Malawi

11th June

Crossing the Zambezi.  They say the real Africa starts '...North of the Zambezi'  Blah, blah...

So we left our bijou little residense and headed North.  It was a dull drive but at least less roadblocks.  Mozambique border was chaotic but not as bad as the day before and we drove off to the Malawi border post.  And we drove, and drove.  We started thinking maybe we'd missed it as often these border crossing can just be little huts or caravans like at Katima Mulito, entering Zambia from Namibia.  We pushed on and about 8km down the road we got to it.  It was fairly painless compared to the previous day.  All smiles and welcomes.  We didn't have to pay road tax as we had the Carnet de Passage which was nice and headed off to Blantyre the capital.  Along the way we worked out how much we had been ripped off by the very amiable Forex guy.  Around R200 on a R500 transaction.  A big smile can go along way... but we'd been lazy and not so much as asked what the rate was before arriving there.

Still, we arrived in Blantyre and stayed at a little backpackers place called Doogles or something.  It was an alright quiet little place.  Until about 6pm that is when half of Blantyre descended on it.  It was packed.  We played pool for hours and then were about to leave when two local guys, Ian and 'The Camel'.  We decided on a last round and a game of pool which became a few more - then it was 3am. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but it's about 3 hours later than we've been to bed in ages.  We don't have any photos of Blantyre as we had a bit much too much to drink.  Well Jo had, anyway.  I was fine, obviously.

12th June

Woke up with stinking hangovers and headed off to Lake Malawi.  I basically sulked most of the way until we found Toys R Us.  I heard about them in a magazine.  it's a group of young guys who make beautiful wooden Land Rovers.  I'd wanted to go there since I read the article months back and they really are fantastic.  We bought one as a gift for someone in South Africa and paid a small deposit to have an exact repilca of Rhubarb made.  We're picking it up in a couple of days.  A road grader might be on the cards too - it'll need a big box to ship it back to England as it's about 70cm long.  Annraoi if you ever read this - email me your address and I'll organise.  There are lots of people making them in clay, straw and wood but Toys R Us are by far the best that we've seen.  Photoness to follow.

We continued on to Cape Maclear, below.

Looking at something, probably very big, on the ground.

Jo's side of the car.  She just won't keep it clean.  My side is spotless, mostly because I throw all my rubbish at Jo.

We arrived at Cape Maclear down 15km of some of the worst corrugated roads I've ever driven on.  Nasty, nasty stuff.  When we got there it was well worth it.  We're staying at the Fat Monkey, camping about 2m from the water, it's lovely.  The lake around here looks like something out of the old computer game The Secret of Monkey Island which is appropriate as Monkey Bay is next door.  We cooked on a fire, slept under canvas and chatted to the other Campingists around us.  That's a technical term, which I may have just made up, for Campers who like to sit around with some beers and chat crap.  This differentiates them from the Overly Serious Brigade - like the woman who shouted at me after I closed Rhubarb's door at 12am.  The fact she was still up reading at the time and there was a massive party with music blaring across the road escaped her still all was forgiven and forgotten.  Well it was after she mentioned it again in the morning.  We've decided to be really noisy tonight. 

View from the campsite.  Pretty, innit?

Further Problems with Backpackers...

1.  No working locks on toilet doors ever - do they take toilet maintenance tips from the U.S. Navy or something?  Is it to prevent homosexuality?  It certainly ain't working if it is...  Just fix the F– locks already.

2.  Have I mentioned Bob Marley yet?  We've done 6500km so far and Bob is just fucking everywhere.  I asked the guy in the bar to which it off for the Lions rugby and the World T20.  He looked crestfallen.  He turned off for all of ten minutes and now it's back.  Ban Bob - it's fucking lame.

