Up before dawn at 4.45am to get to the bus ready for our trip to Lusaka, we weren't allowed to stow our bags in the hold so instead they were shoved at the back of the bus. All seemed a little strange but on arriving at the Malawi/Zambia border all became clear. Customs search through all the cargo in the hold but don't seem to bother about the actual passengers and anything on the bus. It all appeared to be a concerted effort to try and keep the border crossing relatively swift.

Passports duly stamped, visas purchased and after a few hours waiting around in no-man's-land we were safely into Zambia and almost half way through our time in Africa. We are routinely astounded by the resourceful nature of people in the countries we have passed through. After a long journey, around the 14 hour mark, and only a couple of hours from Lusaka our bus ran out of fuel in the middle of know where. In the UK this would cause at least a little upset, but here it seemed to be all par for the course. No one panicked about how we would complete our journey. Despite being miles from the nearest town and certainly no petrol station in sight fuel was procured from the middle of the bush and within 30 minutes we were yet again rumbling along the road. This time minus one passenger who had been dawdling outside so our driver left without him! My new motto for such situations is 'drink little, pee quick'.