In Malawi now! Not much happened between Zanzibar and here except for beaches, another night at Taxi Dave's (Absolute Africa Owner) in Dar es Salaam, and a long drive! It took us 4 hours to do the 20km drive from the ferry terminal to Taxi Dave's! Patience was tried, but we got there in the end and even had time to make spaghetti bolognaise before bed!

We only stayed in Dar for one night before moving onto Malawi to a camp on Chitimba Beach: lovely views, but we were camping on sand, not ideal! Although the sand did provide source for quite an amusing practical joke: two of the blokes dug out a huge hole underneath one of the tents so when they went in it just fell in! Funny, but glad it wasn't my tent! The days in Malawi weren't too eventful in terms of the tour, as they were guided by our choice of optional extras: a few people did horse riding on the beach, kayaking, and even swimming to an island not terribly far away. Although I didn't do any of these things, partly because of money and partly because I'm a big wimp when it comes to the water! One of the lads who opted to swim to the island caused some concern when he disappeared from sight: a boat was sent out to look for him! Although when he was found in the bar having a cigarette the concern soon subsided! He'd started swimming but realised he couldn't do it and so headed back, unfortunately he'd failed to tell anyone this!

Just outside our campsite was a market full of carvings: we'd been waiting for this market since the very start of our trip, as Heath had said this was the place to get the best carvings. He wasn't wrong, they were pretty impressive, so much so that I ended up trading my sunhat, a top, and my tortured handbag for a carved bowl, two bowls that when together made a carved globe, a couple of obligatory elephants, and some bangles, all for $31! When looking around the stalls one little man said he could trade something for an unused top of mine because his sister was 'big like [me]' - I'm pleased to say he did NOT receive my business that day! Although the chap who I traded my white sunhat with was extremely pleased to wear it as soon as I handed it over - red bow included!

A tour of the town was on the agenda for one of the days, we paid about $3 to be shown the local haunts, local gin (in a milk bottle), and apparently how much weed the locals like to smoke, particularly the brother of our tour guide for the day! We stopped by a local school and saw how little they had the walls were their chalkboards. The children seemed happy enough whilst playing with all the tourists, but their clothes were falling to bits and their school was lacking many supplies: a few people on the tour had thought ahead and brought pens and pads with them.

After the school we headed over the witch doctor! I had images of the witch doctor from John's WWF days in my head, not a pretty sight! The bloke who did appear though, after we'd all paid a nominal fee of course, wasn't too far off the mark! He didn't speak, but wore a turquoise gown with a red cross on it, bells on his ankles and wrists, and held a stick with tassles on the end! I'm usually a cynic, and to see him didn't alter me! He danced away as the drums were beat, and invited some of those lucky enough to stand near him to dance with him! Unfortunately I was obscured from his view, shame. After retreating to his room for a little while he resurfaced to 'eat fire'. He put a hot coal in his mouth and did the same dance we all do when we wolf down our food when it's too hot! I mustn't grumble as it was entertaining, and just in case he is a witch doctor I wouldn't make my feelings known too loudly!

On our final night in Malawi we were treated to a meal at the Chief's house - we didn't see him, but were assured it was his house! As Heath showed us outside the campsite we wandered into the night like lost souls, suddenly realising how sheltered we'd been on tour! I was certainly glad of my head torch as we clung to our cameras whilst children tried to hold our hands. We eat local food, which was really nice until I found three hairs, and had our plates washed for us, following which we washed them again at camp after strict instructions from Heath. The children who had walked with us stood at the gates the whole time we were eating, it was quite disconcerting, and made us a little uneasy, even more so when they came in and began to dance for us! They all sang for us alongside the older boys and then danced, inviting people to dance with them.

We then had to sing. We were not really a group of singers. It was a case of singing 'my name is... and I come from....': some countries rolled off the tongue better than others! Of course once they'd had a sing song we were expected to do the same: head, shoulders, knees, and toes it was then! We all obligingly stood up and sang out of tune and out of time as they tried to copy us, I'm pretty sure they weren't as impressed as we were at our efforts! We let one of the teachers on the tour lead the song, but she knew a different version to most and so we were doomed from the start!

And so we left our sandy campsite after one last sunrise in Malawi.