So we stayed up and had a few drinks with a couple (Campingists) Mark and Shary at the bar and watched South Africa beat the West Indies.  According to Mark it's unlikely S.A. will ever lose at anything again - well that is unless the referee/umpire intervenes unfairly that said, he does share my dislike of the ex-bok fly-half Naas Botha who is now a rugby pundit.  More about him later.  Had Bolognese for dinner made on the potjie which was awesome.  Mostly 'cause by sharing it with the night security guys they cleaned my fire up and scrubbed the pot clean - a real pain in the arse of a job.

14th June

The day dawned bright and sunny with 'nary a cloud to be seen.  It gets dull, honestly.  We really were up at dawn.  One of the problems with our spot right on the beach is that all the people walking along it from first thing are busy chatting, off to work or whatever and kept waking us up.  Then when rush hour finishes on the beach you can't get back to sleep because of the waves.  Anyone who ever described, 'the gentle lap of the waves' doesn't know what they're talking about.  Like jackhammers they are.  Well, if you've had a bit of the vino tinto the night before.  'Too much' probably belongs in that sentence at some pint - point.  All the other campers were up and about too - you literally climbed out of the tent and there would be your beaming neighbour saying Huuullo! I'm not at my best in the mornings so I just grunted mostly.  When we'd had plenty of coffee we asked some guy with a little boat to drive us up the coast a bit to another lodge where they had a couple of Hobie Cats.  This place was totally empty - bar the three staff stood around on the beach.  When I asked if we could hire a cat' I was told they were for residents only.  What residents?  It was the same at another place that had a couple, so throughout our stay five catamarans stood on the beach, rigged and ready to go.  Just waiting for a resident to arrive and pay $160 per person per night - which is what the man suggested I do if I wanted to use them.  Twat.

A piece of old rope.

We walked down the beach back towards the Fat Monkey and stopped for breakfast along the way before heading out all the way to the end of the bay.  We walked through the village at the end past endless drying racks for the fish catch and a couple of hundred people who rely on the lake for their living.  They were all super friendly.  It can become difficult being around the poor in Africa - there are often constant exhortations for money, and it's simply not possible to give it to all - so we never ever give anyone any money.  Along this bit of village no one asked us for anything bar a few kids demanding sweets or money, but even these were few and far between.  I find it really strange about the kids - who is teaching them to do this?  Lesotho was bar far the worst for it.  The adults are hard working proud people - they would dream of asking for anything other than work - a quid pro quo.  Without fail every single child you drive past holds up their hands in a cup and implores you to give them sweeeeets and moneeey.  It's sad and can only be perpetuated by people actually stopping and giving them what they're asking for.  I think it just creates a false expectation and fosters a reliance on handouts that's a very poor idea in the long run - much like the way that sub-Saharan Africa as a whole relies on aid.  Whether or not it's sweets, money or an apple - don't give anything away without something in return, no matter how hard it may seem.  Once in Lesotho we stopped and asked a kid for directions (P.O.S. GPS again) in return we gave him some sweets he was demanding (Paul Theroux, travel writer, describes it as, 'a weird sense of entitlement' and that about describes it best) A fair swap?  Not in his mind -  he was shouting at us as we drove off for not giving him more for his brother!  Anyway I digress.  There was none of this going on as we walked down the beach - we ended wandering through what I think was the village chief's garden and on to the next small village beyond where we found another lodge and stopped for a beer and some lunch.

Village People.

We met this Welsh guy called Kevin.  He was seriously funny although I was a bit concerned about his ability to recite satellite infomercials verbatim.  He has a rare ability to always be able to laugh at the trials of working with a poor and uneducated African work force - something that mostly just used to frustrate me.  Examples were - to be read in a broad Cardiff accent,

– So I takes over last year and the place was a bit of a state, right?  So I starts by rearranging how the  rooms should be made up each morning, o.k?  So I gets everything just right - you knows the towels folded nicely on the bed, blinds set, bathroom door at a forty five degree angle right?  And the two ladies watch it all and I spent a good hour checking they had it exactly right.  Perfect, I think that'll make a nice improvement on the rooms.  So the next morning I asks them - have you done the rooms right?  And they says to me, yes Kevin, bwana.  So great I think great and I go and check the rooms.  The first one, the one I showed 'em, is perfect so I think I'm on to a winner here, spot on, great.  Only when I go and check the others they're all the same as they used to be.  So I goes up to the ladies and ask them why they only did the first one, right?  They say, 'well you only showed us how to do the first one, bwana.' (He laughs at this point, maybe slightly hysterically in retrospect) So I only has to go and do all twenty five rooms just like the first one, took me hours it did.

