Lilongwe to Mozambique Island Overland Transport

If you plan to drive to Mozambique Island overland from Malawi, you’ll need to decide which border to cross. We took (and would recommend) the Mulanje route. If you are coming from the capital of Lilongwe, drive five and a half hours south until you reach Blantyre city. Mulanje is about two hours southeast of Blantyre, is a gorgeous drive through teas estates, and is very easy to get to. After crossing the border, if you’re going to Mozambique Island, you’ll need to head towards the city of Nampula. The road from the Mulanje border to the Island is very nice. It is tarmac the entire way, the signs are helpful, and the road is quite wide. Online is says that the route will take 10 hours from the border, but in our experience, it takes closer to 12 hours with all the unexpected obstacles. It also doesn’t hurt to stop along the way and make sure you’re driving in the right direction…speaking from our experience of driving two hours on the wrong road. Oops.

Hot tip: Bring a map or GPS (you may be thinking, duh no brainer, but it’s easier to forget than you’d think). We didn’t have either and literally had to rely on the helpful nature of Mozambicans. We still got there, but we wouldn’t recommend being as laissez faire as we were unless you’re a very adventurous type.

Also - if you don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese…good luck. We had two people in our party who knew a fair amount of Spanish and Italian, so we made it work. However, if no one in your group knows these languages, make sure to look up important phrases (yes, no, how much, thank you, am I going the right way, etc) and try to be as patient as possible.

While headed to Mozambique Island, we were stopped about five times from the border to our destination by police. Although this is much less than when we drive in Malawi, the stops were much more thorough and ended up taking a long time. Right after the border, we were stopped and asked for triangles, a safety vest, car registration, and a fire extinguisher. Twice the police opened our luggage and searched our entire car. The other times they just asked for our passports and car registrations. We were also asked for money (aka a bribe) or Fanta every time we were stopped. We smiled, apologized, and politely refused.

As residents of Africa, we beg you to not encourage bribe culture…even just by giving a Fanta or Coke. The reason police ask for these things is because travelers have given it to them in the past and continue to do so. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t need to bribe an officer. In our overall experience, the police in Mozambique treated us with respect when stopping us, but we still feel they are much friendlier and noninvasive in Malawi (though they often still laughingly ask for Coke at times).

To be frank, the Mozambique border is not a joke. Compared to the Tanzanian, Zambian, and Malawian borders we've crossed, it was a bit of a pain in the ass. One thing we did to avoid corruption was exchange money into Mozambican Metical before getting to the border. We had heard from other travelers that a common practice is to charge travelers a certain price for a single-entry visa in Metical, and then when the travelers say they only have USD, the border charges you a higher rate and will only accept your dollars. We were told if you pay in USD, you’ll pay $50 (as of 2018) and if you pay in the local currency, you’ll pay the equivalent of $36. When we went to the Mozambique Embassy in Malawi to see if we could get visas there, they said it would be over $100. We recommend raiding every money exchange shop before entering Mozambique, snatching up all their Metical, and buying your visa at the border. It also isn’t a bad idea to have USD on hand just in case they don’t accept your Metical (this has also happened to a friend of ours).

While you’re at the border, you’ll need to buy third party insurance (assuming you are driving a vehicle). Located in a small, nondescript building, it can be slightly difficult to spot right away, but don’t drive off without it. This ensures that if you get in an accident, the other car/driver/passengers will be covered. This is fairly quick and cheap. We paid around $20 for our 11 days in-country.

Another thing that took up time at the border was a dramatic encounter with an unidentified medical inspector. In the end, after much hoopla, we figured out that he wanted our yellow fever cards and was actually who he said he was. After showing him our documents and some clever translation, we continued on our way. Overall, we would suggest that you plan for two hours at the border, and more if you are going in the middle of the day. We arrived at the border at 7:00am and it was open, and on the way back we crossed at 5:00pm and it was still open. Other than that, we are not totally sure what the hours are.

The drive from Malawi to Nampula was stunning. We went in rainy season and were rewarded with luscious green hills and bright blue skies. Despite the easy-to-travel roads, there were a few detours on dirt paths due to road construction. It was on one of these such paths that we ran into a slight snafu in the form of a jack-knifed semi-truck blocking the road forward. We, and about fifty trucks, mini buses, and cars were stuck on either side of the jack-knifed semi with no way to move.

