WEATHER: A beautiful day 27C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Shorter travel day today
BUMMER OF THE DAY:
BUYS OF THE DAY: Dress for the fancy dress party at 3AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: Kuche Kuche – sunrise to sunset
CAMP SITE RANKING: Pretty amazing, cold showers, flush toilets, on the beach has to be 5 out of 5 stars
Compared to the last few travel days, we only have 250km to travel today, so we were given the luxury of getting a departure time of 8am. Some of the guys had ordered stuff from the markets just outside the campsites gates and it was really funny to see what they came back with and to put it mildly a little inferior. I didn’t get a chance to get out to the markets because I was on cooking duties, but Pam and Lisa were kind enough to bring me back a bracelet which was super sweet. A lot of the stall holders were happy to swap clothes / t-shirts for goods as well – which was pretty cool. Actually they would pretty much take anything for a swap right down to the watches and sunnies.
On the road again. Malawi countryside is pretty amazing, at this point we travelled about 30 minutes to the top of an escarpment and the views from the top were pretty amazing. The Malawians seem to be quite friendly; I got a lot of waves from people and just not from kids today. The women are still a tough nut to crack and it’s rare that we get waves from them. There is something to be said about the feel good value of giving or receiving waves. It’s like a worldwide sign for smile – I love it.
Today I was thinking of the old crew whose tour officially finishes today. I know that some of them were staying on a little longer in Dar and Zan, but I wish them all a safe journey home and can’t wait to see you all again soon when I come a knocking on your door’s.
We had a stop in a town called Lufusa. Here we got a chance to go to the markets with Simon and as we are having a fancy dress party and a BBQ tonight, it gave us an opportunity to buy some clothes for the party at the local clothes market next door to the food one. George obviously does this with all his tours, as the second we got to the market, all these guys with fancy dress clothes appeared and showed us what they had. It was funny, as I didn’t expect it to be ‘real’ fancy dress, but it was and they had all sorts of numbers in there from sequins, to fur, to lingerie to a lot of animal print stuff. I was a little worried that I may have not found anything to fit, but I actually had a choice of stuff and as we couldn’t try any of it on, I bought 2 things just to have a backup. We had a budget of 700 kwachas, which is like 5AUD and I was quite happy with the 2 dresses and scarf that I bought and was just over budget. Woo hoo. From here we went to the food market and watched Simon in his element. It was pretty cool, but a market is a market, and with us not really allowed to take photos, it was good to just walk around and see all the fresh produce. We got a lot of stares and some people laughing at us, but I guess that is expected, as I am sure they don’t see too many white people walking around.
We arrived into our new home for the next 2, yep TWO nights and the place looks cool. The camp is located on the water’s edge of Lake Malawi, has a great open deck with bar and we are literally are a 100m walk to the beach. Let’s hope that we finally get some good weather to go with the great accommodations.
So we had the rest of the afternoon free. I got some more blogging done on the deck with a cold Kuche Kuche in my hand. Some of the gang went swimming in the lake and others getting some rays. We got to see our BBQ as it cooked and it was going to be pork. So you can guess what is coming next, it literally was a big pig and a little pig spit roasting over a fire. They still had their heads, teeth, tail etc…. but man it smelt so good, the details I think going to be long forgotten when we wrapped our chops around some crackling and meat.
Dinner was for set for 6.30pm, so it was time to don the outfit. Mine wasn’t the wackiest costume out there, but I worked with what I had and I got George to tie the scarf in my hair as the African women wear it, so I was pretty happy with the look. Some of the costumes were hilarious but I think the winner has to go to Em and Christina. They looked awesome in their African themed outfits. If I was to make a special mention it would be for Dave’s wacky arse costume of half witch half elf which I found out was a rower’s outfit. Second special mention would also have to go to the crew-George, Ben and Simon. They all crossed dressed and they looked amazing as women, a little scary really, but amazing all the same. It was so cool that everyone got in on it all and the photos are pretty cool of the night. Dinner was AMAZING, and any picture we had of that little piggy roasting was long gone, as one of the locals cut all the pork. Serve that with roast potatoes, crackling and the pork, it was a great meal to have on a drinking night!
So after all our jobs were done after dinner, we headed over to the bar. We initially sat at the picnic benches and at the other table was another safari company who we have been following for the last couple of nights. Well they started this sing off contest, they would sing a song, then we would retaliate and it went back and forth from there, till we drew the line when we started to sing the Home and Away TV theme. Let’s get some music on and get the party started. So some-one supplied an IPod and with beers in hand we danced the night away. The guys got up onto the bar and pretty much they had some-one dancing up there all night, it was a Greek moment for me when the girls did that in Ios a few times. It was an awesome night all round and Lisa, Jimbob and I were one of the last few standing at around 1.30am. Not a bad effort since we had started drinking at 3pm. I have to say I am loving the beer drinking rather than the spirits at the moment, as I can still get drunk, remember the night and not be an embarashment. Maybe vodka is the evilness I need to stay away from in copious amounts. Light bulb moment – I have only just thought about this now?
As a side note it is funny to see how relationships (or lack of) grow over the course of a tour. There has been some funny stories, which are not appropriate for me to share, as it is not my story, but I sometimes think that guys can sometimes be a little naïve in the ‘picking up the vibe’ department and it drives the women batty. I think my outlook is a little different as my ‘life is too short’ message applies to all things, if you like some-one just tell them, as you may not get a second chance for whatever reason. Live for the moment. Easier said than done I suppose. Boys can be so dumb on these matters sometimes!
No comments:
Post a Comment