How the man can still laugh I don't know.  Anyway, my favourite one was this;

– So I'm having some run off's made for the drainage right, in the new block we're building.  Basically, it's a hole dug, lined with some plastic sheeting and filled with rocks for the drainage, you know?  So I shows a six of the guys how to do one, just right and tells 'em I'm off to Blantyre for the day and tomorrow six more fellas will be along to help 'em fill 'em with rocks and that, so just get the holes dug today and finish them tomorrow.  Sorted I thinks and goes off with the missus for the night to Blantyre  to do the shopping 'n that for the lodge.  Anyways, I gets back the day after and see's if they've done all the run offs so I just grab a shovel and stick it in the first one to check they've got enough rocks in.  And the shovel goes down and down down.  So I starts digging up the first one and there's not a rock to be found.  Same with the next.  So I goes up to the man I left in charge and I asks him - so what's happened here then?  Where's the rocks?  And he says to me. 'Well bwana the next morning when the other guys came and they didn't think we should put rocks in there but we should fill them in.  And we weren't sure so we thought they must be right so we filled them in'.  So I says to them but you dug the bloody holes the day before!  Didn't you think it was strange you were filling 'em again?  You dug ten perfectly good 'oles on Monday and then filled 'em again on Tuesday?  Honestly it does have it's challenges working 'round here, I tells yer.

The man is a saint, honestly - I would have had them dig the holes again and then stuck them in there with the rocks on top of them. 

We left Kevin and got a boat back to our campsite where it all became a little strange.  This is the closest proximity we've ever camped to other people and there they all were when we got back - like the Spanish Inquisition.  'Well where have you been?  We saw you walking down to the village!'  'I was in Gecko lounge and I saw your cigarette butts - were you there?'  All very nice  and well meaning but we tend to be a bit more reserved than that - we are English after all.  Plus that and some of them really should get out more.  Anyway as I said all nice people.  Later on that evening Jo and I watched a load of the T20 cricket and saw England win.  Luckily, according to Mark, obviously - but he at least is very funny with it.  We had an early night.  Good job we did really as the husband of the woman who shouted at me the first night marched into the bar and told us to keep it quiet.  We were watching cricket at 8:30pm for fucks sake!  Really, people should get out more.

Perfectly good red and blue bloat.

 15th June

Day dawned, etc, etc.  We had decided to move on today as were a couple of others and we talked about various campsites further up the coast at a place called Senga Bay.  Shouty couple were going to follow us up the following day - not to the same campsite we hoped.  We left Cape Maclear and picked up our new Rhubarb replica along the way - along with a giant grader.  They are amazing.  I'm glad my brother has just had a daughter so I'm not tempted to give it away to a kid, as I might have been had he had a son.  Pictures below.  The craftsmen are really good.  Rhubarb wasn't quite finished so I watched the man who was making it finish it off.  Using knives, pangas (a machete, basically) and a few other bits and pieces they work really quickly and neatly.  Someone told me that they were taught by an old British missionary worker some years ago and this for me is the best type of aid - knowledge and skills, not pointless handouts.  These guys can support themselves and family by selling me something I actually want.  Pity it was a missionary, but anyway.  We drove on to Senga Bay.

Toys R Us.

Mini Me Rhubarb

Not so mini grader...

On Bicyclists.

