This was our first overland border crossing in Africa so we weren’t sure what to expect and couldn’t find much information about the best way to get between Malawi and Tanzania. As we travelled further North in the country we saw that buses cross the border from Mzuzu into Tanzania, so this is the route we settled on.
We actually started our journey from Nkhata Bay, getting to the bus station in the middle of town for 6am which is when the local shared taxis start their journeys to Mzuzu - the best place we found to get transport to the border. It takes about an hour and costs 2,000MWK a person.
The taxis end at a drop-off point and then it's a five minute walk down the main road to the bus station - locals were really helpful at directing us and as soon as you appear from the main road there are drivers and what we like to call 'conductors' (but really he's just the guy opening the door, screaming the destination out the window and collecting the money) trying to get you on their bus.
There are buses from here going to the Karonga border (the Songwe crossing) and we didn't have to wait long for it to fill up at that time in the morning. We paid 5,000MWK each to get to the border, which we confirmed with them several times due to previous bad experiences. But as always seems to happen in Malawi, a few hours later we found ourselves at Karonga town (about an hour from the border) being switched to a small shared taxi and told that the money had been sorted. Again, as we experienced time and again in this country when we did eventually reach the border the driver told us that he hadn't received any money and we had to pay again for this element of the journey. We agreed on 1,000MWK and basically ran to the border seeking happier lands. We still can't work out how to effectively avoid this situation - no matter how many times we asked anyone we could see who was loading our bags from one vehicle to another or the people we'd initially paid we always got told everything was fine as we were bundled in the back, but never seemed to be able to speak to the right person who would later demand more money from us. These guys would make excellent magicians.
It's a couple of minutes walk from where you get dropped off to the exit point of Malawi, where you get a stamp from the last worker in the line of desks because all the other employees don't want to disturb their doing nothing to help you, with each pointing you further down the line of windows until the last guy rolls his eyes and has to do his job.
Walking across the border and into the Tanzanian border control most nationalities have to pay $50 for a visa, as well as showing a yellow fever certificate and having their temperature taken to check for ebola. This was all really quick (although Tanzania is an hour ahead so it still took an hour and a half 😂) and there's an ATM just the other side of the border which is really useful.
It's then about 1.5km to the bus station - on a road to the right of the main highway you walk/get a moped along and this is where buses to Mbeya go from. That's the biggest town near to the border and where it's easiest to travel onwards by either train (but only on Wednesday or Saturday) or bus (daily from 6am, it took us 16 hours!) to Dar es salaam. Mbeya isn't anywhere spectacular to visit, but it was the furthest we could get in a day as it took us almost four hours on a very slow bus once leaving the border town - although we've seen that it normally takes about two. The bus ends at Nane Nane station, still 4 miles from the town centre. You can either wait for a local dalla dalla bus to fill up and pay 400TZS each, or get a tuk tuk straight away for 5,000TZS (less than £2) for the vehicle and speed 15 minutes into the city.
So 11 hours traveling in total for us, but a successful and simple border crossing and a whole new country to now explore.
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