Ladies and Gentlemen...

Right, here we go again. I've covered Chitimba, and a little bit more of the background of life on the truck, and we'd just reached Kande Beach, which I reckon has to be one of my favourite places from the trip.

Why was it my favourite? Well, like Chitimba it's right down on the water, only more so. Shorter beach to wander over, to the point where you can sit at the outermost tables of the bar at high tide and the water's practically in spitting distance. It's also got more infrastructure than Chitimba (i.e. bathrooms, electricity etc). And it has a dorm. So I paid about a quid extra per night and actually got to sleep in a bed for a couple of nights (mana from heaven after my rude awakening to the mother of all storms the morning). It also had 3 other trucks there at the same time as us, including a northbound Acacia truck (the nearly brand-new Kafue), so plenty more people to go out and have a laugh with. And the atmosphere just exudes "chilled out". And the bar-snacks include the heavenly Mzuzu Hot Nuts (spicy coated peanuts, mmmmmm!) Oh, and we had one of the daftest nights out of the whole trip, our little cross-dressing party...

[The following section may not be suitable for those of a nervous disposition, or possibly also those needing to eat or sleep any time soon...]

As we were due to be in Kande for 2 nights, Paul and Valdy headed straight for the bar on arrival, where they were joined by several more of us once tents had been put up - annoyingly, I had to put mine up too to dry out, despite the fact nobody would be sleeping in it (Jon was in with Leonie, as Heetan had gotten himself a private cabin). Unsurprisingly, our driver and guide knew Kafue's driver and guide, but turned out they also knew one of the passengers, an English lass called Jo who had been working in the backpackers in Durban where the Acacia guides were based when in town. Hence there was much joyous rejoicing and consumption of Kuche Kuche. In the interests of partying, dinner was abbreviated to toasted sarnies, and then we each had to put our little packages for one another on the truck before we all collected our garments for the evening and disappeared off to the bathrooms to get changed.

Needless to say, there were a few surprises. Paul and Valdy in near-enough matching evening dresses of deep emerald were disturbingly effeminate. Barry, our 50-something Canadian, in something chopped to mid-thigh and with cut-out holes in the chest to show the bra included in the outfit, was just scary. As was Heetan, in blue underwear and some gauzy satiny thing that basically went translucent verging on transparent. And Jon, in a little black number with a pink bra over the top of it. The lasses were generally less scary, although Stacy's romper-suit was somewhat unnerving. Ian's hair, with braided-in hair extensions from Zanzibar, made him worryingly convincing. And me? I had some godawful black one-piece underwear thing, with a white smock over the top of it which was cut almost as high up the leg as Barry's. Hideous. I ended up wearing my own undies just to satisfy basic modesty (and avoid quite unpleasant chafing), and by the time I added a belt and shoved my Tanzanian flag bandanna on my head, the effect was apparently more a kind of deranged Peter Pan than anything female. The photos are pretty disturbing...

[Okay, it's safe for parents, grandparents etc to come out from behind the sofa now!]

It all made for a very good party atmosphere, though, aided along by the inevitable avalanche of shooters - when doing the first round of Springboks (an interesting combination of peppermint liqueur and Amarula, which is a kind of African substitute for Baileys), we had to do a "springbok dance" involving hopping up to the bar whilst looking around for predators, and then drinking the shot (out of what appeared to be a camera-film case?) without using our hands. By the end of the night, there was dancing on the bar (as well as, apparently, an impromptu dance party on our truck - I wasn't present for this latter) and many amusing memories had been formed (and a good deal of them subsequently lost by some people). Heetan had managed to lose the spare set of keys for the truck which I carried, along with his wallet, while I had managed to lose my torch. Ian had lost his hair, thanks to some fairly enthusiastic butchery of his extended locks by a gang of scissor-wielding young ladies and then the effects of Paul's hair-clippers (I got a quick trim too...) There had also been a traumatic few minutes when Paul and Valdy went around ripping all the guys' dresses down, which eventually precipitated my decision to change back into my more normal atire. By the time the bar closed, it had all gotten relatively mellow again, and I was chatting with Jo and Theo, Kafue's driver, and a few others, which then turned to singing and drumming on barstools. This all continued until around 4am, despite the bar closing at around 2 and turning the lights off so that we were singing in the dark!

Unsurprisingly, I didn't make it up the next morning for breakfast and the village walk, as I took advantage of my nice, empty dorm and comfy bed (and the soothing sounds of the waves to which I had fallen asleep) and slept in until midday. Pure, unrestrained bliss. The afternoon was then spent either lounging around chatting with people, bouncing up and down in the breakers (the water in Kande didn't really get deep enough for swimming close in to shore, but there were some fairly impressive waves) and, astonishingly, playing beach volleyball. Those who know me well know that my hand-eye co-ordination is not always my most celebrated attribute, and that I was bloody hopeless at volleyball at school, but I turned out to be surprisingly un-crap and had a whale of a time. I might have to revise my long-standing aversion to days spent down by the beach when there's a volleyaball court to enliven proceedings...

That evening was, unsurprisingly, pretty quiet, as much of our truck nursed their hangovers and Kafue's lot rested up ahead of their corresponding party (scheduled for the following night in Chitimba). The only partying apparently going on was from some guys off the Dragoman truck (another company), who seemed to be displaying a fair disregard for their liver functions by carrying on where they'd left off the night before. This meant another good night's sleep in my bed (sorry to go on about it, but an actual bed was a real luxury at this point) before another early departure, as we had a ridiculous day's driving to do (this was where we were catching up for the extra day we had agreed to spend in Zanzibar).

Our truck did its "rolling dormitory" impression the next morning (one of several it was capable of, including "mobile chinese laundry") as we headed further down Lake Malawi before striking inland to the capital, Lilongwe. Here we rejoiced in the opportunity to check internet, hit supermarkets and get money to settle up our debts (both the campsites we stayed at in Malawi find it easier to let people run up bar tabs and then settle them before they leave, rather than hitting the tills for every single transaction - they also usually let you settle in US dollars, rather than local currency, if you so wish - which can let people get carried away, as Heetan found out when he was greeted with a 60-something dollar bar-tab for the party night in Kande Beach! My own efforts were rather more subdued but still amounted to 30 bucks, which is no small party at Malawian prices). Then it was on westwards through Malawi to the Zambian border, which we crossed without any issues.

And Zambia will have to wait for my next instalment, as I've now spent the best part of 2 hours writing the journal today. Until the next time, dear readers, farewell!

Pat