As we've moved Northwards, bicycles have become more and more prevalent.  In South Africa the only time you really see them is when they're being ridden by the mostly white middle classes preparing for some race or something which are really very popular.  Amongst the poorer people they are virtually unheard of - we didn't see them even in rural areas.  From Swazi and Mozambique they have become more and more common.  In Zim there were plenty too but no where near as many as here.  Most people use bicycles and it makes sense - villages are ten to twenty km's apart and a bike can take one or two people across these distances fairly comfortably, quickly and of course economically.  We also seen them piled high with up to 100L of paraffin or diesel (really, no exaggeration) or 60Kg of maize.  I've also seen one carrying two other bicycles.  It's amazing and sensible and all the bikes look well cared for and maintained.  There is just one small problem.  Some of the Bicyclists aren't so good at riding straight.  Wobbles and spills (of the human variety) are frequent.  It's hilarious until they wobble out in front of you en masse whilst your doing 100km/h.  Maybe they need to tighten up on the drunk in charge of a bicycle checks or maybe it's the fumes from all of the fuels but they ride like they've had skinful.  That said I'm really not sure why it isn't more common in South Africa where there is far more of a reliance on motorised transport even in very remote areas - bikes make great sense giving people independence and freedom of mobility at cheap price.

So we get to Senga bay and all the campsites looked a bit lame so we pushed on to Kande Beach.  Described as, 'An overlander's paradise, lively bar, watersports' etc.  When we got there  in the dark at about 6pm there were about eight other people staying there - in place that looked like it could hold a couple of hundred.  Whilst this is normally great they might as well have been closed - they had nothing.  No ice.  No orange juice.  No tooth pick.  No cold drinks.  No manners.  The place is set up for the big over-landing trucks that allow gap year students to fill the pockets of the operators whilst allowing the customers to spend hours at a time on hot truck seeing Africa through a window  to the accompaniment of BobfuckingMarley each night.  Fortunately there were none of these but we're sure we'll be seeing them soon as the European universities break for summer.  Still we slept in a proper bed for the first time in a while and went to bed.  All a bit dull.

16th June

We woke up and had a bit of breakfast and mulled whether or not to stay and dive/sail or to push on.  I checked my 'mail and found my brother's wife Abi had given birth to a little girl, Eva Finch Amille Herlihy, probably on the morning before.  This was all just speculation on my behalf at the time as all I got was a forwarded email with the name and a tiny little thumbnail picture of the head of a new-born baby, no other info.  Still it turned out I was right and after a very long difficult labour my brother was a father.  What he was doing during this long labour I can only guess at  -  probably mincing about telling everyone how hard it was - whilst Abi did the tough stuff.

 Anyway we pushed on another 10k's to Chintheche which one of our guide books says is the best campsite in Malawi and it is - it has everything and no people here.  We set up the tent had lazed around for most of the day.  It is camping as it should be.  No people to start with and a nice thatched boma/bar area and a man who turns up every half hour or so to see if you want something to drink but otherwise stays away, good showers and stuff and a satellite decoder with all the sports and news channels.  It just lacks wifi but hey, did I mention there are no other people? 

Taking advantage of the DSTV we watched the final Lion's warm up game.  At half time the immortal (and deluded) Naas Botha that I mentioned earlier was pointing out how wonderful the Southern Kings team was at half time.  He started with the lineout.  The only problem was the footage they chose showed Kings losing the lineout.  You can't blame the VT Editor man who chose the clip - the Southern Kings didn't win a lineout in the first half.  Still, undeterred Naas went on to show how much better the Kings were than the Lions at tackling.  He showed a clip of a Lions player running forward, ball in hand and slowed the footage down.  I think it was O'Driscoll.  In slo-mo he hands the ball off, the ball spins out of his hand, slowly, slowly, it spins away it leaves the screen.  At this point, the ball long gone, O'Driscoll is battered to the floor by a Kings player.  Naas's comment? 'Well that is a little bit late but it shows how good the Southern Kings are at putting the tackles down.'  The Tri Nations Rugby tournament is contested by South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.  I suggest trialling for a year a secondary format of the game where the most biassed commentators from each of the three nations is chosen.  There could be awards for commentators and pundits alike.  The final would of course be decided by them commenating on their home nations against England.

