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Published: October 5th 2008
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After leaving Kipepeo beach we had a short drive to our next campsite at Boabab Valley, cleverly named after the famous Boabab trees that are found growing in that neck of the woods. The tree on the campsite was huge and it would have taken a small army of dwarfs, sorry I mean vertically challenged people, to form a circle that linked all the way around it! This however, did not stop Ian and I trying!
This campsite was in the middle of nowhere once again and was run by a couple of local guys. It was situated right next to the river and we spent most of the late afternoon and evening sitting on the wooden deck next to this having a one or two alcoholic beverages! Ian and Simon (the Aussie) decided it would be a good idea to do a spot of fishing needless to say the river was supposed to be full of large crocodiles! The fishing was unsuccessful much to our dissappointment (we were hoping by some stroke of luck that the boys would catch enough fish to give us all a good feeding) and we didn't see any croc's. But a good night was still
had by all and we survived to see the next day on the small rations of food we received that night!
From Boabab Valley we went on to Iringa where we stayed at Kisolinza Farm House. This was the best campsite we had stayed at so far for the simple reason that it had steaming hot showers! In fact they were so hot that we had to turn the cold tap on too to cool the water down a bit! We had a traditional meal at this campsite - meatballs and veg with some sort of stodge that I didn't take too kindly to but Ian seemed to enjoy it (but then again is ther anything that Ian doesn't eat!). Didn't take too kindly to the toilets here though...serious long drops...the kind that when your poo pops out you hear a 'woooooooo' then a 'ba-doink' about ten seconds later (so Ian told me anyway!). I was convinced that something would be living down the hole and so I didn't like going to the toilet in case something came up and bit my bum whilst I was mid-wee (or crawl up it mid poo)!!!
From here we went on
to Chitimba Camp (after crossing over the Malawian border), with a short stop on the way because the truck broke down again! Whilst the truck was being fixed by our favourite aussie and Rich (the Namibian truck driving legend) Ian and the lads went across to a footy pitch they'd spotted for an early morning kick around. It wasn't quite Villa Park or Wembley but within about 10 minutes there were about 30 kids playing footy and smiling like it was christmas. I watched from the truck, cacooned in my sleeping bag because it was so cold, wondering why Ian had such abnormal body temperatures and was able to stroll around in his shorts and t-shirt without even a hair on his chest popping up! When we arrived in to the camp the truck got stuck in the sand and whilst Ian watched Rich trying to get it out, I put the tent up all by myself which just proved that I was the power behind the Fell Morgan tent putting up machine! In the evening Ian sampled his first Carlsberg Elephant which was 7.4%, and sensibly declined a second bottle after realising just how strong the stuff was...if only
Simon and Bex had done the same...bad times!
From here it was on to Kande beach (which again was next to Lake Malawi) where we had heard a party was to be taking place...but not any old party....
En route to Kande beach we had decided that at the party everyone would get dressed up. We put everyones names in a hat and each pulled one out - the lucky person whose name you pulled out was the person who you had to buy an outfit for and it was decided that the theme of the outfits were pink and wait for it...leopard print!
Where in Africa would there be enough leopard print for 25 people we all thought to ourselves, but oh yes, there was plenty at the local market! The guys at the market found it highly amusing that a coach load of sunburnt tourists would be buying leopard print leotards, skirts, dresses and MC Hammer pants (that's right! There were some MC Hammer pants, which Michael modelled oh so well) . As you can probably tell by the photos, we all looked horrendous, we all got drunk and all had a great time looking horrendious and
being drunk! Fabourite costumes from the evening were Adam's all in one lingerie/babygrow kind of thing and Michael's MC Hammer pants complete with braces. We had a fake alter built on the beach along with aisle and australian farmer in a pink dress as the vicar before hitting the bar to finish off the night. Ian wanted to keep his leopard print dress for a romantic evening later on the trip but instead left it on the bus for the crew!
The next day we just recovered and spent the day on the beach being hounded for business from the locals flogging landry service and fish. They had the best names ranging from Roger Dodger, Winston Churchill, Flash Gordon, Mr Giraffe (supposedly because he was the tallest man in the village) and Fred. Maybank traded his leopard print for some wooden bowls but the rest of us were happy to chill on the beach and recover with some volleyball and me and Morgs canoed around the island about 700metres away.
We had one more stop in Malawi at the Wheelhouse Camp in Senga Bay, where they had a random pet crocodile (that Chris decided to poke with a
stick til it snapped. Ian packed his pants.) and a bar that was sloped and gradually sinking into the lake! After that it was pretty much straight dricing towards Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Ian was hoping to meet up with Joseph (Legend) from Clinovia but unfortunately wasn't able to due to the Gestapo and not having enough time there. It was just like the other cities we'd briefly visited, bustling, hot but more friendly than others, but we were soon on our way again.
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