Day 8: Just how many countries can we fit in one week?

Woke up, ate pastries and left. Walked about 2km before finding the "bus station," which consisted of a location where minibuses pick up passengers. One of the perks with traveling with the guys was that they liked to barter, so there were able to get the price down to about $2 per person. On the way out of Tete, the minibus and another car collided. Luckily, we were only going about 5mph because of traffic. However, we had to wait on the bus while they got an estimate for a minor dent and paint chipping. As a side note, Tete is known as the hottest place in Mozambique, in case anyone decides to go there. It definitely lived up to it's name. Once the minibus started again, the breeze came back through the windows.

The bus ride from Tete to the Mozambique border was about 2 hrs. With 4 of us in the back seat with our packs on our knees, we got the full minibus experience. Most of the populace uses minibuses to get around. There were about 20 people in our bus and we watched as people got on and off in small villages. Young and old boarded the bus, and once we even had a live chicken on board. The buses usually have to be push started as the batteries are bad, and there are not seatbelts to be found. At each village, people came up to the minibus selling fruits and drinks. We stuck to our bottled water, for obvious health reasons, but had they been selling mangoes, litches (spelling?) or granidillos (sp?), we probably would have grabbed some.

At the Mozambique checkpoint, they checked our passport. We then had to take a "taxi"another 5km to the border. It is unusual for the checkpoints to be so far apart. Anyways, we walked across the border into Malawi. It was then that we realized that we had been in 5 countries in about a week (US, France, South Africa, Mozambique, & Malawi). We hopped on our last minibus for another 1.5 hrs and were dropped off in Blantyre, Malawi. We were finally able to find a cellphone at the gas station and called our host, where she found us. She welcomed us with open arms, and after the past week's adventures, we felt like we were finally home.