Richard's turn again. The last blog was sent when we had just arrived in Cape Maclear, which turned out to be a lovely place full of sunsets, beach hopping and hammocks.

Once we left we embarked on a very long stint of travelling, out of Malawi and right through Zambia to Victoria Falls. We had considered flying for this section to save a couple of days, but decided to save some money and enjoy seeing Africa go past out of the window. The journey into Zambia also made us realise how much more developed than Malawi it is. Getting out of Malawi saw us in yet another overcrowded minibus which stopped every 100m to let someone on or off, then a ride to the border in a shared taxi (having 2 passengers in the front passenger seat is old hat, but this was the first time we have had an extra passenger in driver's seat too - there was a knack to using the gear stick!). Once we were travelling through Zambia, we had assigned seats in a proper coach. We had only been away for 3 weeks but it still felt like some kind of great extravagance to have a whole seat each!

To add to the novelty, the coach departed (very nearly) on time. The 5 minute delay was caused by an impromptu session of sermons and prayers led by the driver and assistant to bless the journey. Personally I was rather alarmed rather than reassured to hear the driver praying to god for his help in getting us to our destination in one piece. While everyone else whooped along to the amens and hallelujahs, we took the apparently rather novel approach of doing up our seatbelts (the opportunity to do this was another "first" for us in Africa).

After a couple of nice hotels, which were originally intended to reward ourselves for not flying, but also turned out to be a good place for Nic to ride out the first bout of food poisoning of the trip, we have arrived in Livingstone, right next to Victoria Falls. It's massively more touristy here, and we have been enjoying some of the many activities on offer. We've seen the falls from the Zambia side, enjoyed a sunset cruise on the Zambezi, and done a couple of thing separately. Nic had a massage and facial (for £17.50), I went white water rafting and ate caterpillars (the caterpillars were cheap, the rafting not so much - but it was incredible). We both think that we had the best time (Nic here - I am relaxed and Rich has cuts and grazes all over his legs and swears he almost drowned…).

Tomorrow we will be nipping into Zimbabwe, to see the falls up close, and also to head to Bulawayo on the night train. My Granny spent her childhood there during the war (when it was Rhodesia), and it is generally full of history, so should be a pleasant few days away from the expense of Vic Falls.