Later we cooked and ate and went to bed.  Oh, and I watched a entire episode of The Apprentice, Alan Sugar version for the first time.  Are any of the contestants employable?  What a bunch of thick heads but then the manager of the second hand car supermarket was pretty thick himself.  What I found most strange was that no one listened to what anyone else was saying, Sugar included.  They just seemed to spit out comments, expressions and statements that they seem to think will make good T.V.  I pity the, undoubtedly talented, editors of the show.  They must have spent hours trying to make it sound as if there are coherent conversations going on and this is as close as they could get.  Imagine what ends up on the cutting room floor, you must need wellington boots.  I have one further bone to pick with Alan Sugar, himself.  He says, 'I am without doubt the most belligerent man you will ever meet.'  He should meet me in full song.

It's been great here although Jo might already be annoyed with the size of the grader and the space it takes up in the back of Rhubarb.  She threw it out the back last night - toys out of a pram?  Still you can't have everything.

 17th June                       

Got a lie in today as there were no nosy neighbours, no tat sellers just the jackhammers.  Ah it's tough.  Had breakfast V for Vendetta style and lazed around all morning and afternoon.  Wrote these last few days and finished Long Way Down by Charlie Boorman and Ewan Macgregor.  Example line, “Oh it's all so hard we only have two satellite 'phones left, our support crew is so big they argue, we don't always get our own way, it's all so hard.” Poor chaps, although I take no responsibility for the accuracy of that quotation.  But they should try doing it on their own.  That said they did remind me we will be crossing Ethiopia in the rainy season.  Not the 'small rains' but the big rains.  Still how big can Ethiopia be?

18th June

We had a lazy evening and cooked some food.  A couple of locals turned up to watch dull Confed Cup football.  We got up and decided to move on to Nkhata Bay which our GPS told us was about 150km away.  Still only a couple of hours down the road.  Only it was only 40km away - the GPS wanted us to drive 60km past Nkharta to the nearest town then turn around and drive back.  My mother can navigate better than this thing.  We drove around a bit and decided to stay at the very pretty Mayoka Village.  We were given a really pretty little chalet right on the water - it's kind of Swiss Family Robinsonesque.  The staff are super friendly and they have a pool table in great condition - I played lots and lots of pool.  We ate there and met quite a lot of people as it was packed with both locals and guests.

19th June

We went round town for a bit and I got some lamp spares and accessories - the lamp now sports a nice blue hat (reflector) but paraffin spills in Rhubarb are proving problematic.  I booked in for a dive course starting on Monday.  Night time was more of the same.  

Warning #1

The owner Gary came up to me and asked how I was.  I told him great but asked where he's been the last day or so.  He told me, basically a complete stranger that he had a serious drinking problem - he'd gone on a bender and had to check into a hotel in the town next door for a day or so.

20th June

First Lions Test day.  We met a guy called Marcus who was like a four year old kid with excitement.  This quickly turned to abject despair as the Lions started dreadfully - helped by a ref who obviously had it in for the Lions.  

Warning #2

Gary sat at the bar drinking beers with double whiskey chasers.  

We went home so I could have a nap.  The lodge has a weekly pool tournament which I wanted to take way too seriously.  The tournament was fun and good natured and I won - coming first of 16 was was very nice - the cash was nice too.  I stuck around to play a bit more to give some of the guys a chance to win some money back (they didn't) when Gary called me over,

The Main Event

– Dan, Dan I've been looking for you for hours, I want to tell you something.... You're a fucking arsehole, really you're a fucking fucking arsehole.

