SURVIVING THE FLOODS The only road out of the park to the nearest town of Chipata has now completely flooded; in parts a 15km stretch has a depth of over 1 metre of water on the road. We are hearing news of sections of the road being swept away leaving gaping holes of several metres below the torrents of water. It could be days, even weeks before the water subsides and work can be done to the mend the road. So our two day visit to the South Luangwa Nation...

THE GREAT LUANGWA FLOOD The following day we were ready to leave the camp. It had been raining for a full three days turning what had been a beautiful campsite on our arrival into a water-logged quagmire. The river had risen a staggering two metres during our four day stay and, rather worryingly, was still rising. The water was coming from the rainfall in Malawi - we had thought it was wet when we were there but hadn't realised they had experienced their ...

DELAYED, SCAMMED, STUCK AND BITTEN All good feelings we might have felt about Malawi quickly disappeared when we got the Zambian border. We had to negotiate our way through the local bureaucracy. We had organised free visa waivers saving us $180 but the visa official still tried to wangle a bribe for 'finding the paperwork'. When we spoke to the boss, he wanted even more! We have learnt that 'sitting it out patiently' really does work and, sure enough, t...

LIFE IN LILONGWE We think Lilongwe is one of Africa's most pleasant capital cities. As John said, it had a 'touch of Winchester' about it. We camped at the rather smart Gold Club where we had eight security guards protecting Biggles...these flying golf balls can be dangerous. Rather than a pressing security threat in Lilongwe this seemed to be due to over-staffing (something we are accustomed to at campsites in Africa). The following morning we were woken ...

PANTS ON FIRE! The drive to Lilongwe took longer than we expected. We had spent a couple of hours choosing our chairs and had forgotten that we had a further 300kms to get to Malawi's capital. As the sun was setting, children played football and waved as we passed, and thunder roared in the distance. By 6.30pm the road had become pitch black, due to an early sunset and the storm clouds. As a rule we try not to drive in the dark as African roads are filled wi...