23 HOURS IN 2 DAYS

WEATHER: Truck, truck, truck – windy, breezy and sunny as.

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting to camp both nights

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting on the truck for 23 hours in 2 days

WORD OF THE DAY: Are we there yet?

We had 2 massive travel days to haul some arse across Tanzania to get to a brand new country Malawi. 

The first day we were up at 4.15am, to depart camp at 5am.  We didn’t get breakfast, as it was just too early, but we stopped off at the same place we had lunch at a few days prior at 8am to have breakfast there.  So we were all packed and ready to go at 5am.  We drove down to the ferry terminal where we were able to stay on the truck for the 10 minutes ferry transfer back to the mainland.  Part of the reason leaving so early, beside the long travel day, was to beat the Dar traffic.  It can be a nightmare and we wanted to miss most of it.  We saw 3 pretty bad traffic accidents on our travels.  They all involved trucks and I guess it is just a way of life for them, as they can be pretty crazy drivers at times.  We got into camp at 5.30pm, which is the last night we were to have in Tanzania.  We were at 2400m, so the weather was quite cold as the sun went down, so we all had to rug up, the Masai blankets came out and the socks with thongs look was a popular choice over dinner.  The showers at the camp were AMAZING and HOT and they only had drop toilets, but they were the BEST drop toilets I have seen so far.  They still smelt, but they had a toilet seat, a long drop and toilet paper.  They also had a cute little bar, thatched hut roof style that had a burner and funky spiral seats, so everyone had a night cap of a hot chocolate mixed with Wild African liquor and off to bed. 

Also a birthday call out to Paps.  We sent him a text message at 6.30am hoping to be the first people to wish him a happy birthday which he replied to later in the day saying that yes we were.  So we hope you had a great day Paps and would love to know if my name made it onto Preswick’s forehead J

The second day we were up at 5.45am for a 7am departure and I think this was the COLDEST morning we have encountered all trip, including Eldoret, and that place was cold.  I had a terrible night’s sleep it was that cold.  I had kept my tracky dacks on, my jumper, my sleeping bag and my Masai blanket and I was still COLD.  When we were pulling down the tent our fingers were hurting so much it was that COLD!  On the truck as we pulled out we were all still rugged up waiting for the sun to come up, warm up the joint and then we could feel like we were back in Africa again.  George rekons that this was just a warm up for us peeps heading to Cape Town, as it gets colder than this in Namibia.  Holy schmokes, COLDER than this?  I will definitely be buying another blanket before then I can tell you now.  We crossed into Malawi today at 2.30pm.  The border formalities seemed pretty painless, and it wasn’t busy when we were there.  No visa required for Malawi, so it was just a matter of getting the form filled in and the passport stamped.  We also gained time entering, so we wound our watches back an hour.  So I now have another new country I can add to my list and am happy we get 4 nights in this beautiful country.  We only had to drive another hour to get to camp from here, and it was AWESOME.  Located on Lake Malawi, this camp site was amazing.  The bar area was great, facing the lake, they had a bank of power outlets to charge your stuff, they had 3 computer terminals for people to use on the bar (at a cost of course) and they had a reasonable speed Wi-Fi.  The good thing with the Wi-Fi is that we managed to get our hands on the password and were able to jump on for free!  They wouldn’t tell us what the password was, they would type it in for you, but Pam watched and we got the code!!!!  Oh we are bad arses sometimes!!

After dinner I went to have a shower, and was halfway through the wash process, all sudded up, when I looked down and there was a frog in the stall with me.  I am not a frog lover at the best of times, so to be caught naked in the shower with one was far too awkward for me.  So I think I had the quickest rinse off in the history of rinses, keeping my beady eye on the culprit the whole time.  I probably should explain that I am not talking the cute green tree variety of frog, this one looked like it came from a cane toad family, it was ugly, brown and black, ugly, small and ugly.  So I after drying off and getting dressed the sucker then hopped right in the middle of the doorway and didn’t budge.  Bloody bastard.  I threw a cake of soap at the thing to just get it to move and it held its ground.  Bloody Bastard.  At this point I heard someone come into the showers, so I yelled out if they liked frogs and could they help me and this random chick from one of the other trucks came over and he jumped to the side and I was able to make a speedy exit out of the stall.  Ughhhhhhhh he was U-G-L-Y!!!!! 

Another birthday call goes out to Killer – it was a shame that he spent his birthday travelling on the truck, but I guess you have to roll with the punches and I would still probably prefer that than sitting in an office in Dublin.

We were so tired, which is crazy when all we have done was sit on the truck for the last 2 days.  But I was tucked up in bed at 8.45pm and with a 7.30am breakfast call tomorrow, we have the potential to be able to get over 10 hours of sleep!  I bet I will wake up before the alarm, but it is nice to know that the sleep is there if needed. 

Welcome to Malawi and the monetary value of the kwacha, which for 1AUD you get around 160 kwacha.