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May 18th
I was really happy with my decision to sleep in the truck, it meant tht when everyone else had to wake up and leave their room or break down their tent, I could continue sleeping! We got on the road at a decent time and a couple hours down the highway we stopped and had some breakfast. This time it was eggs, tea and toast, yuuum!
On the road we went after satisfying our stomachs, and we headed for the border. The drive was really nice with lots of hills and trees. We passed through village after village and waved at child after child. They just love seeing us
mzungus (white people/foreigners), the kids scream and wave both hands and even the adults take part now and then.
After a while we made it to the town of Mbeya to get some lunch and supplies for dinner. I wasn’t able to find a Tanzanian shotglass for my collection though! Damn! Oh well, that’s what Ebay is for, right?? 😉
Okay so anyways after leaving Mbeya it was another scenically amazing drive. We creeped up the mountains and found ourselves in the lush rainforests once again.
Banana trees and other crops were going everywhere, interspersed with villages and more waving children. It was a greeeeaaat drive, my second favorite of the trip so far. We could see for miles and miles and see mountain range after mountain range. Sooo much of
mother nature’s green earth was on display, it was mesmerizing. I couldn’t goto sleep even though my body so wanted to follow suit of a couple of the other passengers who had nodded off.
After slowly making it down out of the mountains we made it to a gas station stop on the border to meet a money exchange guy named Mr. Cool. (Currency exchanges were barred in the country of Malawi because of foreign owners taking the US Dollars/English Sterling/Euro out of the country via underwear and bras!). It was at this stop that we met another overland truck group heading into Malawi, but unfortunately their truck had broken down and were behind schedule a day. Their were some children watching us and Wendy ended up giving them some lollipops, (this is her signature move), I was able to give them some notebooks and colored pencils that II had brought for that very reason. They were really grateful and
it was a nice reward after they had let me take a photo of them.
Okay so shortly after this stop we crossed into Malawi and got our passports sorted out. Then we were on our way to Chitimba Beach Campsite. Straight away we were driving next to Lake Malawi which is a massive lake about the size of Malawi itself! The scenery didn’t change from TZ, it was still lush and green and beautiful. Upon arriving to the campsite we were in awe of the mountains right next to us. I felt like I was back in Venezuela a few times I had to pinch myself! We setup our tents and Cameron and Nicio got started on dinner, Wendy and I were on cleanup duty that night. I still had time to get a lot of blogging done, the internet at the campsite was the best yet and it was wireless as well so it meant that I spend about 4 hours uploading pictures to get caught up for you, dear reader. It meant that I would also pay a shitload in the cost of ther internet, as they charged about 15 Kwacha per minute, or $.10 a
minute, so my total bill was close to $30! Oh well, worth every penny!
The dinner the boys had cooked up was good and hit the spot. After a couple beers and more blogging I slept like a baby in the tent and awaited my first full day in my 27th visited country!!
Hope you like the story and photos!
Until next time, Hakuna Matata and Pura Vida!
-Brendan
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