October 20th

Alarm goes off at 5.30am - ouch. It's still dark and cold but we're maestros now at packing up tents and belongings at lightning speed. We've got 500km to cover and a Malawi border crossing (which was very uneventful) to get over in order to get to Chitimba our stop off before hitting Kande beach. Just before we hit the border we stopped at a disused service station to meet up with 'Honest Freddy' and change our currency into Kwachas... so honest we had to conduct business with this character on the truck as all the signs seemed to insinuate that currency exchanging was strictly prohibited.... 'honest' hmmmmm. We finally arrived at the beach and raced to the lake (Malawi) for a swim which was pretty weird - waves, water up to the horizon in two directions, sand yet fresh water... lake Malawi takes up nearly half the country but this place is still the poorest of all the African countries despite the fresh water supply. On the beach we met Mr Sweet Talker, Spider Man, Hudson and Vin Diesel, although rather than Hollywood stars these guys were selling bracelets and drugs. They were all really friendly despite us not buying anything (honest!). Actually of all the places we've been to the Malawi lot have been the friendliest, often happy simply to practice their English. Swim over we hit the bar which was nicely positioned on the beach in thatched huts and watched the sun go down with 'sun downers'. Not quite a midnight swim, we went back in for some Lake Malawi action and headed for bed, but not before having a rather large spider crawl over my foot whilst I was watching another large spider go about his business... it felt a little bit like the Velociraptor hunting tactics in Jurassic park... clever girl... but a timely reminder that these parts are wild... TIA my friend TIA.

October 21st

Tents packed and a 4 hour drive later, with a stopover in Mzuzu, we arrived at the picture post card Kande beach, also on Lake Malawi. This place was terrible shaded sand area for our tents, hammocks in the trees, a bar with beer at $1 a bottle, pool table, volleyball court, table tennis and foosball... our home for two days...outstanding. We decided to once again show the locals how beach volleyball should be played, but this time used a rubber band ball purchased in a rubber plantation we passed through on the way up, which did improve our game... but not a lot! It was Carla's 24th birthday so up went the balloons and Del set to work creating his most potent punch yet (you can always trust a pub manager to sort you out with a good punch)... the rest of the evening was a bit of a blur but there were vague recollections of Ben falling out of a hammock in mid swing straight into the bushes...

October 22nd

Ouch... Konyagi!.... Ben's behaviour from the previous night saw Tanya implement a Konyagi ban on him. Some excellent Paul pancakes later and we were ready for a local village walk. Well we thought we were ready...nothing could have prepared us for what hit us once our guide Nick took us out of the campsite gates; an ambush of about twenty locals (there were only seven of us). Each were desperate just to talk to us and exchange stories, but soon after we realised that after the tour, our guide got first dibs on taking us to his curio shops, and these guys wanted us to visit their shops after. Fair play to them though... they seemed to pair off with us (13 of the mob left us alone) and stayed with us for the full three hours chatting about local Kande village life, Hollywood super stars and the Premiership. My guide, Donald Duck, was very keen for us to see his paintings to subsidise his uni course in accounting. Anyway, before getting to the local 'hospital' we saw bricks being made, water being pumped, bowls being carved, and maize being ground, all fascinating stuff in the 37oc heat! Upon arrival at the hospital we were met with a very long queue to see the only doctor on duty - these guys wait for hours in the heat for maternity, TB and HIV care. Having told the next mother and baby in the queue to go outside and wait longer we were ushered into the doctor's office for a quick rundown on the ridiculous pressures the staff and resources are under and the conditions Kande folk have to endure... TIA. Ten minutes later our only question was "Can we go outside and let these sick people see their doctor and not make them wait any lone please!?" The donation box made us all feel like we balanced out our respective karmas though. Next stop was Kande School where we were met by hundreds of children all wanting to hold our hands.... we managed a child on every finger but there still weren't enough to go around! We met the headmaster in the library for a chat and discovered that they too were under enormous strains with 1300 pupils and only 10 teachers (and you teachers thought things were getting bad in the UK!) 5km of banter with the locals later and we finally got back to the campsite and made a purchase from our guide after his three hour pitch, although we paid well under the going rate for paintings and after insisting on 700 Kwacha we felt very guilty about his three hour sales attempt and our exploitation. On the way back Kim got excited to see some local villagers doing everyday things like washing etc and decided to take a few pictures. Only after snap three did she realise the washing on the line was actually her boyfriend's pants and that these guys were being used as the campsite laundry which was quite amusing. Back at camp we made the most of the beach, hammocks (which had been repaired from the previous night), volleyball court and of course the bar.

October 23rd

After a small lie-in awaiting the horse riders return we made our 333km way to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Nikki and I had fun trying to get our curios wrapped for shipping, eventually paying two locals $6 to steal some boxes from a local shop (bartered down from $25). A Nandos lunch (African style) later and we arrived at our campsite Kiboko...a swimming pool and a puppy! The sound of the fruits falling from the trees onto our sheltered food prep area scared the women for most of the evening and eventually drove us all to bed by 10pm... a quiet day!