More Malawi piccies

Heading down the valleys towards the Tanzania/Malawi border

The view when we stopped for lunch (locals harassing us to buy stuff not in shot)

First views down to Lake Malawi

The full moon out over the lake - make your own mind up as to the source of any blurring

The view from the bar/cafe at Chitimba Beach down to the lake.

Our guide (Paul) and driver (Valdy) at Kande Beach. Fills you with confidence, doesn't it?

Jon, me and Heetan at Kande Beach. As you may have guessed, this photo very nearly didn't see the light of the internet, but as it's one of the only ones with me in it, I figured 'Oh well, it could be soooo much worse...'

Early stages of sunrise over Kande Beach

Slightly later stages of sunrise over Kande Beach

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

Beach Life

Morning all,

Time to pick up where we left off, in Malawi...

So, Chitimba Beach, what to say? Well, it's bloody gorgeous. The campsite fronts onto the beach of Lake Malawi, which is something like the 3rd biggest lake in Africa (behind Victoria and Tanganyika, all of which Tanzania borders on, trivia-fans...). You can't see the far side of it, so it's pretty much like the sea, only with fresh water so it doesn't sting your eyes like crazy if you spend time splashing in it. And it's lovely and warm at this time of year. My first priority on arrival, though, was at the bar. No, not to feed my incipient alcoholism, mother (or at least, not entirely for that) - I needed to find a power point to attempt to recharge my MP3 player, which had had a slight mishap...

You see, one of the useful little items which I bought in my shopping frenzy before leaving the UK was a "Platypus", which is basically a clear plastic water-bladder, with a drinking tube running out of it, which can be fitted into the back of a rucksack. This has come in handy at many times on my trip, but at one point was almost an almighty liability, as I forgot that I had left it fairly full when I crammed my daypack into my locker at the back of the truck (that's one of the things that really makes life easier on Acacia compared to some of the other companies we bumped into, and causes jealousy - we have big lockers at the back of the truck, and so can effectively unpack our packs, fold them flat at the back or sides, and live out of the locker rather than having to perpetually unpack and repack our backpacks). Unfortunately, the end of the drinking tube got squezzed and proceeded to dispense water over much of the base of the locker, some of which appears to have gotten into my beloved Zen player. The damned thing wouldn't start up to start with, and then wouldn't hold a charge, so I was worrying that I'd managed to kill the thing within a few weeks of being on the road.

Luckily, though, I managed to stumble on a fix for it - I recharged it whilst at Chitimba, and then stuck it on a random play of anything from my music list, meaning that it wouldn't automatically turn off and would actually force the thing to run through a full battery charge. This seems to have got anything iffy out of the system (possibly just by warming it up enough that the water evaporated off...) and it's been generally fine since then. Anyways, sticking the thing on charge (like most sites we stayed at, pretty much all the power sockets on the site are in the bar, and only functional when the generator is on) got me chatting with Adela, one of the owners, who'd just got back from the UK (she's a Pom), and Roy, her manager.

Roy is another of those extraordinary characters you meet while travelling, wandering around much of the time in just his sarong and being extraordinarily blunt (well, politically incorrect would probably now be the politically correct term!), whilst also very friendly. I ended up in a not-altogether-unsuccesful attempt to synthesise a capirinha using Malawian cane spirit and lemon juice, as well as sampling Malawi's wonderfully-named Kuche Kuche beer (seeing big, beefy overlander lads wandering up to the bar and ordering a "kootchy kootchy" is always good for a laugh). Seeing as how we were staying two nights in Chitimba, Valdy (our driver) also joined in the drinking, getting us started on shooters (again), and so the night passed quite happily in a mild aloholic haze as we marvelled at the clear view of the moon (reflected in the lake) and stars.

The next day, some of our group decided to be energetic and climb up the hills behind the lake to the Livingstonia mission, and then on up to some waterfalls. I decided to attempt to lie in and catch up on some of the sleep that our early starts had been depriving me of. Unfortunately, I had reckoned without the motorised water pump for the bathroom block, which fired up within hearing range of my tent around 8am. I was not happy... Still, I eventually simply adjourned to the chillout area near the bar, which is all covered by a big thatched roof but not walled off, lay down on one of the futon-like couches and dozed back off again.