I thought he was joking but turn out he was serious, or as serious as a man who keeps falling over and is trying to make his T-shirt look like a boob tube can be.  Still I was having fun, winning money so I told him to go away and ignored him.  He came back and escalated his abuse but it got to the point where myself and most of the 80 or so people were shocked at the total bizarreness of the situation.  One Dutch guy in particular couldn't believe it - he just shook his head to himself muttering - totally, totally bizarre, as was the flirting with me half way through - until I realised he is obviously gay. 

21st June

We got up the next morning so Jo could dive and I could give a guy a lift to town to get some cash.  Gary was nowhere to be seen - nor was his wife who is the co-owner.  Yes, his wife - he married two years ago.  Anyway we passed a pretty quiet day, watched the most boring F1 race in ages and got an early night as I was starting my PADI course in the morning.  Jo went for a night dive and was wreally wreally scared.  No sign of Big Gay Gary.

The boy... and some local kid

22nd June         

I got up and dressed by 8am and went down to Aqua Africa to meet Johnny my instructor.  I was doing the course on my own as there was no one else signed up - it meant it was a bit more expensive but at least I didn't have any nasty Joe Public people.  I started by filling out a load of forms - skipping over the bit about holiday insurance and sat down to watch some DVD's from PADI.  They are a bit U.S centric.  Well, actually that's like saying Goebbels was generally in favour of the Nazi party.  They go and on with all the comedy value of Keith Chegwin.  You really need to be committed to want to dive or have some part of your brain missing to be able to watch them in anything less than a catatonic state.    Still having got through an hour or so of them it was into the lake in the afternoon.  The difference between the teaching here and Tofu was incredible - A relaxed and confident instructor means a relaxed and confident pupil and so it was.  Until that is, the swimming test at the end of the day.  I think it was about 600m but I've been told it was nearer 200m - I was shattered come the end of the day.  More tired than I've been on any day since the beginning of the trip and not sure why I was paying good money to feel knackered.

We went of dinner in a little Malawian restaurant owned by a Japanese which was pretty good.  The food is served on wooden Malawian plates and is presented in a very Japanese style.  It's a bit out of left field but I'm thinking of developing a franchise to launch in England.  I mean everyone likes Malawian/Japanese Fusion restaurants, right?  It'll be huge from Huddersfield to Hull I'd imagine.

Having avoided face planting my plate with exhaustion we went to bed.

23rd June

Day two of my PADI and a bit more pool stuff before more sleeping - I mean very good instructional DVD's - and then my first open water dive.  This was much more fun than mincing about a sandy bottom at 2m blowing bubbles and shit.  Saw some fish and then some more fish.  I went through a lot of air though - probably 2.5 times what Show-off Johnny used.  Show off  'cause every time he saw how much air I'd used he' show me his pressure gauge proving that he probable has prosthetic gills somewhere about his person.  Anyway managed to get through the rest of the day without having to anything overly strenuous.  

Jo and I went back to Mayoka village after the diving and bumped into Mark and Shary from earlier in the trip and pointed out BG Gary at the bar with the remains of a bottle of Bells.  How we laughed.  Well no not really - we stayed really quiet and hoped he didn't spot us.  Sadly he did a little later as Jo and I were waiting for our food.

Absolutely off his rocker again and pulling his boob tube number again he walked up to me again and said,

– Dan can I ask you something?

– No you can fuck off and go and sit in your chair and not bother me again like you did on Saturday.  

Now some people reading this (if there is anyone other then my parents,) might this might think that's a bit harsh.  But you'd be wrong - the man is disgusting and was far worse to me and his staff at the weekend.  Anyway obviously he didn't leave me alone and started accusing me of... it's really not worth repeating but we left went out elsewhere for dinner and decided to check out in the morning.  While we were out a dog bit me on the wrist but honestly it's preferable to be bitten by a dog than to spend any time near BG Gary.  

Fortunately Perfectly Bitey Dog bit down on my watch strap and face so it just bruised a bit - and hurt it's teeth some, hopefully.

