The final stretch was like the final nail in the coffin of bad roads. In this case more specifically, road construction. For probably 90% of the distance to Lilwongwe.
Once we entered the city limits of Lilwongwe. Gridlock. Why? Road construction.
What was billed as a leisurely 3 or so hour drive back to Lilongwe turned out to be our typical very long drive. In this case close to 7 hours and because the road was in such a state of turmoil there wasn’t really any countryside to enjoy along the drive. Just dreary, dusty and desperate little villages and hamlets existing along the fringes of the highway construction.
We entered Lilongwe around 2:00 pm hoping to beat the rush hour. We spent almost 1 1/2 hours to travel a distance of less than 6 km!
It was too bad the last leg of our journey was this way because we did see so much beauty over 1,700 kms of driving through a variety of landscapes.
The upside is there is a lot of infrastructure upgrades happening in Malawi and it seems that everything will probably be in turmoil for 1-2 more years but I think the results will be a very much improved road dynamic for Lilongwe and greatly improved highways for at least what we saw through our 1,700 km journey.
We departed The Warm Heart of Africa on August 24th after 15 days and made our way back to Johannesburg for a two night pit stop before heading out for some beach time in Mauritius.