This meant that our next few days of continual travel were pretty tough.
Alex wasn't feeling well anyway - a vicious stomach bug had swept through our group - and she suffered through the long and bumpy ferry back to the mainland. When we eventually got back to Dar es Salaam we upgraded to a thatched roofed beach hut, rather than having to spend the night clambering out of and back into our tent. She tried to grab a quick nap before dinner, and wanting to leave her to rest up I left her alone - absent-mindedly locking the latch on the outside of the door on my way out. When she woke up, desperate for the toilet and feeling like she needed to vomit, she was locked in. She shouted and screamed, but I was at the bar, having a beer. Thankfully a security guard eventually rescued her - in the nick of time - but I wasn't too popular that night.
Our next two days were big 12-hour+ driving days, west through Tanzania and into Malawi. We spent a night at a lovely farmhouse in Itinga - which had awesome hot showers but disappointing chocolate brownie (billed as the best in Africa). The drive days are always tough, but not having had a proper break in Zanzibar, these ones seemed to be all the more unbearable. Twelve hours is an awfully long time to be cooped up in a bus, and by now the group was starting to get a bit ratty with one another. Although our initial group of 15 left Nairobi in good spirits, as the group has been added to along the way, it has become much less cohesive. We now have 25 people on the tour, with approximately equal numbers above and below the age of 25, and a rift of sorts has developed along that particular faultline. Although we weren't naive enough to think that it would be 'happy families' for all seven weeks of the tour, there now seems to be a tension between the 'oldies' and the 'youngies'. As we plan the next leg of our trip, through Egypt and the Middle East, we are going to make sure that we don't end up on a tour with a truckload of 18 year-olds on their gap-year, full of stories about their A-levels. We've still made some really good friends though, it's just that the group no longer hangs out as a whole.
Malawi was cool though. It is the poorest and least-developed country we’ll visit on this trip but the people were crazily friendly and enthusiastic. Just about everyone spoke English too which let us interact in a way that we hadn’t always been able to (my Swahili is not up to much). Our first night was at a campsite in Chitimba Beach on Lake Malawi, but we arrived fairly late, and didn’t have time for much of an explore.
It was really only an overnight reprieve anyway, because the next morning we hit the road again, bright and early. On the way through one village, we watched a bunch of naked kids hydroslide down the stormwater drain, happy as, despite the gravelly surface grating their bums.
After a quick stop at a supermarket, at a market where we needed to buy fancy-dress (more on that later), and at a rubber plantation, we eventually got to Kande Beach (further south down Lake Malawi) for two nights and a rest day.
We’d been warned not to swim in the Lake because it’s ‘Bilharzia Central’. Bilharzia is this parasite (or something) released into water by these snails that live on reed beds in non- or slow-moving water. The parasites (or whatever) can then get into your system and grow and multiply before causing stomach upsets or even organ damage. Ultimately it’s easily treatable with a pill or two, but we got a lot of conflicting advice (not helped by our feckless tour leader) and a wave of hysteria swept the group initially – especially as the water we were showering in and cooking with came direct from the lake.
In Kande, we did venture out of the campsite a couple of times to explore the village, and as is always the case in Africa, we were quickly mobbed by a swarm of smiling children, eager to play. They took turns holding our hands while we swung them between us, and they laughed and shrieked. Until a little hand slipped out of my grip mid-swing, and the poor wee girl went flying. Thankfully she jumped up, dusted herself off, and was back demanding another go in no time.
After having given me an awesome haircut,
... in the afternoon, Alex went on a horse trek through the village and surrounding forest on a beautiful horse called 'Happy'. The trek culminated with a bareback ride into the lake, where Happy swam around for a bit, Alex still clinging on.
Meanwhile I was on the beach, taking photos and talking to my new mate 'Spiderman'. All of the locals had given themselves western names, which they used around the tourists. I guess their own chichi names must be unpronounceable. 'Georgie Porgie' and 'Cisco' tried to sell us carvings, and I met 'Mel Gibson' on one of our walks, but my all-time favourite was a guy who answered to 'Cheese on Toast'.
As well as Madonna, Malawi is famous for it's intricately carved wooden chairs. 'Georgie Porgie' and co were happy to trade clothes for their work, and some of the group got some pretty decent deals - although the tour leader did need to remind some of them that they'd still need to be clothed as the trip continued southwards.
On our second night in Kande we had a pig on a spit for dinner. We bought the pig - named 'Delicious' - from the locals who noisily buthcered it the night before we ate. Delicious was cooked for about eight hours, and lived up to his name (if you avoided the hair, which we hadn't ben very good at removing).
We left Kande early the next morning and set off on another long drive day to Lilonge (the capital) for supplies, then across the border into Zambia. A couple of hours away from Lilongwe there was a massive clanging sound, as one of the truck's brake drums self-destructed. With brakes on only three wheels, we eventually made it to Lilongwe, where Pete, the driver set off to look for replacement parts. Amazingly, there was a Nando's in town, and although it cost the earth, we were desperate for some Western food hygiene standards (and clean, non-squat toilets). After having lost too many pairs of knickers in the African laundries, Alex also purchased three nice new pairs of 'one size fits all' knickers. It's probably more accurate to say that one size fits all Africans, because without an African-sized posterior, they reached up to Alex's armpits.
Pete had no luck finding the replacement brake drum, and the enforced stop in Lilongwe had meant that we were at risk of not making it through the border before it closed. However Pete hoped he'd be able to source the necessary part in Lusaka (the capital of Zambia) and so we continued on - slowly.
Zambia was the sixth country we visited on this tour, although only fleetingly, with one night just over the border, and another in Lusaka. So we didn't spend long but long enough to try the local roadside snack: "Irish and Russian" (chips and a sausage), and to stop at a big mall in Lusaka for supplies. We needed to stock up for an upcoming two-day jaunt on a houseboat on Lake Kariba. A replacement brake drum was found too, and fitted, and we were back on schedule. it had looked for a while like we'd need to spend an extra day in town while the truck was fixed. Our next drive after Lusaka was through the hills - and we'd seen enough truck wreckages thus far to know that we shouldn't attempt that with only three brakes ...
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