Chipata was pretty horrible. I had decided to stay the night there if the bus arrived late, or just continue on into Malawi if it arrived at a reasonable daylight hour. The latter happened, so I had the bus driver recommend one of the taxi drivers at the bus stop to get me to the border, and ended up with this guy:
after being swarmed by different drivers initially upon exiting the bus. They are very aggressive, especially when they see someone who is obviously not from the area, and I had people trying to "help" me by pulling my bags away to carry them, etc. I'm normally very chill and laid back, but I had to light up a couple of these guys to get them to back off.
The taxi ride was a pretty miserable experience. I briefly mentioned this before and promised a write-up, so here it is:
Upon arrival in Chipata, the bus was swarmed with touts and taxi drivers. At least 30-40 of them, all crowding right around the door. I had a couple try to take one of my bags from me as I got off to "help" me, but I retained a tight grip and told them to let go. They surrounded me very closely asking where I was going and offering services. If you aren't already used to this it can be disconcerting, so be prepared if you haven't experienced it before - this is also something that pickpockets take advantage of given how closely people crowd your personal space and bump into you. You need to stay alert.
I had already spoken the driver and had him recommend a taxi for me. This didn't work out very well, as the taxi driver he recommended was unfortunately a scammer.
After some negotiation with the driver, we agreed on a price and conditions. 100 kwacha (about $10 USD) from the bus area to the border for me alone, or 50 kwacha if he picked up anyone else along the way, no more than two additional people. Payment on arrival. After setting terms, I got in the car. Initially he wanted 80 kwacha as a shared rate or 250 for me alone, which I laughed at, given the default rate is 15 shared and 100 alone.
Then the bad stuff started. First, the driver had a currency trader get in the car and try to cheat me with the sleight of hand currency swap (they show you X amount, then try to give you X-Y amount by removing some notes). This was to exchange Zambia Kwacha for Malawi Kwacha. After initially quoting a truly ridiculous exchange rate of something like 45MKW-1ZKW (should be somewhere near 70-1), he then tried sleight of hand. For 200ZKW, He showed 14500 MKW in the form of seven 2K notes and one 500 note, then incompetently tried to remove 4 of the 2000 MKW notes to hand me a total of 6500MKW. I told the him to get out and also called him out on his scam attempt. He seemed far more embarrassed about how easily I had caught him than being embarrassed about being outed as a scammer. His friends were nearby and started laughing at how easily I had caught him and called him out. They thought it was very, very funny.
After that, the driver immediately went to a fuel station where he demanded I give him 50 kwacha for fuel. I refused, he kept asking for lower amounts, and I kept refusing. He then said that 100 kwacha was not enough to get to the border, so I asked him why he agreed to that rate. He had no answer and just asked for kwacha again. When I refused, he asked how I would get to the border if I had to walk. I assured him I would have no trouble finding another taxi, and he gave up and just paid for the fuel.
About halfway there, he told me the new rate was 200 kwacha, and that if I didn't like it I could walk. I told him to pull over so I could get out. It was raining pretty hard so I don't think he expected that. He tried to negotiate further and started badmouthing me and telling me what a horrible person I was for taking advantage of him.
It was right around this time that I noticed that a bag of food I had brought with me was missing. I had definitely put it on the seat next to me, the only way it could have disappeared is by being stolen by the currency scammer. Not a lot of stuff, but still irritating to be stolen from.
We eventually arrived at the border, where I pointed out the theft, which the driver and his friend who had ridden with us found very funny. At that point I said I'd pay no more than 70 kwacha and that they didn't even deserve that given their scam attempts, thieving scammer friend, and general attitude. The driver got upset, and his friend suggested we talk with the border police, which we did. The police didn't seem to care much and said I should pay the full 100 kwacha, which I did.
We had a small crowd watching at this point in time, mostly border currency traders waiting to get my attention. When the situation had resolved itself and they approached, I told them that I would not be exchanging any currency with them due solely to the dishonest taxi driver, and they they should know that they were losing business due to his actions. They were not happy with him and he immediately took off. I figured that there's nothing I can do to affect the taxi driver, but perhaps they will do something if they know he is costing them money. They kept arguing that it was unfair that they were being punished for his actions, and I agreed with them and encouraged them to take it out on him later. I'm not a vindictive person but I make an exception for scammers.
The exit process from Zambia took about 10 seconds. That was followed by a 15 second walk over to the Malawi immigration office. There were two forms to fill out for a single entry visa, which was processed in about 5 minutes. From there I met up with a Malawi driver, and he took me to Lilongwe with no issues and lots of advice about how to spend time in Malawi.
Had a good time in Zambia overall, despite the bitter taste at the end from the scammers and the thief. Hopefully they choked on my stolen biscuits.