwa National Park, on the Luangwa River. https://flatdogscamp.com/
What I paid: $2,318 for three nights, full board (breakfasts, lunches, dinners) and four game activities (two per day, including a walking safari and a night drive), plus the transfer to the airstrip at the end. This was the single most expensive part of the trip, and a deliberate choice: four days in the reserve rather than a brief visit.
My take: Tents are comfortable and right on the river, with crocodiles and hippos in view. The camp sits on an elephant corridor, so elephants regularly move through between the tents. More on that in the safari days.

Getting there

Nkhata Bay to Mfuwe by private 4×4, via Lilongwe, the Mchinji/Mwami border and Chipata. Around 700 km, the full day, pick-up 04:30. Arranged through Anake Taxi & Tours (Andrew Bita, +265 888 743 955), with a first driver (Tiyanjane) as far as Lilongwe and Andrew from there to Mfuwe.
What I paid: $630 for the full transfer.
The border (Mchinji/Mwami): a modern, 24-hour one-stop post on the main Lilongwe–Lusaka road, efficient and quick. Many money-changers, some chancers among them; I skipped them and used the first ATM in Zambia instead. Phone conversion apps struggled with the kwacha rate.
Worth knowing: expect a lot of police checkpoints on the Malawi side (we passed more than a dozen in a day); show your passport at each; none asked us for anything. A Zambian eSIM worked immediately on arrival. The final Chipata–Mfuwe stretch is long, corrugated dirt, and doubles as a first game drive: we saw giraffe and elephant before reaching camp.