24th June

Woke in some pain from two days of light physical exercise and checked out of Mayoka and went next door to Butterfly.  I made two more open water dives and watched thankfully the final DVD chapter.  These guys at PADI must have used the same production team as the Scientologist lot.  

1. Sign up for a dive trip 

2. Sign up for a local dive with the store or Diving Society Chapter 

3. Sign up for a speciality course

4. Invest in a regulator/BCD package, or exposure suit package

DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL YOU DO ONE OF THESE

Or another gem, 

– If you're not enjoying diving, it's your fault

They're nuts but they don't need to ram it down your throat trying to sell you stuff - it's actually great fun.  Johnny is very good too going way beyond the standard syllabus, for example - taking off all his diving kit at the bottom in order to urinate on the lake floor.  Essential stuff for any budding diver.  Anyway more dives and more fun.  A quiet night as again I was shattered.  Bed at 10:30 on a mattress made of chipboard.

25th June           

We checked out of Butterfly and into Njaya.  I went diving again in the morning - my final qualification dive to 16m (the equivalent of 18m here as we are at altitude which I passed albeit using enough air to fill a fleet of hot air balloons.  But after a short exam I'd passed my PADI Open Water Qualification.  Huzzah for me!  I actually think it's pretty hard to fail, possibly impossible but anyway - in fact I've just been told failure rate is less then zero.  Impossible but true.

Jo turned up to join me for another dive in the afternoon.  Comedy moments included her trying to put a wet suit on back to front for five minutes and seeing her swim around with a fogged up mask.  Oh and spinning in circles when she got lost.  She's meqant to be the experienced one too.  I see now about the failure rate figures...  Anyway the dive was a bit short at 38m as I went through all my air super quick again - no Lance Armstrong lungs for me it seems.

Having dinner here then no early start tomorrow but perhaps a night dive in the evening.

Malawi and Nkhata particulary have been great but to meet some deadlines to meet so have to start moving on but we're going to wait and leave on Sunday.  This is in part so we can watch the rugby on Saturday - well entirely for that reason Jo says.  We're probably going to watch it with excited (slightly less so after the defeat last week) Marcus.  Rumour has it he has an advent type calender for each game with a chocolate Springbok in each window...  

Yes I know, more bloody boats - boring boring.

We stayed at Aqua Africa for the evening and had a barbeque which was nice and relaxing.  Johnny reminded me of...

A FURTHER PROBLEM WITH BACKPACKERS 

People who turn up with a guitar over their shoulders and play along to the music in the bar.  Invariably they are 'learning' to play.  Fine learn to play but in the privacy of your own home - not where I can hear you twanging away out of time and tune.  Since they're normally learning it normally means they are constantly asking for the music to be changed to the one song they claim they can actually play.  Piss off and do it somewhere else.

And another thing,

Local musicians trying to sell you their badly produced CD's of a lone song written and song by themselves and six further bad Bobfuckingmarley cover versions.  Please please stop.  At this point I'd rather be burning my ears out with red hot pokers than listening to any reggae whatsoever.

On Alcoholism as a Disease

... it's not but I need to think to write this so maybe tomorrow...

26th June

Was thinking and reading about alcoholism as a disease and found that I couldn't make such an eloquent or fact based argument as one that I read here http://www.baldwinresearch.com/alcoholism.cfm Having seen first hand the selfish nature of people who simply chose to drink too much it gets boring.  These people are encouraged to continue their anti social behaviour because the stigma that should be attached to it has been removed by the AA et al.  When people drop out of their programs or get smashed and beat up their partners it's all ok because they have a 'disease'.  A quick apology to all they've wronged and a weekly meeting and hey presto - you're cured.  Well actually you can never be cured - never ever according to the AA - just treated.  Incidentally BG Gary tried to apologise to me today - I told him not to bother.  It's again a selfish act as it only serves to make him feel better.

