I have returned from a 3 week visit to Blantyre. It was a very relaxing holiday. I visted family and friends in Malawi’s biggest city.<\/p>\n
The weather was beautiful as expected: hot and rainy. Even though the rainy season has started, temperatures soared to 36 degrees and more on several days. Blantyre is located at an altitude of over 1000 m above sea level.<\/p>\n
Due to an ongoing fuel shortage, I didn’t travel to other parts of Malawi. We did not manage to fill the tank even once during the 3 weeks that I was there. It was very frustrating to queue for 3 and a half hours only to hear, 5 vehicles away from the pump, that diesel is finished.<\/p>\n
The forces of demand and supply set in. Black market prices soared to 100 to 120% of the regular filling station price. <\/p>\n
Every day you could see men walking around with yellow containers (called zigubu) in search of liquid gold. Zigubu. From a linguistic point of view, I like the word very much. From a driver’s point of view, zigubu are very frustrating, cos it’s a synonym for hoarding.<\/p>\n
I found Fred Bvalani’s Malawi Fuel Watch group on Facebook to be a very useful source of information. Zikomo kwambiri.<\/p>\n
Since I left the fuel situation has improved. I hope this will continue.<\/p>\n
Internet<\/b><\/p>\n
Throughout my visit i found TNM’s mobile data service to be reliable. I also like the fact that TNM are advertising their products and services in Chichewa, Malawi’s national language. <\/p>\n
I noticed that several friends and contacts are using Blackberry smartphones. I am wondering if this is a RIM strategy? <\/p>\n
Easyjet for BLZ!<\/b><\/p>\n
Both of my flights from JNB to BLZ and back were packed to the max. Since Air Malawi’s grounding, the SAA flight is the only regular airlink. I heard there is a small jet that flies to Lusaka. But that’s about it. Passengers flying to Nairobi need to take a bus to Lilongwe, 400 km away from Blantyre, to reach the Kenya Airways connection. I wonder what the limiting factor is in the business case. Evidently it is not so easy. Once upon a time, Comair was planning to buy Air Malawi. But wouldn’t it be cool if Malawi was accessible by means of a low cost airline similar to Easyjet?<\/p>\n
As usual I’ve posted some snapshots on Flickr.<\/p>\n
I am back in Switzerland. To my amazement, the weather is very mild this January. So far I haven’t really felt cold, despite my tropical break.<\/p>\n