The Return of the Shortage

We're back, safe and sound! We spent this weekend at Lake Malawi with some friends, celebrating Thanksgiving with food and sun and sand.

Driving 5 hours up to the lake is daunting at any time. There are bicycles, goats, and drunk people all over the roads. Not to mention pot holes and chickens and children. Driving here takes a lot of concentration and attention. But when there's no gas in the country it makes a long trip even more difficult.

We had to store our own gas in a jerry can in the trunk of our car since there would be no place to fill up anywhere outside of Lilongwe. That meant actually finding some gas to go in the jerry can. We had no idea what to do since there is even less gas in the country than a few months ago when Zach liveblogged from the petrol line. Luckily my co-fellow Jonathan knew about an illegal (but overlooked by the police) "petrol station" in Biwi, an area of Lilongwe. We drove down there on Thursday to fill up at MK1,000/litre (rather than the pump price of MK640).

I wish we could have taken a picture but these dudes wouldn't have appreciated it. It was a dirt courtyard full of jerry cans and 5 litre containers that used to hold cooking oil. Guys covered in mud and petrol were using funnels to pour gas into cars. It was insane and awesome. They filled us up and $150 later we were good to go.

Driving with a can can of gas in the back of the car is just asking for spillages and headaches, both of which occurred but overall it worked out great! Once we got to our beach house we had to fill up our tank. That's two of our friends doing that. This is definitely the only time in my life I've had so much direct contact with petrol; in Oregon we don't even pump our own, let alone funnel it in.

More about our weekend to come!