• The movement to term it a 'disease' were begun by the AA - who had a vested interest in it being defined as such.

• The role the U.S. medical companies had in its promotion to a disease.

• It's the only 'disease' that can allegedly be cured by willpower alone

• That attending a 'disease' based treatment such as the AA lowers your chances of cure from 20-30% with no treatment to just 3%

• That attending a 'self choice' treatment increases your chances of cure (or perhaps behavioural change) from 20-30% to 86%

Basically alcohol has not been proved to be addicted although of course your body can become dependent and you can go into shock and die if you suddenly stop drinking without proper medical care - that is serious but by that point you'll die from alcohol related disease pretty quickly anyway so what have you got to lose?  As the article ends, "Alcoholism is a choice, not a disease."

With that bit of lecturing over I'm going to try and give up smoking tomorrow.

The day was pretty relaxed all told.  We moved to from a chalet (mostly because the bar at the end of beach started cranking out Bob at 8:30am) and set up camp.  Tried to buy some meat in town - no chance - and had a quiet night with Mark, Shary and Tim.  Rugby tomorrow, buying some dollars for the border crossing to Tanzania probably on Sunday.

27th June    

Got up and went and did some stuff which I forget, probably a bacon sandwich.  We watched the rugby and the Lions lost.  It was a greta game though and a pleasant change to watch it with an unblinkered South African bloke - even Marcus who worked for a couple of years as a rugby journalist in Cape Town found Mark a refreshing change from the norm.  Me, Mark and Tim popped down to Mayoka to see of the weekly pool compo was on which it wasn't - instead a local band was playing.  They were really rather good with no Bob covers which was awesome.  I chatted to Catherine - BG's wife for a bit before she went to bed and listened to some tunes.  Then BG turned up.  This time just before I left I got to see him grabbing the mic off the singer and performing his boob tube number in front of the 100 or so assembled people.  Loon.  I'm guessing he went further than that - probably something about "Free Malawian Gays" or summat but whatever.

28th June

We left town and tried to make it as far as Mbeya in Tanzania but failed.  A poor road and only leaving after 1pm meant we only made it 250km to Karonga near the border.  We stayed in the best place in town which is probably the only the best place in Karonga.  It may well turn out to be the worst place we're ever stayed in.

– Would you like the standard or superior room, the superior has a TV and satellite?

– Superior, please.

Ten minutes later having established the TV and satellite are broken we ask to be moved.

– Yes they are broken.

– Do you have another superior room?

– Yes but the TV is broken there too

– Do I get a discount?

– No, you have paid for a superior room.

Yeah but I didn't fucking get one did I?  We moved to an identical room and paid less.  Tried to have a shower and couldn't because the entire town was without water for some weeks.  We got a muddy bucket to wash in.  In a town next to a massive fresh water lake.  The mind boggles.  Asked for a vodka - coke.  Sorry, Sir we don't have any glasses.  Nor ice.  Nor coke.  Nor red wine.  Nor pretty much anything.  Anyway the night was salvaged when I got chatting to some vagrant looking types that I was playing pool with.  Local Malawian guys.  Probably the smartest bunch of people I've met on the trip.  All of us were a little the worse for wear but talked politics, religion and race for two hours - all the topics most likely to cause offense but it was super friendly but still passionate.  They should have the six of us fix the world's problems - apart from Africa which Johnny and I fixed a few days back.  Seriously though, the standard of education and aspiration to learn for the acquisition of  knowledge is so much higher in Malawi than in say S.A. (the local population is dismissed as stupid, lazy and greedy by the guys I was chatting to) it's brilliant.

After ranting about this to a comatose Joanne for a bit I fell asleep to wake up to having been bitten by about twenty mossies.  Only having checked the net I realised they were actually bed bugs.  We're both covered with fucking bed bug bites.  All complimentary with your $20 room.  Fucking toilet.  That didn't flush.

29th June

Tanzania