I eventually roused myself from my slumber for a spot of swimming late in the morning. A whole bunch of us headed down into the lake with a football, a rugby ball and a frisbee for company, and proceeded to have a bit of a knockaround for a while. All started fairly innocently, but ended up with a few people deliberately aiming throws at the heads of others and other (relatively) good-natured mischief. In one disturbingly funny incident, Paul (our guide) went to retrieve the football from the beach and then proceeded to kick it back into the midst of the game. Unfortunately, Leonie was looking the other way at the time, and it hit her in the small of the back just as she was jumping in the waves. She promptly lost her balance and dropped into the water, looking just the teensiest bit surprised. She was absolutely fine, but you can't script slapstick comedy like that.

After all that unaccustomed exertion, we had a leisurely lunch and settled down to veg out for the afternoon. At this point we also started the unofficial truck Chess championship which continued until we arrived in Cape Town yesterday. These early stages went pretty well for me, as I beat both Tony and Valdy. By late afternoon, the others who'd climbed the hills started drifting back in, and it was time to think about dinner. This was to be my first cooking experience on the trip, as I'd been pressured into going in a "packing team" rather than a "cooking team" within the truck for the first leg of the journey. Post-Zanzi, I transferred onto the cooking roster, so I ended up, along with Jeff and Barry, helping Paul cook a delectable roast dinner on a campfire. I had never even thought of this being possible, as I associate roasts with an oven, but anything appears to be possible with sufficient coals and tinfoil, so we had some beautful roast lamb and chicken, with potatoes, butternut squash stuffed with garlic butter and salad. As you can tell, I've been a long way from starving on the trip.

The latter part of the evening was spent back in the bar, wrestling with Paul's laptop to try and get my MP3 player to download some music to upload on Adela and Roy's iPod (the digital music player has definitely arrived in the backpacking world these days - we've been listening to stuff through an iTrip for much of the way, which has left me rueing Apple's insistence on proprietary technology). Despite much cursing, I didn't manage to get mine to synch up, but we did manage to load some music that the others already had on the laptop onto the iPod, as well as attempting to retrieve some songs off scratched CDs in the bar by ripping them to MP3. Everyone else had crashed out pretty early, though, so there was precious little atmosphere in the bar as I beavered away in the evening light and the wind picked up off the lake. Eventually, it was time for the generator to go off and for me to retire to my tent.

I awoke in the morning to a downpour. Despite the gorgeous previous weather, and our being in the heart of the dry season, Malawi's climate decided it was time to absolutely drench us. This was something of a shock, as the only previous rain I'd had on the trip was a couple of short bursts over on Zanzibar, whereas this was vertical torrential downpour. Worse, due to the ongoing clement weather I had stopped bothering to put a fly-sheet on the tent so, when I came to strike the tent in the morning ahead of our departure, it was all soaked and heavy to put away. I ended up wandering around in my swimmers and a shirt, soaked to the skin as I struggled to pack away on my own (Jon, my tent-buddy, had gotten a room for the two nights along with Leonie and Heetan). Everyone got soaked to a greater or lesser extent, meaning we were not entirely impressed when the rain trickled to a halt about half an hour after we managed to break camp and get on the road. However, it was to return later that morning when we passed through the town of Mzuzu.

Mzuzu was the first sizable settlement we had been through in Malawi, and so was our first real chance to stock up on Malawian cash (this requiring banks and/or ATMs) and to try and check internet. The former was relatively straightforward, the latter rather less so, due to ridiculously slow connection speeds. After this, we headed out to the markets, ready for a quick shopping spree ahead of the night's festivities. There is something of a tradition on Acacia trucks of having at least one serious party in Malawi, which works somewhere along the lines of "Secret Santa".

For those not familiar with the concept, this involved placing the names of everybody on the truck in a hat, and then each person drawing a name at random. The person drawing the name is responsible for acquiring something for the person whose name is drawn. In Secret Santa, this is usually a present, often of a humourous nature. In this case, it was a costume for the person involved. 2 minor catches: first, we were each only allowed to spend 300 Kwacha (about 2.50 USD, or slightly under 1.50 GBP) on the whole outift; second, the outfit had to be for the opposite gender of the intended recipient. To further complicate matters, the rain returned at this point, so we were scuttling around the markets, swathed in raincoats or huddled under umbrellas, frantically haggling to try and get costumes of dodgy provenance for a pittance. All quite amusing, though definitely more so for those buying dresses for the lads than for those, like me, trying to get something approxiomating to male clothing for 1 pound 50p...

After our shopping exploits, and a subsequent lunch adventure involving the hawker stalls at the market (most selling chicken and chips fried in front of you, which was, I must admit, absolutely delicious), it was back on the truck as we rolled further down the lake shore, towards our destination of Kande Beach campsite, near Chinteche. And that will have to wait for the next posting, as this one is ridiculously long already. Watch this space...