5/1/2011

Had my first dive today and did ok despite not being able to breathe properly without a mask on. I kept choking getting water up my nose and on one go I did 55 seconds when I needed to breathe for a minute. On the last go before we decided to call it a day, I kept my composure and told myself to stop being a wimp, concentrate and just get to a minute….and I did it. Most of the dive consisted of me learning and performing basic underwater emergency skills such as alternating from snorkel to regulator (what you breath through), using your buddy's alternative air source in case yours runs out, deflating your jacket, signals, taking off your mask, what to do if your regulator comes out etc.

I got another jellyfish sting today from the bigger brown ones lurking in the waters and this one I couldn't cure with urinating on my arm! Sounds sick but it really isn't bad and worked the previous time! And I'm not a single sicko it's what most people do to treat it!

Cleaned all the dive gear with freshwater before discovering terrible sunburn marks from where my wetsuit was.

Started to feel really ill and me and Jack then had the task of chopping and re-placing thorny bushes along the hill to deter potential thieves (as at this point we still thought thieves had taken the Yanks' stuff).Ended up with plenty of thorns in our skin but had a laugh hacking bush and acting like maniacs with machetes!

Because me and PJ had been feeling dodgy, we and Jack went to Nacala's new hospital for a malaria check-up. Surprisingly the conditions were fairly decent to what you'd expect for a third world country hospital. PJ reckoned that the old one was horrific though, and that you'd see dead people being carried past you when waiting. Anyways, after a tiny p****in the finger and our blood dripped on glass, they gave us some cotton wool to prevent bleeding and told us to wait for our results. PJ was sure Jack had it as his eyes looked screwed but it turned out none of us had it, so crisis averted, for now.

What to say about comparing Malawi to its Mozambique neighbours? Well, the landscapes between the two were fairly similar, both with a variety of arid land, forest, hills and mountains. Difference was Malawi has the big lake but Mozam has the Indian Ocean which is where Mozam to me, was probably a lot nicer. Malawi is a small country rammed with about 14 million and so some of their bigger cities appear to be quite clean and upcoming, but Mozambique seemed to be dirtier everywhere we went. It was also a lot greener in Malawi. The standards of life and way in which people live were very similar too. Wooden huts or stone are common homes and people outside of the cities are very poor. PJ pays the locals $80 a month, that's like £50. Imagine trying to live on that. But for these guys, they grow all their own foods and help each other out in the communities selling stuff for next to nothing. Just enough for them to get by.

The police in Mozam are extremely corrupt and rude. They told off Ian and PJ for ringing and telling one guy that they were setting off fireworks on New Years, and the big dog wanted them to tell him - very petty. Jack got hassled in the town by a cop with a gun asking him for money! Lucky for him Ian stepped in and told him where to go (in Portuguese).

Mozam is supposed to be poorer than Malawi but we hadn't really seen enough of the country to judge.

On the whole, at this point, me and Jack just wanted to get back on the road and travel again.