18/12/2010

The worst day of travel I hope I ever have to experience.

Part 1: Hungover, we caught a bus from Blantyre to Liwonde but had to wait an hour before take-off. It was two-and-a-half hours to Liwonde ona sticky hot bus crammed with locals.

Part 2: We caught a chlostrophobic minibus from Liwonde to Chiponde on the border of Malawi. This took about another three hours, mainly because the driver was coasting everywhere. Got to experience another cool thunderstorm.

Part 3: Jumping off the bus at Chiponde, we had to pass immigration Malawi before taking a bicycle taxi to the Mozambique border.

Part 4: My chauffeur struggled to ride me and my big bag up the hill and was constantly having to have breaks (but I can't really blame him). The entry point to Mozam was just a building with a half-assed gate really. Guy checked our passports and visa and we were on our way again.

Part 5: Exchanged my remaining kwacha for meticals with some randomer, getting myself a nice exchange rate which upset the chap! And then, back onto our bicycle to get to Mandimba in Mozambique. It's a pain in the proverbial that you can't just walk from immigration to border to town!

Part 6: Stopped by policemen (who we had been told are extremely corrupt) but they were just being nosey. The bike taxis wanted more for their journey but they got what we gave them and that was that. They should have considered themselves lucky because at the Malawi immigration there were about 20 guys with bikes trying to get us on!

Part 7: Waiting on a road for a bus in some relatively quiet town until some guy grabs our bags and says come with me if you want to go to Cuamba. We bargained and agreed on 350 mets for the pair of us and were told we would be there in about an hour. The language barrier we immediately realised would be more difficult here as they speak Portuguese. Seven hours down the line, we arrived in Cuamba....

Part 8: The journey had been freezing in the dark, the wind had been blowing in our faces sat on the back of a truck, holding onto ropes and bags and sometimes people. I was squished up against a bag of mangoes or something and sitting on a box of tomatoes whilst our bags were secured under a tight rope. This meant I only had a shirt and shorts. We had had no food all day, hardly any liquid and were absolutely fuming. At 11.30pm we arrived in Cuamba train station where I was moaned at by a local having ruined many of his tomatoes. More fool him for having put them on the floor instead of on top of something. There was one guy who spoke a tiny bit of English and he was translating for me to the driver who I was telling we refused to pay more than 100 because we were lied to and that it was a s*** journey. Another thing was, the road all the way was a dirt track! Just wavy-like sand that had us often bumping up and down and sliding. He nearly rolled the truck several times! The locals were getting annoyed as we were just sat there, and then we gradually gave him more money and we had to give him the 350 as that was pretty much what the locals paid too by the sounds of things. If that wasn't enough, he wanted 400 when we had agreed 350 with his friend. I was effing and blinding.

Part 9: We arrived so late that we decided it wasn't worth staying in a hotel as we had to be up for 3am to get a train ticket. So out came the sleeping bags again (which I had been holding on me on the drive!) and we slept on the floor of a train station with all the locals that were all waiting for the 4am train.Oh forgot, some drunk local kid was chatting away and messing around but almost got into a fight with the little English-speaking man that was on our truck. Making a nuisance of himself, calling him a nig**r (though he was black too), etc.

Part 10: About two hours sleep and then queuing for tickets. Waiting ages again and cream-crackered, another drunk guy was chatting crap to me in the queue. Then I was told no second-class tickets were available, so we were forced to share in third with the locals. Big mistake....even if it was just over two quid.....