The semi was filled with hundreds of salt bags, rendering it too heavy to push or tow out of the way. With the scorching African sun above us, the dusty gravel beneath our feet, and the water container looking low…Paul and Chase knew they had no choice but to rally the troops. They joined a handful of Mozambican men in unloading the huge bags of salt from the truck in order to make it lighter. The crowd cackled at the sight of two mzungus (foreigners) carrying salt on their heads and quickly joined the efforts.

There was an interesting mix of people at the spectacle—men from the village, bwana (wealthy) Malawian women snap-chatting the whole thing, Indian guys sweating in the heat, Mozambican truck drivers desperate to move on, and kids from nearby houses who came to cheer on the workers. Everyone seemed to be helping, even teen girls with their purses still on their shoulders and foreigners who didn’t understand a word of Portugues. Brandalyn and I, however, decided to hide in our car, take pictures, and make sandwiches on a Frisbee cutting board. It was a beautiful moment of teamwork and were sure to give high praise as everyone eventually unloaded the entire truck. Once all of the salt was removed, another truck driver was summoned to tow out the now-lighter semi. As he pulled it out of the way, everyone cheered and ran to their cars—eager to GTFO.

As we continued on the road to Mozambique Island, we noticed the towns were far and few between, so we made sure to stop for jugs of water and gas whenever we could. We didn’t stop for meals because the journey was quite long, so we packed a lunch and lots of snacks. Compared to Malawi the road seemed empty. We traveled long distances without seeing humans, goats, or other vehicles on the road. As it was getting dark we arrived in the city of Nampula. We would’ve arrived earlier, but the jack-knifed semi delayed us. From Nampula to the Island it took us another 2-3 hours, driving in the dark trying not to hit anything. We would not recommend driving in the dark if you don’t have to, but because the journey is long there may be no way around it. Just make sure to start your day early and you’ll be fine.

The 3.5km bridge from the mainland to Mozambique Island is the last part of the adventure you should take note of. We arrived around 10:00pm (there is supposed to be someone working the gate at all hours). On the way there we didn’t have to pay to cross, but the gate keeper asked for our driver’s license (which we were quite confused about since he was speaking Portuguese and we didn’t know what he was asking for). We paid 10 metical to cross the bridge on our way out with no problems at all.

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On the way home, we decided to leave the Island at 2:00am and we arrived at the Mozambique border by 2:30pm (because we drove two hours in the wrong direction by accident), but we didn’t end up crossing into Malawi until around 5:00pm. After getting our exit stamps in our passports, we thought we were free to cross the border to Malawi. We drove through the open gate, past a few officers snoozing in the shade, when suddenly one of them jumped up and angrily waved us down. He took us over to motor control, yelled at us for not checking out the car, and made us all get out. He and his cronies searched every nook and cranny of our car, and tore up our bags (perhaps looking for drugs, as he seemed crestfallen after sniffing our loose leaf green tea and realized it wasn’t weed). He gave us a serious lecture, told us we had to stay another night in the Mozambican border town, told us he hated Americans/foreigners/white people.

This went on for quite a long time and I thought for sure we were going to have to give him a bribe, but we just kept apologizing and put on our innocent faces. Eventually, he begrudgingly let us go. The whole experience made us a bit uneasy about the Mozambique border, which is really sad because it was an awesome country besides this police officer. It was a bit of a frustrating end to the trip.

Luckily despite this fiasco we were still able to arrive in Blantyre by 7:00pm. So, if all goes well (which it probably won’t) the trip from the Island back to Blantyre should take around 13-14 hours. We may have had a lot of problems driving ourselves, but trust us when we say taking public transport would have been so much more difficult to make it in the time that we did. All and all, the journey was a fun adventure and we all came back alive. Goal achieved.

Car necessities if you plan to drive yourself:

• Third party insurance (you can buy this at the border for around 20$)

• Two traffic triangles

• Yellow safety vest

• Fire extinguisher

• Driver’s license (duh)

• Passports for all people in car (also duh)

• Yellow fever cards for everyone in car

• If you are not the owner of the car, you need a letter from the owner (If you rent a car you need a letter from the company saying the car is not stolen)

• Car registration papers

• Snacks

#mozambique