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I left Ilha de Mocambique with a view to arriving in Pemba as early as possible. The beach there was supposed to be fantastic. I took a minibus taxi from Ilha de Mocambique to a small village about an hour away. I was informed that I would be able to get a bus from there to Pemba. I spent about two hours standing around before the coach to Pemba arrived. It was packed full of people so I had to stand. A guy who was standing next to me asked what language I was speaking while I was on the phone and when I told him that it was Sinhalese he insisted that I teach him some. So I told him that the greeting is Ayubowan. He repeated this and then told another 5 people to do the same. He wanted to learn more phrases and everytime I told him one he taught the other people standing around him, and they would then repeat it to. It was pretty surreal. The lesson came to an end when my coach got a puncture. The next two hours were spent waiting at the roadside while everyone commented on how to replace the tyre but nobody actually did anything. Despite the delay the bus continued to stop about every 15 minutes. This was not to enable everybody to disembark - it was to allow them to buy tomatoes. You'd have thought that tomatoes were not available in Pemba, but when I arrived there, I found an abundance of them. I spent the night at a backpackers there, which had been hyped up a lot. It was a disappointment. The owner was away and the staff clearly saw this as an excuse to do absolutely nothing. I spent what was left of the afternoon walking along the stunning beach. This experience was marred slightly by the fact that a pack of snarling dogs insisted on following me everywhere I went. I was convinced that they were going to bite me and that I would catch rabies. Fortunately this didn't happen but I was still happy when the sun set and I was able to go back to my tent. I asked the staff to book a taxi for me for the next morning as they had informed me that my bus would be leaving at 4.30 am. When I woke up I found that another lady was also waiting for a taxi to take her and her son to the Nampula bus. Needless to say neither of the taxis were on time. One turned up 20 minutes late and we all decided to take it. It didn't really look like the other one was going to show up. We dropped the other two off first and then the taxi driver took me to my bus, which was actually a lorry with benches in the back. Thankfully I was unable to see very much at that early hour so I got into the back of the lorry without giving safety much thought. There were already quite a few people in the lorry but there was still space for my backpack on the floor and for me on a bench - it was actually relatively comfortable. Unfortunately this did last long. The lorry started speeding through the streets of Pemba with a couple of guys hanging onto the back shouting for passengers. They were far too successful for my liking. More and more sacks of rice, tomatoes and mealie kept being loaded onto the lorry and with them came many more passengers. My feet were twisted under sacks of mealie, my bag was nowhere to be seen and there were so many people trying to get on the benches that it was a continual struggle to retain even half of the space that I had previously occupied. Things would only get worse. It soon became clear that the road I was travelling on was the worst that I had faced so far. It was also freezing cold as the only thing shielding the passengers from the elements. As daylight dawned I saw the reality. The welding on the frame of the lorry was appalling. In fact it was so bad that the whole frame looked like it was falling apart. The sacks of mealie were not only on the floor of the lorry they were also on the roof of the lorry as were additional passengers. This roof consisted of an assortment of planks of wood attached to the dodgy welding with bits of string. Everytime it hit an especially bad stretch of road the lorry would tip dangerously to one side and I would hold my breath wondering if I was going to make it round the next corner without the lorry tipping over. At one stage the lorry tipped so dangerously that the driver yelled at everybody to get out. This resulted in chaos with everybody scrambling over each other to get out. It was quite relieving to be out of the death trap for a few minutes though. In addition to the fear of tipping I also had to contest with the thorn bushes that scratched my back everytime the road got narrow. This undoubtedly topped the list of my journeys from hell. After 7 agonising hours I eventually made it to the fishing village from where my dhow would be leaving for Ibo Island. I waded into the sea up to my waists before scrambling into my dhow. It took about two hours for me to sail to Ibo Island. When I got there I found a small guesthouse on the beach. I set up my tent and then explored the island for about an hour. It had a ghostly atmosphere. There weren't any people in the colonial area, the inhabitants of the island all lived in reed huts on the other side of the island. I spent most of my time on the island eating large plates of very large prawns. I also watched the world cup final in the island's only bar. There was a Mozambican woman who was very drunk and who was convinced that I was French. She kept clenching her fists and telling me that France would win the world cup in French. I didn't even bother trying to convince her that I wasn't French. After a couple of days of lazing around I left the island and headed back to Pemba. The journey back was not quite as horrendous as the journey out had been. This was mainly due to the fact that the lorry I was travelling in was in much bettter condition than the one on the previous journey had been. I spent two days in Pemba enjoying custard pastries and relaxing before heading off to Nampula to catch the train to Cuamba. Cuamba is the nearest major town to the Malawian border. The train journey would have been pretty painless were it not for the fact that I sat by the window. Generally this is a positive thing. Unfortunately in this case my fellow passengers insisted on chucking empty cans, orange peel, and chicken bones out of the window from wherever they were sitting - they frequently missed! I eventually made it to Cuamba in the afternoon by which time it was too late to get a pick up to the Malawian border so I stayed in a small local guesthouse for the night. I would leave for Malawi the next day.

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